European 220v vs American 110

The only similarity is the the wiring configuration of one "Hot", one "Nuetral" and one "Ground" lead. The European standard house plug is a round body with round plugs and is physicaly larger. The U.S. standard house plug is rectangular and about 1/2 the size of the European plug.

Sorry to complicate the issue, but there is not a "standard" European plug, although we have recently standardised on a standard voltage 220-230Volts and frequency range 50Hz.

In the UK we use a large three pin plug with Live ( or Line) Neutral and earth as square pins. All items use the same plug shape but each is fused at the plug at 3Amps or 5A or 10 A or 13A. Some tools ec use only two wires and ignore the earth pin.

In France they have two pin and three pin plugs, round pin ,which go into the same three pin socket The rating is 5A or 16A These are not fused within the plug.

Hope this helps

Hugh Mattos Chartered Engineer

Dear Sir,

Not to hijack the thread but, do you know if it is possible to operate European 220VAC equipment off of 220 VAC single phase service in the US (assuming that the device can accomodate the 60 cycle power)?

We derive 220 VAC single phase power by connecting two 110 VAC lines which I believe are out of phase (possibly 180 degrees???).

If someone could explain, it would be appreciated.

Thanks. Brian.

This is a yes and no type question depending on "What you plug in".

Modern electronics normally have a switch or internal circuits that auto switch between transformer taps inside the units power supply which makes it possible to use them almost anywhere.

Other things like motors can be damaged or even catch on fire if designed for 220V but power by 110V. I'm running out of time at the moment to write a full explination but if you use ohms law for power you will see that amps increase as voltage decreases if wattage remains constant.

A year ago I had a licensed electrician install a new line for a dishwasher in a small business I own. It's the type used to wash glasses in bars so it operates differently from home dishwashers in that it has short cycles that reuse heated water all day. I just discovered that he installed a 110 line when a 220 was called for. He's rewiring it of course, but I'm wondering if this has damaged my dishwasher. What happens when you run a 220 volt appliance on a 110 line more or less constantly for a year? Anything I should look for?

It all depends on how the motors are fed, contact the supplier to get it solved.

Heaters have no problem at all.

My daughter-in-law had a fancy programmable rice cooker sent from Korea to Canada. It was 220VAC 60Hz.

So, I cut the plug off, got a duplex 6 outlet "octopus" plug, opened it up and wired in the rice cooker to the 2 "hot" phases and ground to ground. Now, when you plug it into a kitchen duplex outlet it gives the 220v required. No problem if it is not duplex, because the voltage will then be zero. Fail safe and it works!

Now I need to learn to read Korean to figure out all the programming features!

Interesting that a single outlet woud have both phases. This is not the norm around here. I mention this only to let people know that your solution will not work in all cases.

Shawn

That is interesting, since US and Canada are harmonized.

The code requirement for Kitchens is a full duplex with 110 in both outlet plugs (but a total of 220 supplied). If you open the kitchen outlet box you should see a red wire, a black wire, and a white wire. White is neutral, Black and Red are 110 with respect to white, but 220 to each other. This arrangement allows you to plug in a kettle and toaster or fry pan in the same wall outlet without tripping breakers. It is more economical to wire this way. At your electrical panel you will usually see a CB with a tie bar between two handles. Almost all built in electric baseboard heaters are 220 with just the Black and Red wires. Some built in air conditioners are 220, the stove is 220 as is the dryer. Bedroom, living room and utility outlets are typically only 110 with the black and red wires. If there is a three way switch you will also find the three colors, but one of the black or red conductors will be a runner.

Oh, by the way, there are still pockets of 50Hz in Canada.

To make it really confusing it often occurs within the same factory. This is a hangover from the days before the 60Hz conversion and the factories have their own hydro-electric generating equipment. The outlet plugs are the same as the 60 hz! So where there is this confusion the outlets are usually marked 50Hz. Many appliances are still marked 50/60 hz, but you have to be careful. AC motors and transformers often don't like the lower frequency unless originally designed for both.

I had not heard of this code. If true, such duplex outlets should be VERRRRRY clearly marked as such. About 20 years ago, I was in a building that had a duplex outlet wired with one phase on each side. I plugged a computer into one outlet, a peripheral into the other, and Bam! one dead brand new computer and one dead peripheral. As I recall, the isolation capacitors could handle 120V, but not 240.

Hey, 50Hz on some places in Canada.

Now I see a reason of existance for the special variable frequency transformer.

From where comes the difference: why is it 50Hz on this side of the globe and 60Hz on the other?

It seams to me that we made a quite nice descision to move over to 230/380 V completely and not to stay with the 120V as we had 60 years ago.

It starts to be a mess over there.

Hi there from CANADA yes we have 120/240 volt 15 amp kitchen

outlets . This means one red ,one black,one white and one ground wire

so yes you can have 120 volt or 240 volt at 15 amps.We have had this for

45 years now.We can use two 1500 watt 120 volt kettles at the same time

without burning a fuse.Red is one breaker,black uses the other breaker for

two each 120 volt circuits at 120 volts for 30 amps of useage.If you use just the red and black wire you get 240 volts at 15 amps at 60Hz.Yes it works.

A Canadian with my two Cents.

I have NEVER seen both phases used in a kitchen duplex outlet. I can only hope that the third wire is equivalent to neutral and is a "center tap" to the heating elements. I suspect that you might be running each half of the heating element with the same phase, and your return current for both phases is down the third wire. If so... the third wire should NOT BE CONNECTED TO GROUND!! It should be connected to the Neutral side of the the line. Running ANY current down the protective ground is a giant violation of code. If you are SURE that you have both phases of 110v at the duplex outlet (noted by a red wire to one half, and a black wire to the other half) then things are fine. You need to check for continuity between the third wire and the two hot sides. If there IS continuity (the center tap idea mentioned above) then the third wire should be routed to the Neutral wire which is white. If there is no continuity between the third wire and the hot wires, then it is a safety ground, and should be routed to the green wire.

Anyhow, this is just a little safety concern.

Sincerely

Bill

Sorry! From your posting above, I feel you know what you are doing. but hopefully my post might keep my fellow southerners (down here below the border) from making mistakes.

Bill

The only place this is done or allowed in the US is for duplex outlets under the sink that are powering a dishwasher and garbage disposal. Those are required to have the link bar on the 2 separate 1 pole breakers so that if one trips, it trips the other and the entire outlet is dead. Otherwise, using them at the kitchen outlets is not allowed per code.

The ground is bare copper. The white is neutral.

Only at the panel does the neutral get connected to ground.

All outlets should have both neutral and ground.

Splitting the phases in a duplex outlet will not cause any harm to plugged in equipment. They will not impose 220v onto the equipment.

Unless perhaps the items are a computer and a printer with a connecting lead, or a video and a TV with a connecting lead?

HM

WRONG! See HughMattos post or my post#15!

Sorry to disagree.

If damage occurred to the equipment I believe you will find the outlet was miss-wired or faulty or the attached equipment was faulty.

Perhaps the polarizing plug was cut off and the ground cheated and somehow the equipment had the chassis brought to line potential. There had to be multiple faults.

Glenn Wright P.Eng BASC EE.

We are talking, or at least I am talking, about a set of 4 grounded (3-wire) outlets in one metal enclosure. One pair of outlets (one standard USA receptacle) has the bare wire to the ground(green screw), the white wire (0V) to neutral (the wider flat), and the black wire (120V, phase 0) to hot. The other pair of outlets (another standard USA receptacle) has the bare wire to the ground(green screw), the white wire (0V) to neutral (the wider flat), and the red wire (120V, phase 180) to hot. We plug, for example, a computer and its monitor into one side, and a printer into the other side. There is now 240V difference between the hot side of the computer and the hot side of the printer. If the isolation capacitors were designed to withstand 120V (190V peak), but not 240V (380V peak), then when we connect the data cable between the computer and its printer, we exceed the breakdown voltage of the capacitors, and they fail to a short. I believe that is what happened to me about 20 years ago.

It is true that most devices of this kind today are operated off of switching power supplies, which inherently isolate far more than 380V, but I still maintain that any set of outlets that can potentially provide 240V should be clearly labeled accordingly!

Dick Warner

Going back 20 years, I have also had serial cables between computers and PLC's (industrial programmable controlers) blow the mess up. They were all on the same circuit also! Never mind the power AC power end, the 5 or 12 volt systems were grounded differently in the devices and it was 12 volts that blew it all up. Today, (in Canada) the logic voltage levels are no longer allowed to float but by code are grounded. There is also a huge push to optically or galvanically isolate everything. In the communication between PLC's on RG59U coax for example, the cable sheath is grounded and there often is a passive tap ( a high frequency transformer) that galvanically isolates the signal to each connected device.

Yes, we blew up lots of equipment before the industry got it right.

Did a quick google and found this:

Question 4. Retired as an electrician from Canada, I am looking for some information on the use of split-circuit duplex receptacles in U.S. kitchens over the last three decades. These multiple-circuit receptacles have been mandatory in our Canadian kitchens (countertops) since 1966 and I was wondering just how extensively they have been used in the U.S., and whether they have ever been part of the National Electrical Code. I do know that the U.S. now uses 20-amp receptacles in their kitchens, but I am wondering if in the past the split receptacles were used extensively. I would appreciate any help you can give me in this area or steer me to someone or some organization that might be able to help. — B. F.

Answer 4. I will try to give you the information I have in regards to split-wired receptacles. In the National Electrical Code 2002, Section 210.4 for Multiwire Branch Circuits permits these to be used in dwelling units with certain restrictions for safety measures. These restrictions are as follows: you must use a means of disconnecting simultaneously all ungrounded conductors; you must make sure that each circuit is being fed from the same panelboard where the branch circuits originated; and you must use a suitable handle tie across the two breakers or a double pole breaker to disconnect the two circuits that feeds the split-wired receptacle or equipment. These rules must be followed anytime two ungrounded conductors of a multiwire branch circuit are terminated on a receptacle of the same yoke. I can only speak in our jurisdiction that this practice of split -wiring receptacles is hardly ever used in kitchens or for equipment.This is a design issue that is totally up to the electrical contractor or builder. I can tell you that over the last 30 years of wiring and inspecting dwellings, I may have seen it used only a few times.The requirement of split-wired receptacles has never been a mandatory rule in the NEC. — Ernie Broome, CMP-2

The majority of CE appliances which rely on electronic power circuitry will accept 110V 60Hz without problem.

It will not work in the other direction, as it is a cost saving to have lower voltage capacitors for the NAFTA market.

Working at a consumer electronics integration lab I once discovered what happens when you use the wrong outlet: the 230V outlet with a 120V apparatus: it smells bad. and you experience why it would have been fine to have the cover still on the box.

Since then I always used the 120V outlet.

It is quite simple: read the identification tag on your power supply: it will tell you.

There are even more differences within the EU on plugs: France and Belgium have a pin that sticks out of the outlet as earth, Germany has earth connections on both sides of the outlet (edge earthing), GB has the earthing pin on the plug.

The Netherlands have a mixture of the Belgian/French and German system (both are allowed)

These Dutch plugs are handy and at the moment widely used as you can use it in France and Germany (and the influenced countries)

Denmark is again different.

CE marking makes it again more difficult: in principle an appliance can be used everywhere in our 400M people market when it has a CE mark (which can be based on a local certification), but still you have to know where the appliance is going to be used.

Gwen

Quite. German plugs won't fit Swiss sockets. UK plugs will fit in Eire though nowhere else in the European Economic Community [EEC]. After standardising everything else, including the proverbial "eurobanana", will this be the next thing for Brussels to attend to (rhetorical question)?

One might suggest it's a ploy to increase sales of adaptors at ports and airports...

UK house wiring differs from that across The Channel in that socket outlets are connected, usually, to a "ring" of 2.5mm² twin-and-earth that takes an orbit around an area up to 100m² and back to the distribution board, taking in as many outlets as one needs; hence one finds usually 2 x 2.5mm² live conductors connected to each 30A rewirable or cartridge fuse or 32A resettable overload breaker protecting the ring. The BS1363 13A-capacity fused plug is a natural consequence of this. A l'autre côté de La Manche, c'est très différent.

Brussels will have a lot of work to do to sort that one out, though at least the fixed installation wiring colours for new installations are now in line with the rest of Europe, necessitating the application of an appropriate sticker at the distribution box to indicate to any passing Polish and Czech electricians that the conductor colours in this particular home vary...

Do I understand that you may be as cynical about the EEC / EU as I am?

We British are not uited to a Franco German syndicate as we actually obey the rules!

HM

It's not the same plug shape, and it shouldn't be the same. If they have different voltages they better keep different outlet designs, or otherwise naive american tourist will fry their personal electronics in the european hotels and then sue the hotel for milions of dolars because they didn't have a sign on the outlet stating "do not attempt to connect american devices". Anyway, this days most small consumer electronics that are supposed to travel (laptops, cell phones, shavers) come with transformers that can feed on anything between 100V-250V. But you still need an outlet adapter that you can boy in any electrnics store in US and Europe.

" Anyway, this days most small consumer electronics that are supposed to travel " are now [99 %] work from 90VAC to 250VAC, but

" But you still need an outlet adapter that you can boy in any electrnics store in US and Europe."

but almost all countries have different Outlet-Sockets, & travellers will need a pack of ADAPTERS for their country's PLUUG.

I think what you are looking about is the delivered power charateristics:

in 220VAC it is at 50Hz frequency, but 110V it is at 60Hz frequency

even thought the outlets are similar in shape but they are different in the power.

also it depends on the device itself some devices are designed to work at 220V,50 Hz, and others at the other freq.

and there are devices woprk on both.

regards

I would like to correct the false impression given by an earlier contributor. There is one Euro Standard socket/Plug but the UK has not adopted it. ie: Germany, France, Italy etc all use the same sockets. These sockets are round pinned of larger diameter than the old French round pin [US plugs are identical to these but flat pinned] but the old French 2 pin will fit into a Euro socket. Interestingly the Swiss still use the old French standard but always with the addition of an earth pin. Note: the UK plug is very over designed but this is partly because fuses were/are needed due to RCD's not being required by UK law.

Sorry,

A fuse does not replace an RCD and an RCD does not replace a fuse. The functionality is completely different.

there are major differences in plugs, the uniform CE plug has been designed to fit most of the different existing plugs but there are still significant regional differences.

The UK electrical wiring regs have served us very well, but I do accept that with the benefit of hindsight the BS1363 plug and socket arrangement is rather bulky!

As Gwen has said, a fuse is not replaced by an RCD. Although our new houses do now require RCD, we also install MCB, however the main difference is that we traditionally use ring mains on power and lighting circuits which are MCB protecet at 30 A for power and 6 A for lighting. Clearly a good many problems could occur which may not cause a 30 Amp MCB to trip , but which would blow a local say 3A fuse.

I am happy with our standards, which although slightly expensive have much improved our household safety.

Hugh Mattos

Chartered Engineer

20 to 40 bespoke RCD's on a central board [France/Germany/Denmark etc] do replace the job of burn out fuses that's the whole point of using such a system. Maybe you are basing your comments on the usual 2 used in the UK which of course are totally inadequate as all lighting or all power is lost should the respective RCD trip. Note: fuses in plugs do nothing to protect kids who push conductive objects into the power sockets where as [correctly installed] RCD's will.

In the (second I think) Harry Potter movie, there is a shot in Harry's bedroom which shows a table lamp plugged into the wall. I glanced at the wall outlet and thought "Yup!! That wasn't filmed in Hollywood!!" Those bozoes don't have the brains (or inclination) to use British outlets in their movies... or if they did, they would refilm it to NOT show the outlet.

Bill

In the movie "The Guns of Navarone", there is a scene at the end where we are waiting for the elevator to drop low enough to set off the charge that will destroy the guns. They cut back and forth to the firing room where an operator is poised to push the button that fires the gun which will destroy the fleet. The button they show is clearly a Klockner Moeller push button ( I used to work for them), which is authentic to what the Germans would have installed on their own gun emplacement! Now THAT was continuity, even though that movie was made in England not Hollywood. It would have been completely wrong to have shown a device made in England on an Axis war installation!

Studios don't pay for that level of detail any more.

The other Brits forgot to mention the other unique feature of the British Standard socket - it has flaps which close when the plug is removed, so no children can stick their fingers/ pencils in.

This means that all plugs must have an earth pin whether the appliance needs earthed or not, as the longer earth pin opens the flaps for the power pins.

Over engineered - and proud of it!

Over engineered - and proud of it! That's why Japan is the 2^nd largest economy in the world and why what's left of the UK car industry is foreign owned. [Misplaced pride vs Capitalism]

Over engineered, or just a few pence extra per socket for a sensible engineering solution to a social problem...

Perhaps the engineers should be allowed to engineer our way out of other problems created by society

HM

I don't know if all Europe is the same as Germany, where most sockets I've seen are at waist height -UK generally has them at floor level.

Some times over-engineering is the best way for safety, reliability...

The problem is that the accountants are winning the battle too often, so the lowest standard is likely to win - even if it is just for a few pence per socket, unless it can be proven that claims will exceed the added cost.

The reason for bringing sockets higher up is mostly flooding.

All sockets sold by now in the EU have flaps.

The unified socket has a special system that imposes two pins to be inserted at the same time, the pins have only the tip to be conducting and the tip can only touch the life parts when it is completely inside.

The edge or pin earth has the benefit that you will touch it while inserting a conductive pin. Tripping the RCD.

At least, when you have an RCD.

There might be another reason to slow down the integration of RCD's: leaking power brings a lot of money to power distributors.

Ask those who have done the exercise of adding an RCD to the whole installation: usually they had to replace some parts of the cabling/wiring as the RCD kept on tripping.

You know: when accountants come in the project.

Over engineering is bad design and bad business! Engineering fit for purpose it good design and good business. It would not be difficult to incorporate a cartridge fuse into a CEE 7/7 [Euro] plug but there is no point. It is the supply that needs to be safe. I suffered from being highly intelligent and inquisitive as a child so like many other children managed to defeat the [UK] earth pin plate lock. Do that in most UK homes and you risk electrocution, do that in a multi RCD set up and the risk is negligible.

All new UK homes have a requirement to fit RCD.

However, are you going to be the politician who mandates the retrospective rewiring of houses at the owners expense?

I suggest that the money would anyway be better spent elsewhere!

Seems like you are trying to say that the UK should have legislated to have multi RCD systems some 25 years ago like sensible countries did so by now most dwelling would be covered as in France and Germany etc. Obviously French and German politicians must be braver than UK politicians. Unless the UK regs have recently changed then approximately 2 years ago they said that just 2 basic RCD's [1 for power and 1 for lights] were recommended but it was still legal to fit old fashioned fuse boards instead.

Each to their own worries.

The building regulations are modified every year, but I do not know when RCDs were mandated. I just know that I cannot rent a room without a safety certificate and I cannot get that without an electrical check which will not be passed without RCDs.

However, my point was not of new houses, but of older stock, as we have no requirement - or budget - to get house wiring updated periodically.

Since my issue of concern is fatalities, the money would be better spent in the UK on the traffic situation. About 25 people are electrocuted each year.

About 3200 die on the roads in the UK, of which 560 are motorcyclists, 150 are pedal cyclists and 750 are pedestrians. I feel UK money would be better spent there - or if one is being altruistic, in the developing world where the same amount of money would save so many more lives.

How do the Europeansd compare on those figures?

I'll grant you that the UK does tend to have a lot of buildings that should be condemned and rebuilt so in that sense the scenario is different to other European countries. If insurance Companies charged a 25% premium for houses with wiring over 25 years old then that might save lives and fires. Note the UK is a European country. Renting property is a different set of regs to a property you live in yourself.

Talking of differences the road traffic stats would need to be adjusted for the number of drivers and the number of driven kilometres. i.e.: France is the hub of Europe and the most visited country in the world so even though it's own population is roughly equal to that of the UK's it size is 4 times that of England so obviously more kilometres are driven per indigenous person then when the tourist and through traffic are added it can't be compared with the UK or other European countries like Italy without some kind of formula. The other factor that affects the accident rate in France in particular is 'holiday fever'… it is a condition were zombie office workers who drive once a week to the local supermarket back home switch their minds to fluffy cloud mode to achieve the maximum holiday coma condition. As you can imagine this is not conducive to safe driving.

Guest,

Living in a 32 year old house I would not appreciate the surcharge on my house insurance, but that said, I could do with a reduction of my car insurance which is somewhat higher - if only the 20% of people who do not insure there cars could somehow be traced effectively. We have no indication on the car of insurance cover, although we do have a centralised computer record and " Number Plate Recognition Camera" vans which are supposed to trace everyone.

I have no figures on European car accident stats, but I guess that France is high - perhaps because of the attractive red wine.

What amazed me about our figures is that 50% of accidents happen within 1 mile of the start or end of the journey at home or the office. Some expert could probably tell us what causes this - the frequency of these journeys or the relaxation of the driver.

Another point would be that home insurance is not compulsory, so any increase in rates would lead those with least funds - and probably the oldest wiring - to decide to take a chance with none.

GM1964

Yes I have family members who argue that home insurance is a bad investment on the basis that small losses are not worth claiming for and large losses are, thankfully, extremely rare.

This string shows how muddled peoples' thinking can be! Home contents insurance is not the same as building insurance. No mortgage Company would allow the structure to not be covered for rebuild. Even if they did and risked loosing £100,000's then you would still be liable if your burning house burning next door down or a roof tile hit someone on the head.

There are a lot of people who own their houses outright, having paid off their mortgage while they could afford to. These people can then choose whether to have insurance or not, and whether they can afford to rewire.

Any houses bought new 25 years ago and with the original occupants are likely to fall into this category, and many more older properties - often bought cheaply because they need work done - or handed down through the family will be in even worse state.

There is no restriction on standards for selling/transferring ownership, only on the "for rent" section.

The RCD issue is a protection of people against people's stupidity.

What you could say is: just do it as you want to do it but don't come back when you are hurt.

It is not to protect the poor house owners that the law doesn't oblige the RCD to be installed. It's the rich multi house owners should start rewiring their houses that block the adoption of the laws.

The same thing with CO intoxication. This could be avoided very easily: prohibit the use of open burning chamber heaters and impose the replacement by the house owner (as this belongs to the house and not to the inhabitant)

Try to get such a law through the parliament, it would save many lives each year and typically it are the poor who are affected. And it would bring a boost to the industry (which seams to need it in GB)

You are going to hear the comments: those f** b** in Brussels.

How many houses burn down each year by old wiring?

How many £'s are paid each year to cover the leakage current?

Each RCD in an old house pays for itself.

I forced my father to place at least a 30mA on the wet area's and a 300mA on the house, the minimum. He has found multiple points with leakage, continuous leakage.

I don't disagree with your post, I'm only stating my understanding of the mentality of a section of the population.

(Not knowing any rich multihouse owners, I can't comment on that part)

Some laws have been introduced regarding rented accommodation, which is regulated and inspected. To also inspect every private house would cost a great deal, and implementation would take many years.

The only way I could envisage this being done would be to check that each house is up to standard at point of sale (new or used). This would also create problems that those who could not afford to stay in their current accommodation, and could not afford the upgrade of supply (eg in cases of reposession), transfer of property would be denied unless the buyer agrees to carry out the work.

There is a solution build in the law: the installation is tested against the regulations valid at the moment of the first inspection.

Unless works have been carried out to adopt the installation: then you need to fulfil the actual rules.

Which is a reason why house owners don't adopt the old buildings to have more power: leave it as it is as he might run into serious costs.

It is indeed a mentality problem: that is why laws are needed. If we would always drive safe and do everything to avoid accidents, even a drivers licence would not be needed.

Gwen

Already, the rules are there for new-build.

The problems we see are with older properties - some hundreds of years old - which have been upgraded either many years before or piecemeal, as an extension was added or whatever.

There are no rules for regular upgrades (say, 25years for electricity), only that what work IS done should meet the current standards. Thus those who feel they cannot afford to will not upgrade until there is a problem - often that is too late.

The house I live in was built as part of a large scheme in 1946 (BISF). In this scheme, there are several newer houses from the 1970s, which were built as a result of the previous ones burning down due to ageing circuitry. Eventually, the whole scheme was re-wired, and is now undergoing further upgrading to RCDs/circuit breakers.

Planned maintenance is definitely the way ahead, but keeping tabs on every house will be nearly impossible, especially where the house has changed owners frequently.

The problem starts when you alter an exsiting installation: as soon as you touch the interior of the cabinet you will need to recertify the cabinet to the actual standard. This forces you to redo the house as the needed RCD would not accept the old wiring.

It is always the same: expensive cars in front of the house but a dangerous situation inside due to shortage of money. When an RCD is a signal for virility, everyone would have one.

Gwen

They tested the circuitry, but only upgraded the fuse boxes.

If alcohol drunk = road deaths then the UK would have the most road deaths in Europe

I'm afraid some of you are away wide of the mark here unless BS 7671 has been changed in the last week.

The UK regs only specifically require RCD protection on sockets or socket circuits which may be used to supply equipment outdoors. It has therefore been argued that if you live in an upstairs flat then then is no requirement for RCD protection at all.

There is a requirement for RCD protection in some special location installations and it is is one of the options to address a high earth loop impedance value on a final circuit.

It is not advised that an RCD should control a whole domestic installation and the introduction of the split consumer unit resulted from an electrical contractor being sued in the courts for the death of a housewife.

The contractor had rewired the house using an all RCD protected consumer unit which among other things resulted in the lights going out in the event of the RCD trip. In the case in question the housewife was starting to decent the stairs with a basket of washing in both hands when the lights went out and as a result she fell down the stair and broke her neck. The court ruled that the electrical contactor was negligent by fitting an RCD unit which covered the lighting circuit, which increased the possibility and probability of lighting failure. Since no such requirement was in BS 7671 he was adjudged to have been solely responsible for the installation design and this hazard was a result of his poor design.

The problem was later identified as a fault on the washing machine which had tripped the main RCD. As a result the Split Consumer Unit was introduced to allow the Non RCD circuits to be connected directly to the circuit protective device. ( lights, cooker, water heaters, etc)

The French regs. specify RCD protection of all circuits because they have no earth facility. No earth is supplied by the supplier and all installations rely on very tenuous electrical electrodes, some which have been seen to be as ridiculous as a 150mm nail stuck in the ground. Their RCDs have two levels of sensibility - one for sockets and the other for general circuits.

Guest, I would not spit on abroad codes.

I can assure you that the codes used in Germany, Holland and Belgium are quite high level and already required an RCD in the 80's.

Each installation needs to have it's own earthing and a minimal RCD protection level of 300mA. The wet area's need to be protected with a 30mA RCD.

When your earthing does not comply you can't get electricity, simple as that.

Quite strange that electrocution can only take place outdoors.

I checked, BS 7671 is still valid. Strange that it is still not replaced by an EN version. I assume Brussels made a stupid mistake, setting the level to high.

The French have earthing, sometimes they don't have a Neutral. You have to make it yourselve. Makes the systems also much more reliable (no risk of mixing up the neutral and lines in the power transforming station)

The National Electrical Code requires that all outlets within 6 feet of a sink in the kitchen must be GFIC protected. Also, the left side of the sink must be on a separate breaker from the right side of the sink, and there must be a receptacle on both sides of the sink..This allows several heavy loads simultaneuosly without overloading a breaker and without having to droop a cord over the sink. Fixed appliances, such as refrigerators, must be on a seperate circuit breaker. Bathroom outlets must also be GFIC protected, and cannot be branched from the kitchen. Outside receptacles within 6 feet of grade (ground) must likewise be GFIC protected.Split phase receptacles must be pig-tailed and not used to carry downstream loads thru them.

Hope this helps a little bit.

HTRN

Umm which Nation are you talking of? [UK/European regs would be in metres]