On Sun, 11 Nov 2018 20:43:01 -0000, Rod Speed wrote:

NY wrote
Rod Speed wrote

But they have 115 and 230V in the same house.
It's a centre tapped 230V. Bit of a ****ing mess,
but thy can get a decent voltage when needed.

Not practical to do electric showers that way.

That's also the reason they don't use electric jugs
either, not practical to run them on 230V.

Why not?

They don't in fact have 230V GPOs in the kitchen
you can plug the kettle into. What 230V appliances
they do have are mostly hard wired with stuff like
driers in the laundry etc.

Which is bloody stupid, not having 240V sockets around.

What's the difference between Europe's 220-240V
and and US 230V made up of two 115V supplies?

The lack of 230V GPOs in the kitchen to plug them into.

Easy enough to wire one up yourself surely?

Power-hungry devices like kettles, cookers, tumble driers
and showers can be plugged into (or hard-wired into) the
230V supply and a centre tap supplies the rest of the house.

Problem is the lack of 230V GPOs in places like the kitchen.

Do US house have two wires for 230V live and neutral,
with a centre tap transformer in the house for the rest,

Normally.

or do they have three wires (115V live, 230V live and neutral)

Not usually.

with the centre-tapping done at the
substation rather than at each house?

They don't use substations so much either.
Much more common to have transformers
on the power pole, usually called pole pigs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P...se-closeup.jpg

One for every house, what a waste of money and extremely untidy. I've got one huge transformer at the end of the street that powers 50 or 100 houses, through underground wires you cannot see.