Tie the two cords together

Two extension cords, plugged into each other, running out to wherever the job is. Something snags. The joint parts, quietly, somewhere behind a sofa or under a hedge, and the first you know is that the thing at the far end has stopped.

There is a fix for this that costs nothing and takes no tools, and it is not the kind of thing anybody gets shown.

Before you plug two extension cords together, tie them in a loose knot a few inches back from the ends, so that any pull lands on the knot instead of on the connection.

That is the whole trick. Loop the two cords over each other into a single overhand knot, leave enough slack that the plug and socket meet without strain, and then connect them. Pull the cord now and the knot tightens against itself; the plug stays seated.

Why it is worth doing even when nothing is heavy

The obvious benefit is that you stop walking back to the shed. The better one is quieter.

A plug and a socket hold each other by friction between small pieces of metal. Every time a joint gets yanked partway out and shoved back in, those surfaces wear. A connection that is nearly out but still live is worse than one that is fully out: the contact area is small, and a small contact area carrying the same current runs hot. A connection loose enough to shift can also arc.

So the knot is not just about convenience. It keeps a joint fully seated or fully unplugged, and the state in between is the one nobody wants happening under a rug.

Snug the knot rather than hauling it tight. You are making a strain relief, not lashing a boat. A knot crushed down hard on a cord is squeezing the conductors inside it, which is the opposite of the point.

When the plug falls out

This is a different problem with a different answer, and the answer that gets passed around is the wrong one.

The advice you will meet is to bend the prongs a little so they grip the socket harder. It comes with a note that it is temporary, and that note is the honest part. The rest is not the fix.

Published electrical safety guidance says two things instead. If a plug feels loose in a socket, replace the socket — the grip has gone because the metal contacts inside have worn, and no amount of adjusting the plug puts that back. And if a prong is already bent or splayed, straighten it. Both prongs are meant to meet their contacts at the same instant, and a bent one lands unevenly. Straighten, never bend to fit.

There is also a plug you should simply stop using: one with a crack, a crease, or a sharpened edge on a blade. That goes into no socket, because it damages the next socket it meets.

None of this needs an electrician to diagnose. Falling out, warm to the touch, a faint plastic smell, or any browning around the slots — those are all the same message, and it is worth acting on rather than adapting to.

The short list

The published rules for extension cords are brief enough to keep, and worth having in full rather than in pieces.

Do not run them under rugs or carpets, or through doorways and windows. Do not nail or staple them to walls or baseboards. Do not chain multi-outlet adapters into one another — those belong straight in a wall socket. Do not overload one, and do not run one through standing water or snow.

And the one worth sitting with: an extension cord is for temporary use. It is not a substitute for permanent wiring. A cord that has been running the same appliance in the same place for three years has stopped being an extension cord and become a decision.

Which names the reader this page cannot help. If what you actually need is a socket where there is not one, tying cords together is not the answer at any length, and the knot will make a bad arrangement more permanent rather than safer. That is an electrician and a new outlet, and it is a smaller job than living with the alternative.