I am amazed that anyone thinks this is some kind of over-protective nannying, or expensive over-engineering.
When you have a 2000 watt device operating on 220 v ac mains you can't afford to bodge safety critical components.
Irons are not double insulated (they have a huge chunk of metal on the base) and thus you need to be really careful with earthing and mains cords. This is especially true in a device that needs water to operate.
Since 1.5 metres of good quality mains flex costs hardly anything, and they have have the iron open anyway, there's little reason not to replace the flex. You replace the mains plug at the same time, thus avoiding another common source of risk.
You mention the potential for safety standards to be over-protective and over engineered. I gently agree, some of them do seem a bit much. But then I remember when TV adverts warned people about mains-socket safety - about shoving the wires into the socket by using matches. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYwmrBXHFO4)
All electrical appliances need to come with a pre-fitted plug in the UK. Perhaps the wiring coming from mass producing Chinese factories is scary, but so is the wiring I've seen many friends do (skimpy short earth leads and big loops of live leads) with over-tightened or loose screws - I've seen many nasty errors.
It can go a bit too much the other way. A lab full of PhD physicists and engineers designing and building an advanced radar sat and we can't get an extension cord. Instead we get the extension block and a separate plug and wire.
We then need an maintenance 'engineer' who has been on the half day PAT course to come and fit the cable for us.
When you have a 2000 watt device operating on 220 v ac mains you can't afford to bodge safety critical components.
Irons are not double insulated (they have a huge chunk of metal on the base) and thus you need to be really careful with earthing and mains cords. This is especially true in a device that needs water to operate.
Since 1.5 metres of good quality mains flex costs hardly anything, and they have have the iron open anyway, there's little reason not to replace the flex. You replace the mains plug at the same time, thus avoiding another common source of risk.
You mention the potential for safety standards to be over-protective and over engineered. I gently agree, some of them do seem a bit much. But then I remember when TV adverts warned people about mains-socket safety - about shoving the wires into the socket by using matches. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYwmrBXHFO4)
All electrical appliances need to come with a pre-fitted plug in the UK. Perhaps the wiring coming from mass producing Chinese factories is scary, but so is the wiring I've seen many friends do (skimpy short earth leads and big loops of live leads) with over-tightened or loose screws - I've seen many nasty errors.