On Tue, 21 Mar 2017 19:18:39 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 21 Mar 2017 18:07:55 -0400, wrote:

You are correct. I believe Ontario started requiring 4 wire plugs in
the early '90s but I'm not sure, as I was out of the electrical bus by
that time and my Dad had retired. by 1990.
It was not actually because of any particular body count, it was just
to standardize grounding practices.
The ironic thing was, if these were wired with Romex, it usually
included a ground along with the 3 insulated conductors since 3 wire
without ground was not really very common. The ONLY 2 wire w/g that
was allowed was SE cable and only if it was coming from the main panel
with the main bonding jumper (no subs)
The typical installation was the white neutral going to the grounded
terminal on the receptacle and the grounding conductor went to the box
so conversion to the 4 conductor plug is trivial. Some idiots just cut
the ground off.
Correct - virtually all stove and drier cable was 3 wire plus ground
- although there WAS some 2 wire plus ground used since there was no
neutral required on a strictly 240 volt appliance. It was the 120 volt
clocks and lights that screwed things up, requiring a neutral.
European 240 volt appliances did not require the neutral because the
controls ran off a transformer connected to the 240 volt power.

I was amazed when I found out that the timer and motor in a dryer was
120v. Since these are purpose built for the dryer application I
assumed they would be 240v.
You'd think - and with today's solid state controls you'd think
they'd just run the transformer off the 240 too - but nope - it's all
on the 120 too.

Even on the stuff made by European and Asian companies - so they are
not "world market"