Extensions & leads
Many portable electric items like lamps and radios are supplied with a relatively short length of cable. Ensuring your home has sufficient socket-outlets at convenient points will minimize the need for extension leads and adapters, but occasionally their use will be unavoidable.
The use of extension leads can present the following dangers:
tripping or falling
cable damage due to wear, particularly where leads are walked over, flexed at a single point or stored badly. When leads are fitted to power tools, they can become tangled and one of the conductors may eventually fail, which could cause danger
a greater capacity for overloading circuits, which increases the risk of fire
An extension lead should not be used whenever it is possible to reach a wall socket with the equipment cable. However, the equipment cable should never be stretched taut as this may cause a tripping hazard.
When the use of an extension cable is unavoidable:
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