I was pondering how difficult it would be to retrofit & install a european 230V outlet (Schuko or UK plug) into a US kitchen so that high-powered/quick-brewing european tea kettles, coffee makers, etc, could be used. Would be trivial & straightforward to pull a dedicated circuit for new construction, but could be very difficult to pull in a new dedicated circuit in an existing home.

Question: I know it would work electrically, but would it be legal to place the two 20A GFCI kitchen circuits on a 20A 2-pole breaker, and tap both hots on the line sides of the GFCIs to power a 230V euro outlet? If the romex are run together from the panel (no reason they wouldn't be), would that be considered to be run in the same raceway? 210.52(B)(3) does not seem to prohibit this, either.

I haven't found the entire answer to this yet, but the problem with referencing 210.52 at all is that it deals with 125 volt receptacles only. That's the first sentence of the article. And that alone is going to shoot this idea down.

I would install a 6-20R and a cord end and call it a day.
You may also have to get the coffee maker recertified depending on local policies. This receptacle only needs a regular permit and is legal to your system. Any attempt to install a british plug should requre a Special inspection and have the outlet recertified for use on a North American system. I would not grant said permission as the receptacle I have mentioned meets the electrical requirements of the British appliance.
CAUTION: The Euro appliance has a grounded wire and the North American 230 volts does not. there could be a hazard created by the change if the grounded circuit wire is in anyway involved with the chassis. This is not the bond (green with yellow stripe)wire I am talking about.
I think the black wire is grounded in Britan

I think the safe answer is to put in a 6-15r and then get a listed cord cap adapter or just put a 6-15p on it. Legally you could get away without a GFCI but this is not the spirit or intent of the code so I would get a 2 pole 15a GFCI breaker to serve this circuit. The thing I believe would be an issue is the voltage. If European appliances are expecting 220 volts the 240-250 we have here might be too much of a good thing. It would certainly get the tea hot pretty quick.

What the OP is proposing to do is to have a two-pole circuit feed the Euro receptacle with 240, then at that point split that 240 circuit into a pair of 120 circuits.

I am somewhat 'code deprived' these days, but I'm pretty sure this is not allowed.

Just happened upon this - so I'll add a little from a British perspective! The appliances would not object to the voltage at all these days - for a while European equipment has been designed for a "declared" voltage of 230. This can legally vary by some degree from around 208v to as much as 250v.
As for the ground issue with the neutral - no problem either, if you notice, the schuko plug is NOT polarised, so either conductor can be live (hot) at the appliance.
To the plug issue, you are possibly better using a US certified plug I think, the schuko would be fine (though not approved), the UK plug has a fuse in it and the live side only.
I think it is high time the US moved over to 230v appliances in general (or at least kitchens etc for a start) as it would solve a lot of your voltage drop problems in an instant. I believe the idea was toyed with many years ago, but you guys already had masses of appliances even then and to swap it all - big problem. Phasing it in kitchens first and selling 230v appliances alongside 120v ones would be a good way to gradually change maybe???
Oh and the black in the UK was the grounded neutral until about 5 years ago - then we harmonised with Europe and now it's blue!!!

Greg I just assumed the configuration was for 20 amps. I guess from the reference to the 20 amp circuits.
The Canadian Code now allows 20 amp appliance circuits or split 3 wire 15 amp circuits.

Most Canadian electrical contractors are now using 20 amp t slot on #12-2 loomex for kitchen plugs. We want to avoid those pesky 2 pole GFCI breakers. Only 15 and 20 amp outlets require GFCI protection and it might be the spirit of the code to GFCI protect all outlets within 1.5 meters (5ft.) of a sink it is not the rule and I beleive that no ground fault protection is mandated in the NEC or CEC for a 15 or 20 amp 250 volt outlet. It might be a good idea but I would think that most EC would not install a $200 breaker what ever the underlying rational if the customer did not request the additional protection. Nevermind what else they don't want in Indiana.
I think we agree the circuit must be a North American configuration outlet and cord end too.
I doubt the 30 volts will create much havoc unless the machine is rated right at 12 or 16 amps at 220-230 volts in which case the current will be higher at 240 volts and lower at 208.

Reno, the problem with splitting this out into 2 120v circuits is small appliance circuits can have no other outlets.
Mike, I suppose you could use a 20a circuit but it seems like overkill. I looked and they do have 3KW tea kettles tho so if you really want to be prepared, go with the 6-20.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but is not the european 220/230 volt consist of a 'hot' with 220 volt potential, and a 'neutral' with zero potential?

Thought I heard that, probably from Spain or Portugal.

It's derived from a 380,400,415Y / 220,230,240V system. (Harmonized to 400/230V).

OK, so 400/230V gives you a single conductor with 230 volt potential, correct?

Based on that, what 'american' receptacle & cap would be compliant?

I think the point is the OP would be using standard American 240v for a 6-15r or 6-20r (totally NEC compliant) and the euro appliance would not know the difference.
We see that with PC equipment all the time. It is pretty common to get a Euro power cord in the box along with the US 6-15 cord when you buy a piece of 2xx volt capable hardware.
I understand some of these kettles have detachable cords with an IEC C15 plug. (Similar to the PC C13 plug but with a notch in it indicating it is rated high temperature)
If you could find a cord with a NEMA 6-15 cap and a C15 on the other end you would be perfectly compliant.

210.52(B)(3) does not say the 2x 120V kitchen circuits can have serve other outlets. It permits these circuits to, and I quote:
210.52 says this section provides requirements for 125V 15-20A circuits, but nowhere does it prohibit supplying 240V receptacles. This is the only code I can think of that would restrict what outlets may be on this circuit, and it explicitely allows additional kitchen receptacles not considered countertop small appliance receptacles to be supplied from the required small appliance recpetacle circuits.

I'm not sure about the reluctance to deviate from North American standards, either; NEC does not restrict us to specific NEMA 240V outlets. Nor does NEC even mandate UL listing. NEC mandates only that items be listed by an organization recognized by the AHJ. This could be UL, MIL-STD, CE, etc. Shouldn't be any issue putting a CE-listed euro style receptacle on the wall as long as the AHJ recognizes CE. Since UL isn't required, there could even be AHJs out there with a grudge against UL who refuse to accept UL-listed stuff... I'd hate to be a contractor in THAT city!

Suggesting that an adapter be used rather defeats the point- if a Schuko or UK plug isn't safe, then an adapter to those plugs wouldn't be safe either. If it's safe- and I see no reason it wouldn't be as safe as a 6-15R- it shouldn't be restricted.

The other argument is whether two 12-2 romex run in parallel are considered to be a single raceway, or two raceways....

The neutral, [always blue now by Eu directive and has been for over 10 years that I know of], is the same potential within a few volts as earth, or ground. The legal voltage is 230v 50hz, but the tolerance is sufficient to allow 240. Neutrals are only earthed/ grounded by the poco, not the consumer, so N is not connected to any metal chassis in any device, full stop. British plugs to BS 1363 have a cartridge fuse to suit our ring mains, usually 13A, but smaller sizes exist. This may be the stumbling block, as these fuses in the US will be as rare as hen's teeth. Next step for Joe Muggins will be a nail!
It would work 208 or 240 across N-L. Same applies to Shuko without the fuse hassle.
As to the legality, not my dept.

Steve
CE is not a recognized mark in North America. It is a completely different system than North American standards.
CE is a promise by the manufacturer that says they promise to make this product according to the Standard. US and Canadian approvals require testing by a certification lab like UL, CSA, Interteck, TUV, etc. There are audits of products built under a CE mark and the penalties are huge if a product is mis-labled. IE it does not actually meet the promise of meeting a standard.
There are a whole lot of laws that would need to be changed in both our countries before we could recognize a CE mark. Any AHJ that recognizes a CE mark in North America is assuming a huge pile of risk or does not understand what that mark means and what a mark like UL means.
Then there is the question of the Standards themselves. There are safety differences in these Standards and some Euro standards are not compatable with North American standards for the same products.
A CE mark is useless in our markets. Any AHJ recognizing it is making a mistake.

Steve, you have to be careful cherry picking a phrase out of an article without reading all of it.
The first line of 210.52 says



It does not apply to 240v outlets so they would be "other".

Alan, I hear you on the fuses but these days, if it exists in the world, you can buy it on the internet. I needed some real long stainless 12mm bolts for an outboard motor several years ago and they were unobtainium in the US but I found a German hardware company on the net that had them here in a week. Compared to the cost of most boat parts, it wasn't even that expensive

In real life we are not using 30a rings so if you just cut the 1363 off and put a 6-15 on it you should be OK. (15a O/C device on the circuit in the panel)

Greg, I did see that line, and I saw your previous comments in this thread regarding it, and spoke to it in my last post. This section provides REQUIREMENTS for 125V outlets; this section does not set any restrictions on 240V outlets. The wording in the kitchen section requires the two 125V outlet circuits, but has wording specifically permitting other outlets to be fed from it.

If this were anywhere else in the house, there would not be an issue placing proper ampacity 240V and 125V outlets on the same circuit. The only issue here is the two 125V circuits are specifically required to be installed. I see nothing in this section that prohibits 240V kitchen outlets from the 125V countertop circuits.

As is everything in the NEC, it is what your AHJ says it is.
Call and ask them.
You are certainly defeating the purpose of having 2 small appliance circuits if you are sharing both of them with one appliance that eats most of the capacity of both circuits.

I can tell you that the 240 volt circuit would not meet the requirments for counter plugs here. they must be 125 volt 15 amp Split or 125 volt 20 amp t slot and we cannot put more than 2 duplex outlets on either home run. In a kitchen big enough to need 5 outlets would require another branch circuit. Special appliance circuits may be added but they do not fulfill the basic counter plug requirements.

uksparx...

The WHOLE idea of moving to 50 Hz and double voltage, i.e. 220 was to stop American appliance exports -- indeed American electrical anything over a century ago.

THE LAST THING European manufacturers ever want to face is identical standards to the US. The reason is market size and manufacturing scale: one leads to the other.

If you look, many of the European manufacturers, in fact, will offer their stuff in ( by their standards ) exotic frequencies and voltages. The deal is that any such 'trick' production will always be limited distribution.

Now that more and more actual production is out of China, the nominal manufacturers may be even more willing to support American voltages. For them, all it might take is a phone call.

When you consider all of the hoops the end user must go through to use non-NEMA schemes even a price bump of 20 percent might be quite acceptable.

Sometimes, as they say, a cigar is just a cigar.

Electrical standardisation, even within the US, is a fairly recent thing. Even today, older cities have multiple skyscrapers that generate their own, unique form of electricity .... some even DC. And, no, there is not any 'normal' 120 available in these buildings, even today; I've had at least one service request from such a building.

Cross over to Europe, and the common use of 230v is even less established. In these instances, it was political (rather than commercial) considerations that obstructed any agreement. After all, it wasn't all that long ago that those little countries were happily invading each other. Why make life easier for the invader?

Just as important, America hasn't been "the" world leader all that long either. Companies like Siemens and AEG could, once upon a time, have every expectation that 'upstarts' like GE and Westinghouse would follow their lead.

If ignorance is bliss, the American consumer is often in ecstacy. The range of products in Japanese and European markets often is quite different from what is available to us here. Sometimes the difference cross the ocean, sometimes they don't. I can understand why folks might want to make a foreign appliance work here.

Getting back on topic, I do not accept that it is proper to split 120v circuits off of a 240v BRANCH circuit. I believe that's what panels are for. Yet, I cannot point to any particular line of code that spells this out.

The standardized IEC C13/C14 and wide mouth switcher power supplies on electronic equipment is making a lot of that thinking obsolete. You can order stuff these days with a variety of power cords and the unit remains the same. 100-250v 50-60hz.

I travel a lot, and it's very rare that I have something that doesn't work if I can figure out some way to physically jam it into the native power sockets. Same with naval power, where there is no neutral in a 115V outlet, only two hot legs, each 57V to ground.

I have had a few, though. Had a cell phone once where the 60Hz wall-wart worked to charge the phone but got awfully hot awfully quick at 50Hz, and was pretty clearly one appliance that can't do dual-frequencies.

My motivation for asking this question is that... A 3000W coffee pot kicks the pants off a 1500W coffee pot, and this seems like a fairly easy & low-impact retrofit where pulling in a new home-run is impractical.

I guess 3kw does get the coffee going right away. Just counting on my fingers I think that 10200 BTU/H ends up boiling a quart of water in less than 2 minutes assuming a room temperature start. I guess I am not in that big a hurry.
I suppose the next question is, can you extract the "speed" from the bean that fast?

That's simply not true actually not true at all. 50Hz has been around for a very long time, going back to the very early days of AC power.

Using 230V 50Hz actually exposes Europe to *far* more competition than the US as it's the most commonly used system in the world. It is also used in China and India.

50Hz has been around for a very long time, and seems to have been adopted by AEG in the 1800s. You might consider it a metric frequency as it is 100 peaks and troughs per second or 50 full cycles per second. As such, it fits into the general European metric approach to such things.

220V has also been around for a long time. For example, here in Ireland 220V 50Hz has been standard certainly since the early 1920s.

There were various other systems in use around Europe in the late 1800s and into the early 1900s. These were a mix of voltages, AC and DC. Although, it seems it was almost always 50Hz when it was AC.

The AEG / Siemens inspired 220V single phase standard seems to have spread quite quickly across most of the continent and it was standard everywhere before long, except in the United Kingdom, Malta and Cyprus. Do you seriously think the Brits would have adopted a German inspired standard in those days ?? They ultimately settled for 240V 50Hz.

The systems developed separately on either side of the atlantic. There wasn't all that much regular movement of people between the two areas and it really didn't matter that they weren't compatible.

CENELEC, the European electrical standards body, decided to harmonise the two very slightly different voltages i.e. 220V and 240V by moving to 230V. Initially this was just a nominal change of voltage and but as time has gone on, power companies have actually moved to 230V. Typically this is done when transformers at the Medium Voltage level of the distribution grid are replaced, or if they can be modified they were.

There aren't any exotic frequencies or voltages in Europe, it's rather boringly standard 230V/400V 50Hz.

Even the plugs and sockets are rather blandly the de facto standard CEE 7/X family. The only oddities are the UK, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta (BS1363). Denmark (now migrating to CEE 7/X), Italy (also migrating to CEE 7/X) and Switzerland which has its own system. Every other EU country and all of the former eastern bloc countries use CEE 7/X. That's something like 1 billion people!

Incidentally, the first application of AC power on a large scale was in London. Deptford Power Station went online between 1889 and 1891 generating at 10kV AC - Designed by Ferranti and operated by LESco (London Electrical Supply Corporation)

This generated AC at 10kV 85Hz !

Steve- I think you win the prize for "customized personal interpretation of ambiguous language". You're right, the code does not specifically prohibit what you want to do, but there's not an electrician in the country who doesn't read 210.52(B)(2) to mean that the minimum 2 small appliance circuits are to serve 120v receptacles on the kitchen counter top and nothing else. In fact I think that the people who wrote it meant that too.
There's a lot of off topic stuff in the replies, some of which makes sense but the thing I see in your question that shoots this down, even if 210 doesn't is the idea that somehow two 12/2 romex are parallel conductors in the same raceway. I think you knew the answer to that before you asked. What would the schematic for that arrangement look like? I'm thinking that they don't even run to the same box. Would you reroute them to a single box, put the coffee pot plug on the circuit first and then split them out? And that would be easier than a new circuit? Curious.

How do places like that deal with equipment procurement? Surely they can't all have it custom-built, or keep repairing stuff from way back when. And, what about computers and the like? Local xfmrs at each workstation?

I did not get a chance to reply here for a while anyway I have two European sockets in my house in USA due I do go back and forth between USA and France pretty often.

I have no issue with it at all.

Merci.
Marc

There may be an insurance issue. Here, if you have a fire and a BS 1363 receptacle and plug is suspected, the Insurer won't pay. They don't need much of an excuse to avoid paying anyway as I found out the hard way! [The ***** depreciated my electrical goods at 5% a month] As someone pointed out earlier, CE is not the same as UL, Norm Francais NF or a British Standards 'Kite' mark.

GregTaylor, even if I apply your interpretation, how on earth would an inspector catch it?

I ask this because the two SABC's can be served by a multi-wire circuit (share the neutral). 2008 code rules would then require the use of a 2-pole breaker - making it impossible to turn off just one side.

Breaker -> 240 receptacle -> first 120v circuit
. . . . . . . . . . . . . -> second 120v circuit

Assuming the 240v receptacle is serving the kitchen area, where's the code issue?

I don't like the plan, but I can't find the code to cite.

Noderaser, you nailed it: in those antique buildings, every tenant has their own transformers, or has had to obtain special equipment.

Why don't they upgrade the buildings? That often goes back to the original manner of construction. One of the buildings I referred to is known as the 'first' skyscraper - a massive, solid masonry 10 story building. You don't easily change such things.

Reno, if this was my patch I would just cite the first line of 210.52

"210.52 Dwelling Unit Receptacle Outlets.
This section provides requirements for 125-volt, 15- and 20-ampere receptacle outlets."

A 240 v outlet would be "other" (as in "no other outlets").

I can ask this over at Fl IAEI but I bet there isn't a CBO in Florida who would not agree with me.

It might be worth getting a 'formal' interpretation. After all, the coffee maker we're discussing is most certainly a counter-top appliance. I note that the 'exceptions' to the 'no other outlet' rule are both items that are not appliances that you might set on the counter.

You're citing 210.52 B 2. Perhaps we're better served by 210.50 C, which provides that receptacles intended for specific appliances be mounted near that appliance. It's a bit of a stretch, but since they illustrate their point using laundry equipment as an example, perhaps we might infer that they assume that a receptacle for a specific appliance would have it's own dedicated circuit.

We also have 210.21 B 2, which addresses the maximum cord-connected load for a circuit. If that coffeemaker gobbles up all the power, you can't really add more receptacles to the line, can you? (Be wary of this one, though ... think of all thos microwaves, toaster ovens, and bread machines!)

Looking at 210.11 C 1 (where the two SABC requirement is), it occurs to me that a 240v circuit, supplying a 240v receptacle, is but ONE branch circuit. Split off 120 'legs' all you want, it's still ONE circuit. With the 240v receptacle, we can't call it a 'multi-wire branch circuit.' I think that's the section we need to cite.

From a purely technical and practical perspective, either Schuko or BS1363 would actually perform perfectly well on a US 240V supply.

From a safety perspective, either of those plug/socket systems are beyond what UL would mandate although they do not have UL certification as they are not intended for sale in the USA.

Unlike NEMA outlets, both CEE 7/X and BS1363 provide standard finger protection to prevent shock.

Schuko (CEE 7/X) does this using recessed socket outlets and a standardised plug body shape that keeps the pins entirely out of reach when you are inserting/removing the plug.

BS1363 (UK/IRL system) uses sheathed pins.

The big issue with using these plugs in the US is that they are not likely to be approved by the US wiring codes, even if they are excellent standards.

BS1363 (UK/IRL) does however expect to see 230V on Line and 0V on neutral. Some 'switch sockets' would only isolate the line and not the neutral, although double pole versions are available. Also, if the fuse blew in the plug, it would not isolate the neutral.

Your local regs may have issues with CEE 7/7 sockets (Schuko) as they are not polarised. However, with a US 240V supply, both sides are hot anyway, so it makes very little difference in reality.

We have issues using NEMA plugs in Ireland for 110V as they are not approved by a recognised standards body here. The unsheathed pins also prove an issue.

I'd say if you're going to install a 240V socket, use whatever NEMA equivalent you can find to comply with the code.

If you opt to install BS1363 or Schuko (CEE 7/X) you will be perfectly safe, but you will have probably breeched the wiring code by using non-US-approved fittings.

DJK, thank you for your replies; as usual, you bring a wealth of detailed knowledge into the discussion.

I don't think there is any requirement here that plugs conform to any particular pattern, or be "UL listed."

Apart from the usual pattern we see on 'ordinary' plugs, most of us have a completely differrent 120v receptacle and plug on the power supply to our laptop computers; even desktop computers use a different pattern. Various industrial controls have proprietary plugs as well - even when the thing needs but ordinary 120v.

Therefore, I don't think there is any US code issue with using a Euro-style receptacle to accept a Euro-style plug- as long as the power available is appropriate for the device.

As I see it, the only code issue was the proposed method of deriving this 240v from two separate 120v branch circuits.

You can still bump up against 110.2 "Approved" equipment.
Overwhelmingly that ends up meaning "listed".
That is a big issue now in Florida with solar equipment where the AHJs are saying, "if listed equipment exists, you will use listed equipment".
We saw that here with the water bonding device thread.

Steve - Now you're sort of changing the question. Will an inspector catch it? Only if you buy a permit and show it to him, but that's not what you asked.
We all know we can make things work with out-of- configuration pieces/parts if thats all that is at hand, and we can also do things that work and even slide them past inspectors sometimes (I've never, ever done this). I'm sure that what you propose will run your coffee pot and small appliances perfectly well and probably with no danger to anyone, if done carefully, but I still don't think an inspector would sign off on it, and he would probably cite 210.52(B)(2)

The only other thing I would add is that I'm not entirely sure if the US 240V 60Hz peak voltage would be within the safe limits for a 230V 50Hz European appliance.

Do you know what the normal voltage range one would expect to see at a US 240V outlet is ?

If it's a simple coffee pot without any electronics on board, it will be unlikely to know the difference. However, if it's a modern espresso machine or anything with a lot of electronics on board the US supply might fry its electronics or at least reduce their life span substantially.

I know I have heard some weird problems where people have installed European washing machines on US 240V supplies i.e. electronics have malfunctioned. There can be quite a surprising amount of electronics in modern Euro washing machines not only the cycle controls but also solid state controls for variable speed drives which may be quite sensitive to not getting exactly their rated voltage and frequency.

I'd say if its a simple coffee pot though, you've very little that can go wrong

Greg- it would work and would be safe from a shock/OCP perspective, but it's a terrible design, one that would lead to nuissance trips, and one I'd certainly never put my stamp on. Seems from this discussion that the legality is a gray area, depending on how the AHJ interperets a couple codes. I really can't see anyone ever approving something like this. Was an interesting discussion, though.

djk- The issue for the washing machines was probably the motor. 50Hz DC rectifiers work great at 60Hz, better than at 50Hz (the reverse is not true), so electronics shouldn't be impacted. Tuned harmonic filters could be an issue, but they're not very common in appliances. Transformers may heat up a little more if the plate laminations were designed for 50Hz, as 60Hz needs thinner laminations to mitigate hysterisis losses, but it would be a fairly small heat gain- not like the fire you'd start if you put a 60Hz transformer on 50Hz and saturated the core.

The big problem I see for a 50Hz washer on 60Hz power would be syncronous AC motors. If they're designed to work at 50Hz, they'll spin 20% too fast at 60Hz, and I can see that causing quite a few issues in washing machines, food processors, etc.

Yeah, lookit what happened to this dope, connecting a Euro-style washing machine to 240v 60hz. First the door fell off the top, then it dang near caught fire - the spin cycle couldn't cope with the lamination saturation! Then the moron tried to wash bricks in it too!
They ain't designed to do both!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=364dzVsBs2o&feature=player_embedded&has_verified=1

"I guess 3kw does get the coffee going right away. Just counting on my fingers I think that 10200 BTU/H ends up boiling a quart of water in less than 2 minutes assuming a room temperature start. I guess I am not in that big a hurry.
I suppose the next question is, can you extract the "speed" from the bean that fast?"

Greg, I think more often than not, it is the 3KW tea kettles that people are interested in, myself included. I have already installed a BS1363 in my kitchen, for my British spec tea kettle. Shhh, dont tell my local insp.

It's not 100% true that all European countries use 230/400V, but you can most definitely expect some form of 230V 50Hz (accepted voltage tolerance +/- 10%) at a Schuko socket, either live and grounded conductor from a 230/400V 4 wire Y transformer or two live conductors from a 133/230V Y (grounded conductor not supplied to customer). Supposedly there are even 115/230V 1ph 3w transformers used in some remote areas of Germany. To make it short, all appliances have to be designed to work on either 230V hot to neutral or 230V hot to hot, however, regulations don't necessarily require the appliance to be totally isolated when switched off, e.g. single pole light switches are perfectly legal on a 133/230V system, even though one terminal of the Edison socket is always hot (needs to be the tip, not the screw shell though).

Edit: on washing machines I heard that the pump motors (split pole motors) are the biggest issue as they want exactly their specified frequency. Now that Euro style front loaders are sold regularly in the US I can't really see any reason to import a European machine.

A bit late in the discussion, but NEC 210.6 (A)(2) actually wants any appliance that runs below 1440 VA to be 120 volts. Personally I think its one of the dumbest rules, but it might be something an inspector may site for say an alarm clock or Euro radio.

And yes, Ive tried the 240 volt 3KW Panini grill and kettle before. Once you try, it changes you. You never go back

That has a very limited application. It says "In dwelling units and guest rooms or guest suites of hotels, motels, and similar occupancies...".

Does anyone else see irony or contradiction here?

Doesn't the NFPA strive to make the NEC an 'international' code? Aren't they continually foisting things on us (like TR receptacles) simply because they're used elsewhere?

Yet, here they go, trying to protect us from Euro appliances.

I do, and yes I agree. Code is supposed to be international, but this very code section goes against that. IMO, I don't know when it was added, but it could be an old hold over from way back when.

I've been thinking about sending in a proposal down the road, wonder what the would say about it?

Again I will point out, NEC 210.6 (A)(2) only applies to "dwelling units and guest rooms or guest suites of hotels, motels, and similar occupancies..."

It has no bearing on what you can do in your home. It only affects you in a hotel room.

There is absolutely nothing to keep you from installing a 240v receptacle in your kitchen for your European tea kettle.
Conscience may want you to put a GFCI on that outlet but 210.8(A) doesn't.

This is an long running post of days ago but it is the first for me. I did not read through 5 pages of comment so I apologize before hand if it duplicates someone else's comment.
If I understood the OP, correctly, why would you want to even do that? European power supply is 240V at 50Hz. No telling how the heating element perform and if it has any electronics in it, what will happen to them. I'm no engineer but I would think the heating element will run a little hotter that could degrade the heating element because it may be operation out if its design element.


Keep in mind, my comments are based on only the OP

But isn't a dwelling considered a home? I guess the terminology might be off on my part.

Well 240 V (US live-to-live in a 120/240 V 3-wire setup) is slightly higher than 230 V so in theory a US supply running at the upper permissible voltage limit might exceed the kettle's rating of 230 V + 10%. That would indeed cause the element to run hotter and possibly fail prematurely. However, I have no idea how much of a detrimental effect this would have. Probably none - I haven't heard of any equipment failing when the nominal voltage was increased from 220 V +/- 10% to 230 +/-10 % back in the 80s and 90s in most European countries.

Kettles usually don't contain any electronics and are a purely resistive load, so they couldn't care less about frequency, you could probably feed them DC. All that's in there is a heating element and a switched thermal cutout that shuts the kettle off once the water boils.

Actually there's a fun video of two Brits connecting a kettle to medium voltage - it lasts fine up to 8 kV instead of 230 V and only explodes at 10 kV! Water boils in an instant at 8 kV! Maybe 240 V + 10% would make your element fail after 20 years instead of 25 but to be honest the switch is likely to fail long before that.

I think the point in using these 230v tea kettles is that they do put out more than 1440 watts.

I do agree the wording could be taken two ways but it is still not unusual to see 240v receptacles in a dwelling and they leave it up to the user to decide what they plug in.

BTW I have come around/woke up and you are right, they do mean dwelling.

But I still say how would this be enforced. I can put a 6-15 in the living room or even on the kitchen counter and it is legal. Without a GFCI I am going to be hard to get along with but it is legal as far as I know.

That is true, I cant see it being enforced. But I think American manufacturers are the ones enforcing it as I have never seen an appliance less that 1600 watts with a NEMA 6-15.

FWIW they do make adapters that can be bought online that allow Schuko to go into a NEMA 6-15.


Why a risk exists running an alarm clock at 240 in the eyes of the NEC I have no idea but 6-15 can be placed anywhere, even a bedroom. GFCI and AFCI protection can pass too.

The US supply tends to be very fixed in my experience. I rarely see a 120/240 supply go over 126/253 which would be considered the max limit in most cases. Generally supplies hold constantly between 116/232 to 123/246.