David Lesher writes:

writes:

| I envy EU houses. If we had regular 240V/30A+ outlets, I'd be able to
| buy a snowblower with real guts. The 120v@15A ones are wimpy.

So put one in.

The issue is not the outlets available in my house [but I sometimes wish
for 3 phase..].

Rather, it's the ready market of consumer appliances that would take
advantage of them. That would require many houses to have them.

Yes the inability to go to the nearest WallyWorld and buy a 240V 4kW
cooker/microwave/whatever is a big problem. European appliance could be
got, but I'd worry about anything with a motor (50 Hz), clock (do their
electronic clocks operate off the line frequency like some in the US?),
microwaves (don't they use frequency-dependent constant voltage
transformers?).