Wellington Journal

US v NZ: Outlets

Ah, travel. A special time when you can meet new people, sample their food, see how they live, learn about their culture, and look for those special little rarely noticed customs that let you think to yourself, "Well, that's a stupid way of doing things."
We're going to be in New Zealand for about six months, and during that time I've decided it would be a service to you, dear reader, and the international community at large, if we were to compare and contrast various aspects of the Kiwi life with those of the good ole US of A in our newest blog feature:

In each of our featured posts, we'll cover a specific aspect of Kiwi culture or life and compare it with the same aspect back in the states. Then we'll decide whose is better. Because if someone doesn't win, what's the point?

For our first US vs NZ post, let's talk electrical outlets. (I can already feel your excitement.) Seeing as how I spent a good part of our first days here trying to figure out how to get our various computers, iPods and whatnot plugged in, it was one of the first things I noticed. The shot I took this morning is of a standard outlet in our house; and as far as I can tell, it's the norm. Single outlets are all like this; double outlets are the same, but with two sets of switches/holes stacked atop each other.
As you can see, the top two holes slant together, meaning that you can't turn an ungrounded plug upside down, as you can in the states. This could be annoying, but it's far superior to those US plugs with one side bigger than the other.
The real difference, of course, is the switch. As far as I've seen, every outlet has its own switch. When the switch is on (as shown), the outlet is hot; when it's off, the outlet is dead. Pretty straightforward. As you can imagine, this generally means that people leave the switch on all the time, and there certainly have been times when we've been worried that the appliance is dead, only to discover that the outlet was off. So there are probably those kiwis who just think it's an inconvenience. But I can't imagine that this doesn't in some small way both reduce electrical accidents and save energy. It may seem silly, but pressing that switch is a lot easer than unplugging your laptop or figuring out how to turn the TV OFF instead of going into STANDBY mode. Converter bricks and standby modes consume a lot of wasted energy, and a concerted effort to switch off the outlet would likely mean a big step towards a greener America... if we had a switch in every outlet like the Kiwis do, which we don't and never will... so never mind.

WINNER: Score one for the Kiwis and their energy-saving outlets, whether or not they're actually used as they should be.

Labels: US vs NZ

posted by Dug @ 10:10 PM