Socket screw caps question?

[Wayners]

More and more I see sockets without the cover caps over holding screws. I think they look terrible without because of the design of hole. Just looks like they are missing.
Why use that type if your not going to fit caps?
Opinions

 

[Fred Blogs]

I always fit the caps but they are a piece of crap and fall out only to get hoovered up.

 

[Sureitsoff?]

Mine are the opposite, the only way to get them out again is to destroy them and then fit new ones. Luckily scolmore supply spare covers for free if you ask them.

 

[Wayners]

Mine are the opposite, the only way to get them out again is to destroy them and then fit new ones. Luckily scolmore supply spare covers for free if you ask them.

Duck tape will remove caps with no damage easy. Sellotape may also work although never tried

 

[ericmark]

I have the same problem as @Sureitsoff? so often don't fit them.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Why use that type if your not going to fit caps?
Opinions

The caps for socket screws are a relatively new thing to appear, for decades there were no such things. They are not limited to sockets, all electrical accessories tend to include the caps now, light switches, sockets, FCU's. Ugly without? No not especially, I tend to line up the screw slots anyway.

 

[Jackrae]

Sockets used to be designed such that the screws (nickel-plated brass rather than the cr4p steel ones of today) such that the screw dome head sat flush with the socket surface and acted on a bushed hole rather than the faceplate plastic. Whilst preference is subjective, regrettably price now tends to over-ride quality.

 

[sparkwright]

More and more I see sockets without the cover caps over holding screws. I think they look terrible without because of the design of hole. Just looks like they are missing.
Why use that type if your not going to fit caps?
Opinions

The reasons I do not use the screw caps are thus:-
1) Sometimes a plasterer has decided that to fill the chases round my boxes are not in his price, and cannot possibly offer the customer to fill them in. So I can't fit the caps successfully.

2) The painter hasn't mistcoated or painted yet, and he wants to pint behind the accessories.
So I can't fit the caps because I know he will struggle to loosen off the accessories.

3) The tiler has not yet tiled the kitchen.
So I can't fit the caps because I know he will wreck the accessories trying to the get the caps off.

4) I may need to inspect the wiring behind some of the accessories, I don't want to pi55 about with screw caps.

5) Some of the older accessories in the property do not and never have had screw caps, so fitting screw caps on the new stuff just makes it more obvious that things don't quite match.

6) If I fit screw caps everywhere, someone may loosen an accessory, and lose the screw caps - leaving my installation looking inconsistent, because some accessories will have screw caps, and some won't.

7) Sometimes they don't fit very well, and fall out, leaving an accessory with one screw cap only.

8) If they fall out, it's something a minor could swallow or stick up their nose.

 

[EFLImpudence]

8) If they fall out, it's something a minor could swallow or stick up their nose.

Or an adult.

 

[Wayners]

Just look bad. Can get dirty like this one



Guess no answer to it. Or maybe they should be sold with or without caps where screw head is near surface?

 

[sparkwright]

Currently, the Crabtree sockets seem to have deep recesses for the screws. Yet they are not designed to accommodate screw caps.

(Crabtree often make very minor changes to their current range which hasn't changed very much for 35 plus years.)

Personally, I think sockets with screw caps generally seem to be cheap rubbish. I'm disappointed with Schneider and Hager accessories, and won't use them. The lesser brands with screw caps seem awful to me as well.

And the fitting of screw caps looks cheap and nasty to me as well - in my opinion.

 

[markyd1]

Straight in the bin with them