On Feb 10, 1:00 am, (Larry) wrote:
In article . com,

cc wrote:
Is it possible, and safe, to run a 110 outlet off a 220 outlet? The
electrician said it was, but out of code, so he would not. BUT I know
one of the mag's had an article last year which showed how.

I am not an electrician, so please be as clear as possible..thanks..

Ignoring code, if it is a 4 wire 220V outlet with 2 hots, a neutral
and a ground, an adapter that connected to one of the hots, the neutral
and the ground would be safe. OTOH, if it is a 3 wire 220V outlet, with
2 hots and a ground only, then there is no neutral to connect to. It
would be possible to get 120 by connecting to one hot and the ground
in this case, and in fact for small loads like lights or controls on
220v appliances, this used to be common practice. Personally, I might use
such an arrangement for a temporary, one-time job, perhaps connecting
a light or small powertool if there was no other outlet within
convenient distance, but not for a permanent outlet.

In one of my previous homes built in 1980, a three wire 50A range
outlet was still code. It was also common for ranges widely available
at the time to include a 120V convenience outlet (usually controlled
by the broken clock). I'm assuming that such configurations are
grandfathered into the more recent code, suggesting that safety is not
a major issue (otherwise, rewiring would have been mandated along with
subsidies for those unable to pay for such a change). I see that
newer ranges provide a jumper between neutral and ground to
accommodate three wire installations. What is the real downside to
such a configuration? Why was the code tightened up?