February 4th, 2009 | 
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One of the first – though very minor – mistakes people make when moving to the Canary Islands (yeah, including us) is to go and buy a whole bundle of two to three pin adapters for their UK appliances…
Now anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m no DIY expert, but even I was able to wire a plug in the UK. It struck me pretty quickly that as its an extremely similar electrical supply that you could put two pin plugs on the appliances – which are a fraction of the cost of the adapters.
I did feel the need to check, however, that the live and neutral wires did not have to go to a specific side of the plug itself. I couldn´t see that they did – but hey it’s electricity here, and not to be fooled with.
Ok… so if I can do it, so can you…
1. Unscrew the plug cover and remove it
2. Slide the cover over the wire in preparation for later
3. Attach the live and the neutral (brown and blue wires) to the two pins
4. Attach the earth wire to the remaining connection (green and yellow)
5. Slide the cover back over the main body of the plug and screw firmly closed
There you go – all done!
If you are changing an appliance that has only live and neutral wires with no earth wire, then obviously skip step 4. However you must check that the appliance is double insulated. If it is the appliance will be marked somewhere with a symbol that looks like a square within a square. Click here for more information on double insulation.
One final piece of advice on electrics… when using expensive equipment such as computers it’s highly recommended that you use a surge protector. Power surges in the Canaries are common and can be potentially harmful to your equipment.
Good luck!
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