On Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 11:49:03 AM UTC-5, Mr Macaw wrote:


Permanent press? What is that? Like a big trouser press thing?


They must have that in the UK too. It's where the fabric is made so
that it holds it shape and doesn't need to be pressed after washing.
Some is less than perfect though. So, it might require some pressing
depending on how fussy you are. Things that really need to be pressed,
eg dress shirts, I just take to the cleaners.




What amperage are your outlet circuits? We tend to have 240V 30A for the
whole house on one loop. So you can run two or three big things without
overloading, never have to think about it.

Most houses are wired with 120 volt and 15 amp circuits. One good thing
about it is that if a breaker does trip it only effects the outlets of one
room. There are usually seperate 120 volt circuits for the refrigerator,
washing machine and a few other high current items that are not often moved
around.

So you can't use two 15 amp appliances in one room? That would be very annoying.


You can if some of the receptacles are on different circuits, which they
may be. Very common to have them split up that way. But I can't recall
when I've ever had two 15A appliances in one room, except the kitchen.
Kitchens in current code have to have at least two 20A circuits.



I saw once a picture of double outlet for the USA, where the top one was 0v and 120v and the bottom one was 0v and -120v. So you could get 30 amps total there. I guess you could then even have a 240v outlet in the middle.


I never saw one of those.



Just looking and my bill shows 2,039 KWH for this past month. That is
for
all electric and I have a well for water. Been using the portable heater
for
an unheated room in the basement some this winter. The summer bill is
not
usuall too much less due to AC. Lots less in months we do not heat or
cool.
The heat is by a heat pump.

The code is for safety. Most items come with about 6 feet of cord, so
outlets are usually every 6 feet of wall space by the code. Several
circuits for the kitchen area.

So to stop you having wires to trip over? That's going way too far with
safety, I thought the UK was bad. The only rules we have for outlets is
when installed near water, like in the bathroom. For some reason the
rules are tighter than the kitchen, which has just as much water!

But then most of us do our own electrical work and just ignore all that
**** anyway. My house, I'll have an outlet in the bathroom if I want. If
I didn't, I'd only run an extension cord in there anyway.

My house has 2 outlets in the bathroom connected to a GFCI breaker in the
breaker box.

The house was built around 1980 and I think the code at that time required
the GFCI for bathroom and outside recepticals.

My house has fuses. I detest breakers as they trip unnecessarily.


Decades of experience with breakers here, in multiple properties,
businesses, etc. No problem with them tripping unnecessarily. Once
in a blue moon one can go bad for sure, but I can't ever recall that
happening to me.




There is a large book for the National Electric Code. It is not mandantory
for the different states, but most areas go by it or something very close to
it. From what I understand there are lots of differentrules for wiring in
the country. Some areas you have to have a licensed electrician to do any
wiring.

If it's in your own house, who is going to know? It's nobody's business but yours anyway!


Until you go to sell it, the buyer has it inspected, and the inspector
finds a bunch of violations. There is also the theoretical possibility
of the case of a fire, and if the fire resulted from some obvious hack
job that they could show you did, without a permit, the insurance company
might deny the claim. Or even worse, if the house burned down with your
neighbors kid killed during a sleep-over, you could be in deep doo doo too.




Here, we're not supposed to do our own gas plumbing, but I ignore that too. It's no more difficult than water plumbing.


As long as you do it right, all is good.




Where I live you can do you own wiwring,but are expected for it to
meet the code. If you wire for someone as a job then you have to be
licensed and have it inspected.

I think they're trying to do that here. At the moment, you can get a certification to be an electrician, but it's not mandatory, and it's up to the customer if they choose someone with one or not (with are more expensive).


Wow, that's interesting. Here you can do it yourself on your own house.
But I can't do it legally for a friend on their house. Nor can I do it
if it's a rental property I own. Funny, we always think that you tend
to have more regulations over there.