this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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Regarding Type F:
If you have a monopolar switch in your appliance, you dun fucked up real bad.
Reason is here in Belgium (and a bit of France apparently) and especially around Brussels, it's very common for houses to be wired with two phases (+115/-115V). This was done post-war for copper-saving reasons, and we call this 3x230V. So any device that cuts the brown wire only will still have 115VAC to ground, which is obviously unsafe.
Also more generally there is no guarantee that the live wire is on either side. From what I understand each electrician has their preference, and as long as the wiring is consistent then it's up to code.
So wherever there is an outlet, nothing can be safely assumed by the appliance besides that the total voltage is around 230V AC. Even assuming that there is a ground is incorrect due to old houses still having Type C (which incidentally means that even Type E also is not polarized when plugged into a Type C receptacle!).