"Stephen Watkin" wrote in message
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On Sun, 11 Nov 2018 23:05:39 -0000, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Stephen Watkin" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 11 Nov 2018 22:30:34 -0000, Rod Speed
wrote:



"Stephen Watkin" wrote in message
news On Sun, 11 Nov 2018 21:19:41 -0000, Rod Speed

wrote:



"Stephen Watkin" wrote in
message
news 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.

Not when all the plug in appliances are 115V

I can move my 3kW kettle, fanheater, etc, etc around freely to any
socket
anywhere in the kitchen or elsewhere in the house. They can't.

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?

Stupid to do that using the same plugs.

They've got about 20 varieties to choose from. No ****ing standards
like
we do.

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.

My street

So which one is your house? :-)

No response here?

is overhead lines with 11KV on the top and 4 240v lines below

Ouch! Storm, top lines fall onto bottom lines,

That doesn't happen.

Why not? Power lines often fall down in storms.

Not here they don't, we do ours properly.

You admitted they do below!

Nope, that's the power pole falling over.

big explosion in everyone's house.

And neither does that. We do occasionally see a branch
come down across the line so that you end up with 11KV
on one of the 240V lines, but it isnt there for long, the
breaker on the 11KV line trips very quickly.

Before your 240V devices get 11kV through them and blow them up?

Nope, they usually do get fried in that situation.

Doesn't happen here because we're not stupid enough to put 11000V next to
240V.

Yes you do.

We have seen one pole come down in the mini tornado
that brought down lots of trees but while that did see no
power for a while, no other electrical problem.

that. With a ****ing great transformer on a pair of poles round the
corner.
https://goo.gl/maps/HBGpn9owTvs

I had one of those where I used to live, but the HV was underground,
and
so was the 240V, except to older houses which were there before they
installed it. Those had an overhead cable to them. My neighbour's
roof
caught fire when his became detached from the eaves and shorted in his
attic, setting fire to the wood frame. He now has an underground
cable.

The next subdivision over has underground power and transformers
bigger
than a van but not as tall sitting on the ground.
https://goo.gl/maps/oU7Fc3TEL762

Ours tend to be a little more open than that but fenced in.