ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Two pole, four wire clothes dryer

Electure,
I hate to go there, but is this a seperate structure?.

For the visible wiring I'd suggest Triplex or any other type of cable suitable for the mechanical load though.
Also make sure the poles are properly bonded to ground!
Otherwise you'll run into all sorts of nasty problems, such as multiple ground faults, short(s) circuits,...

electure,
I don't see a ground wire or a driven rod. Are you sure your dryer circuit is code compliant as it appears to be a seperate structure? And your means of support on that cable looks a little weak, too.
I had a little trouble replying as I was reading thru tears of laughter!

On a more serious note:

A 3 Pole 4 Wire dryer receptacle is wired most generally as follows.

A 30 amp circuit is run in either 10-3 NM or conduit. The circuit is connected as 1 neutral (to the "W" terminal), 2 hots (to the "X" and "Y" terminals). and the ground (to the "G" terminal).

There is a jumper on the dryer that bonds the frame of the dryer to the neutral connection. THIS MUST BE REMOVED.

Many times, guys fail to read the instructions that come with the dryer, and don't remove the jumper.

That is one of the ironies of the trade...most dryers have a "# pole" plug, yet use a "2 Pole" breaker. Go figure.

Not every dryer uses 220. Perhaps someone will submit a pic of a "single pole" dryer :-)

We can forget my reference to the listing issue. On my 53rd time looking at that picture post (lol) I noticed that the right hand pole of the device has had listing problems and was repaired.

This is a single pole dryer but since it is UK it still may be 240v http://breezecatcher.chainreactionweb.com/

"Many times, guys fail to read the instructions that come with the dryer, and don't remove the jumper."

Miswired Dryers are a serious problem, Ok to have a laugh, hope this post helps everyone remember.

Les

I've been guilty of this. It just goes to show that you learn something new every day. Though very rarely do the dryers I wire use a 4-wire set up. Always good to know this.

Since we're talking dryers I have to tell my story. I have a customer from Spain, selling a $1 million home. She brought a washer and dryer down from her mountain retreat to place in the home so she could take her new Maytags to her new home. Well she called me and tried to explain something about the voltage was wrong on the dryer and the plug wouldn't fit etc etc. I said hold on I'm close by I'll stop by, thinking ok, it's probably a 4 wire cord and the house has a 3 wire recep. Well when I got there I discovered the dryer was GAS. She thought it worked on gas OR electric! No wonder it took nine hours to dry a load.