"klem kedidelhopper" wrote in message
...

You know William it seems that we like to buy the same appliances.
I also had a Black and Decker toaster oven some years ago and I too
remember that both sides of the line were switched off when you opened
the door. (I burnished and bent those contacts many times until they
just eventually "evaporated" and we had to throw the damn toaster
out). But after thinking about it, what puzzles me now is why did they
bother to switch both a 120V hot as well as a neutral? I still think
that it's prudent to disconnect power before working on something,
(whenever you can that is), but it seems to make no sense to
disconnect a neutral on a 120V circuit considering they can't be
bothered to disconnect both sides of the line on a 240V appliance.

I can think of a number of reasons, the principal one being that it's easy
to stick a fork in a toaster, much harder to stick one in an oven. Of
course, this particular toaster used sealed elements, so it's unlikely
anything within the cavity would ever be electrically hot.

The other reason for switching the neutral is that there's no guarantee the
neutral is neutral -- some houses are miswired.

I had a great conversation the other day with a woman at GE's CEO
headquarters, who apparently does nothing but talk to Really Unhappy
customers. I admitted my carelessness, but she didn't put me down, and
listened seriously. She said she would report this to The Council. ("The
Kryptonian Council of Elders?" That got a big laugh out of her.) Apparently,
GE has a group that pays attention to engineering issues.

You might have heard that GE is bringing major-appliance manufacturing back
to Appliance Park. This is apparently due to rising wages in other
countries, and GE's figuring out how to build appliances more efficiently. A
guy at GE told me that the goal is return the manufacture of /all/ major
appliances.