On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 12:16:25 PM UTC-4, Jimmy Wilkinson Knife wrote:



The main distribution panel would have to be changed in EVERY house.
Every breaker would need to be changed.

Really? Does a breaker care what the voltage is?

Even if they did, you can change a couple at a time.

They do care, because a 120V breaker only contacts one hot.
A 240V breaker contacts two hots and takes two slots in the panel
So, you're going to run out of free breaker slots and need
a new panel. All that expense to solve a problem that only
you think exists.

You must have some weird breakers. Ours make contact with live (er hot) and neutral (dunno what you call that) so they can tell if some as leaked to ground.

Different weird. And one of your fundamental problems is that you
can't understand anything that is different.



Now if you only have the ****ty breakers without ground fault protection, you'd have two per dual-socket, as they're +120 and -120. So replace that with a dual line 240V breaker.

Just how stupid and uneducable are you? It's been clearly explained to you
several times here that while we have double receptacles all over the
house, relatively few are wired as Edison circuits, shared neutral,
which is what you're describing above My house for example has NONE
wired that way.






So much easier in the UK without two lives (er hots) to worry about. One line is zero volts, only one wire can give you a shock. We don't have to worry about isolating two lines.

And that's how all the receptacles, all the lights in my house and most
houses are wired, one hot, one neutral. The shared neutral arrangement
is found here occasionally, it's a small percentage of all circuits.






The light switches may or may
not require changing (some are rated for 277 volts as used for
lighting in some industrial/commercial 3 phase environments)

Switches will work way above their voltage rating if you're not drawing maximum current. I've used a 12VDC switch rated at 10 amps to control a 240V light at 1 amp.

Ain't that special? The village idiot that's bitching because he thinks
we should have a fuse in every plug for safety, now says it's OK to
use equipment beyond it's rating.

It isn't beyond its rating. The current is one tenth of the rating.

Beyond the VOLTAGE rating, idiot.





Virtually NO benefit.

People who litter their posts with capitals and exclamation marks have OCD!

Your power cords for light duty appliances and
lamps are not going to be smaller than awg18 (about 5.5 or 6mm
diameter jacket for 3 wire (grounded) cords)

At half the current, they are half as thick. I dread to think what your Hoover wires are like.

In industrial/commercial use where advantages exist, higher voltage is
already used for "fixed assetts".

Not to mention there are WAY MORE variations of 240 volt plugs used
world wide than 120.

And magically you'd inherit all those?

How many different plug adaptors do you need to connect a device to
the mains just within the EEC??? At LEAST 5.

Actually I have a couple of adapters on the desk to my left. They will take any plug from USA, Australia, China, EU or the UK, and some others, I think the total was 8 completely different types. They just have some odd shaped holes which are a combination of all the different prong positions.. Very handy as I can buy cheap stuff off Ebay from abroad and just plug it straight in.

Word wide there are AT LEAST 20 incompatible versions of the 240 volt
power plug rated at under 17 amps.

EVERY 15 amp 120 volt outlet whether in North America, Japan, or
wherever, is FULLY COMPATIBLE, and will even fit into a 20amp outlet!!

The transmission losses will not change appreciably as the
distribution voltage would not change.

There is just NO CASE TO BE MADE for converting to 240 volts -
particularly with the power consumption of virtually EVERYTHING going
down instead of up.

Please disable your capslock key.

Instead of 100 watt lamps, we are now getting as much or more light
from 17 watts. Solid state flat screen video displays and TVs are
using 1/4 (or less) the power the older versions used.

But there are more things in use that draw power. Think back to when you were a child and had a single lightbulb and a TV set in the room.

The big loads:

Ovens
Range
Stove
Dryer
Central AC
Water heater

They are all 240V and with the exception of the dryer and stove
are direct wired on their own circuits. The dryer and stove have
their own dedicated 30 0r 40A receptacle where they are located.
And where they stay. Unlike the UK, where apparently you move those
around to various other rooms in the house. Go figure.

We don't need AC over here.

Your opinion. But then you're a cheapskate. Obviously other people do
have AC in the UK and I've stayed in places in the UK that had AC,
thank God.


Oven and range is the same thing,

Now they are not, at least not here. An oven is just that, an oven.
I have double wall ovens and a separate cooktop. A range is a stove
that combines an oven and cooktop.





we have something we call a "cooker", which has 4 hobs on top and two ovens inside with a grill. That and the water heater are indeed stationary like yours. But everything else can be moved. Washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, all using 3kW. I don't have to rewire my house to shift a couple of kitchen appliances.

I don't have to either. I can move my coffee grinder, kettle, microwave
and plug it into other receptacles in my kitchen. I have no need to move
my disposal or dishwasher. And if I did, it would be part of a kitchen
renovation which is involved and moving a circuit is no big deal. The
disposal, dishwasher are on their own circuits behind/under the counters.
Good grief, this is beyond stupid. Even the fridge, if you moved it,
you need a new receptacle, we don't just put extension cords on them
and plug them into a counter receptacle. Same thing with the washing
machine and dryer, we don't need to bring them into our living rooms.
Capiche? No, of course not.