🚀 go-pugleaf

someone or another (I don't have original posting) wrote that he was
moving from the UK (220V)  to canada (11oV) and asked about running his
equipment.

It's -somewhat-doable if you are VERY careful, and check things out
extremely minutely.

In the United States and Canada, most residential electrical supplies are
designed with two separate 110V feeds.  the vast majority of appliances in
the house are plugged into standard outlets, which use a single leg of the
110 line, and go to ground for the other.  hence actual voltage will be 110V.

For various electrical purposes, the house should be wired so that the
loac on each leg will be approximately equal, but that's not too critical
an issue here.

Heavy duty appliances, such as electrical dryers, stoves, ovens, or
(large) air conditioners will run on 220V.  They get this by feeding both
legs of the electrical supply (which are 110V in opposite phase) to the
outlet.  so as leg #1 "pushes" 110v, leg #2 "pulls" and you get an
effective 220V supply.

Reason for this use is that net wattage ("power") is based on
voltage*amperage.  so if you double the voltage, you can get twice the
power through (roughly) the same wiring.

ANyway, what this means is that yes, in most cases, you can get a 220V
supply in your residence in the US/Canada.  But you have to be VERY
careful that you tap the right wires, etc.

ALso, the outlets used for 220V are DIFFERENT than the ones for 110V (for
obious safety reasons)...

If having 220V is important to you, then the simplest (from building code
and electrical code purposes) way is to simply tell them to install a
22V circuit for an airconditioner/heater, etc.  You can then use standard
extension cords and outlet taps, although you will have to replace the
110V sockets with the 220 ones.

(many years ago, long enough for the statue of limitations to protect me,
I had a shortage of outlets in my dorm room.  However, there was this nice
220 volt circuit just sitting there, designed for a heavy duty air
conditioner.  So I replaced the 220v physical outlet with a 110 volt one,
and plugged in various appliances I had that were dual voltage, like my
electric shaver, radio charger, and radio power supply.  NOT receommended
for children and other healthy living things <g>)

danny (zap/slash/singe) burstein

dannyb@panix.com