Comment by quesera
3 months ago
I'm in the midst of a kitchen remodel (in 120V land).
I decided to pull an extra 240V line to the countertop explicitly for a tea kettle, which I have not purchased yet but seem to be available from Amazon UK for ~2x the price of an ordinary US-market kettle.
The most disappointing thing so far is the short list of kettle options that ship from the UK to the US.
Also not sure if I should get a UK receptacle (this would probably offend the bldg inspector, so I might swap post-inspection), or just rewire the kettle itself with a standard US (240V) plug.
FWIW, the extra wire + breaker cost was about $100. I expect to pay another $30 or so for the receptacle or appliance wire, and a bit over $100 for the kettle (and its replacements every few years). Not the least expensive option, but not too bad.
Personally I would just wire some NEMA 240V outlet and then have a separate adapter with a pigtail of that receptacle type and a workbox with the UK receptacle. It's a little unwieldy, but it puts the questionable hackery outside the realm of the building inspection at least.
Whether it's actually safe I though, that I am curious. Obviously the kettle can get the 240V potential it expects, but the neutral is center tapped out of the split phase transformer, right? Not sure how people wire this. (Doesn't the neutral wind up having to be one of the hots instead?)
Hmm, yeah! I hadn't thought much about the differences between UK and US 240VAC service.
In the US, it's 240V 60Hz, split-phase with center-tapped neutral, and an independent ground wire.
In the UK, it's 240V 50Hz, single-phase with independent neutral and ground.
Frequency difference should be within design tolerance. and if my EE memory serves, the phase difference should be acceptable -- just measured from a different zero reference point. The neutral from the wall would be unused, and the ground would be wired as usual.
I'll think this through thoroughly though, I was definitely glossing over those details, so thank you!
Basically my concern is, ordinarily the potential from neutral to ground would be roughly 0V with some slack. In this case, though, the potential from neutral to ground would necessarily be 120V. I have no idea what the implications of that may be, but it seems important.
8 replies →
No need to rewire anything - just get a universal plug adapter for NEMA 6-15P (or whatever your kitchen outlet is going to be) from Amazon, plug it onto the UK plug of your kettle, and Bob’s your uncle. (The building inspector doesn’t need to even see your kettle and plug.)
That does sound like a much better idea, thank you!
The molded, sealed plug of a UK kettle would fare much better in a wet kitchen environment than an aftermarket plug you'd manually install (moisture can get inside and corrode the terminals and connections).
I agree. If I replace the wire, I'd get an assembly with the correct US molded plug (NEMA 14-30?), and perform the wire replacement inside the kettle itself. Your reason is good, but I'd do it that way for the aesthetics alone. :)