A few things need clearing up in this thread. The same IEC colour code is used in UK and the rest of Europe. The principle colours used are Blue for Neutral, Brown for Live and Green/Yellow stripes for Earth. Neutral is the current return to the power suppliers network. It is usually connected to the Earth at the final distribution transformer. Until 2003 Live was 220 V and the UK was 240V The supply is 50 Hz AC (alternating current), so the terms positive and negative are not relevant. These voltages have now been harmonised and are:- 230V -10% +6% (i.e. 207.0 V-243.8 V) in most of Europe and 230V -6% +10% (i.e. 216.2 V – 253.0 V) in the UK. These same colours are used in house wiring (i.e. the fixed wires between the fuse box and the sockets and light switches) and appliance wiring (the flexible cable between an appliance and a plug). If UK sockets are connected to the house wiring then L should be connected to the the brown cable, N should be connected to the blue cable and E should be connected to the earth cable. If this is done then it will behave as a normal UK socket, and the fuse in the UK plug and the switch in the socket will both work on the live supply - just as they do in the UK. Not having a ring main will have no noticable effect. The ring main is used to provide an alternative current path between the socket and the fuse box, which reduces the loading in the supply cables as the supply to the socket is shared between the two paths. Other than meeting, or not meeting, Portuguese wiring regulations I see no problem in connecting a UK socket into a Portuguese house wiring system. (I confess that I have not read the local wiring regulations.) The physically design of the UK plugs and sockets exceeds that of the Shuko plugs and sockets used in most European countries. As in the UK, all fixed wiring is supposed to be done by a qualified electrician. However, in my experience, these tradesmen cut corners. In both our house, and my in-laws house, Earth cables were not fitted, even to the bathrooms. The number of circuit breakers used was minimal, just one for lighting and another for power. This is despite all circuits coming back to the main fuse box. Both houses were built in the 1970´s or 80´s.
Hope this makes sense to you. If it does not, then you should definately not attempt this task yourself. Sorry to be blunt. Alan
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