On Mar 7, 5:20 pm, RedDwarf wrote:
Hi folks,
In our office - we have an electrical outlet (large 3 prong
electricians just installed). It is supposed to be 208 Volts...

we were having some problems with our equipment, so I ran a multimeter
on it - and when I hook up the hot and neutral to the meter (analog
type), I get the correct reading of 210volts +/-.

when I connect to the hot and the GROUND I get 120 volts... is that
correct, or does the electrician need to come back out? I thought hot
and ground should also produce the 210 volt reading...

Thanks in advance!

- Jay

As others have assured you, this is normal, just as the same outlet in
your home would show 240 and 120, respectively.

It's because North American commercial properties are generally fed
with scheme called "three-phase wye" (or "Y"), about which Wikipedia
or a bit of Googling can tell you lots.

The two hots were 208V apart, and each was also 208V from ground,
well, that just wouldn't add up. (Though if the hots were transformer-
isolated from ground, then...well, no, not even then.)

Is there some *reason* you needed to test the outlet after
installation? Did your new computers just not work?

Chip C
Toronto