Quoted from Richard_BoK:I have had the same problem (Netherlands, also in Europe) because out here a lot of older houses have just the hot and neutral on the socket outlet.
Yeah, houses from the 1950s are like that in the USA also.
But even though one hole is slightly smaller on the socket, you can still mess up and have the hot accidentally on the larger blade.
I've also had customers get shocks touching two games from different outlets, when someone "grounds" one of the circuits to a nearby water pipe, rather than returning ground to the fusebox or circuit panel's neutral bus .
This is often in a commercial setting where 100s of modifications and remodels have been done in an older building.
I also had a recording studio service call where the owners came up with a crazy grounding scheme that was going to kill someone sooner or later. In the name of "good sound" they though that they needed to run and bunch of separate grounds rather that return to the Neutral Bus. At some locations in the lounge there was 65v between the Neutral and ground plugs.
My best friend is one of those $5 circuit tester plugs that tells if the ground is functioning, or the Hot and Neutral are reversed. I check on every install, first thing. You can also check with your meter, but the plug is faster.
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