Yes, many panels do and that’s perfectly acceptable. The key here is the second sentence I quoted above, that chances are you are not going to draw all circuits to the max. The NEC considers 220 circuits (and 20 amp 110 circuits) to be dedicated. The NEC basically wants you to always consider these dedicated circuits as drawing the max current, even though in the real world they often aren’t.
If thelabdude’s 50 amp panel feeds 150 amps worth of regular 15 amp outlets, that’s perfectly fine. If it feeds two 30 amp 220 circuits it’s not acceptable, even though that’s only 60 amps and the other way was 150. It’s all in how you consider those dedicated circuits to be loaded. It’s a bit of a subtle distinction but it’s the point the NEC is trying to make.
Those types of things are intended to be used with portable generators for temporary power. They are not intended for permanent installations. Powering a fridge with one of those would be a code violation.
Have an electrician run a 120 circuit to an outlet where you want the fridge.
I’m guessing the last 2/3 gets into legalities - where what is legal.
Would it be possible to install a junction box where the current 240 outlet is?
If so, is it legal (it really should be) to run a 240 to one outlet and 120 to another, all in the same closet. The 4 or 6 ga wire would run about 3’ - hardly bank-busting, esp. compared to what electricians charge.
This assumes that there are at least 3 conductors to existing outlet:
Black
Black
White
Don’t be surprised if there is a white being used as ground. It may even be a bare wire, but it IS connected to neutral.
I owned a house built in 1919 - when re-wired in the early 1960’s BY THE UTILITY COMPANY (they were burying all overhead lines and automatically upgraded everybody to 200A service.
They did NOT sink grounding rods - it used ground-to-neutral.
The 1979 house also uses ground-to-neutral.
your house is very likely to use ground to neutral - to confirm, remove the cover of your breaker box - the bare wires are ground - they should all go to the same bar - that bar is your grounding buss. Five will get you ten there is a white wire attached to the ground buss - congratulations! Your home is grounded to neutral.
Using that fact, even if the only other wire to the existing 240 is bare (“ground”), you would be doing absolutely nothing more or less dangerous than already exists by using the bare to pick up 120.
Using a separate junction box will make it look nice and clean, should you ever want to sell.
For those who worry excessively about code: look into “homeowner permits” - in CA at least, you are allowed to do things to your own house which a stranger would need a license to do.
The permit process is how the State enforces this - to “pull a permit” requires a license. Unless it is the owner doing the work, in which case he/she can pull a “owner.occupier” permit.
Never messed with it - didn’t want to have to stop work at points A, B and C and wait for an over-worked, under-staffed Inspector to look at it and say “yep, that’s a pipe, all right!”.
It’s not to code, and it shouldn’t be. When you are using 240 volts, it is usually because you can’t get enough power out of a 120 volt circuit. Therefore, 240 volt circuits are expected to be dedicated to a single outlet. That’s the reason behind not allowing 240 volt and 120 volt outlets on the same circuit. It’s the same reason that a 20 amp 120 volt outlet has to be on its own dedicated circuit as well.
It’s more common to have a black and a red for the two hots so that you can differentiate between them.
In newer wiring, white will only be neutral. It should never be ground. Bare or green should be ground. In older wire where there was no dedicated ground, the neutral was often used as the safety ground for appliances.
The problem with using the neutral as a safety ground is that if the neutral wire breaks and you turn on the appliance on, the case becomes electrically hot. It requires only a single point of failure for a dangerous condition to occur. With a separate safety ground, if the neutral breaks, the appliance just stops working. It requires multiple faults to occur before you end up with a dangerous condition like the case becoming electrically hot.
I’m not sure what you are calling “grounded to neutral” here. In older homes there was no safety ground. The neutral was used as the safety ground. The neutral from the fuse/breaker box was tied to the cold water pipe to make the connection to earth ground. This served two purposes. First, the cold water pipe was present in pretty much every house and made a convenient common point of ground. Second, since people commonly come in contact with water and water is reasonably conductive, you don’t want your water system to be at anything other than electrical ground potential. Grounding to the water pipe insured that both the electrical and the water systems were both referenced to the same earth ground.
In a modern house, there is a separate safety ground. The safety ground is connected to the neutral at the breaker box, and both are connected to earth ground. After the introduction of plastic pipe, the cold water pipe could no longer be relied on as an earth ground connection, so a separate grounding rod is now required. But, you still want your water system to be electrically grounded to the same ground that your electrical system is, so you are also required to connect the neutral and ground to the cold water pipe as well.
In both cases, the neutral is connected to earth ground.
A junction box would make it look pretty, but it still wouldn’t be to code. That could be an issue when you try to sell the house.
I have no idea what the rules are in CA, and the rules do vary from state to state (and sometimes even from city to city). However, the stuff in the national electrical code was put in there for a reason and you want to do things right.
If you circumvent the code and permit process you can also expose yourself to some hefty liability. If some sort of fault happens later, and causes a fire, for example, the insurance company can point to the wiring and say that whoever did the wiring has to pay for the damages because the wiring wasn’t done to code. Even if the improper wiring didn’t cause the fire, it can be very difficult to defend against in court simply because the insurance company’s lawyers only have to point to the national electrical code to prove their side. If you get things inspected, then you can always say that you did your best and the inspectors even passed it, which gets you off of the liability hook. If you didn’t get it inspected but it’s still done to code, then you at least have that on your side and the insurance company can’t as easily dump the financial responsibility into your lap.
I recently bought a GFI panel for my jacuzzi. It has a seperate circuit for a 20 amp 110 volt plug built into it. $165.00. The circuit from the main panel to the GFI is rated at 50 amps @ 220volts.
in lots (most in the USA) of places repairing/replacing existing wiring/devices(switches, receptacles, …) can be done to the electrical code at the time it was put in; though it might leave performance or safety at a level lower than which you would want.
if you change or add to the electrical system then it must be done to the current electrical code.
if you violate the code there is danger to other people. other people besides yourself, especially subsequent homeowners, will not know of your violations and may die because of it.
Just for the record 240V is not what the dryer motor runs off of, it is a 120V motor. The power coming into the dryer does not magically come together inside, it is two separate circuits. One circuit usually feeds the motor and timer and the other circuit feeds the heating elements. Each leg draws around 21-23 amps during operation, but inrush currents can exceed 30A. Running a washer on the same circuit as the dryer while the dryer is running would most definitely pop the 30A breaker. The 240V circuit delivers higher amperage, using thicker wire to appliances that need two high amperage separate 120V circuits.
Dryer designs vary. Most of the ones that I have seen use 120 volts for the motor and 240 volts for the heating elements. This arrangement allows the dryer to be used on both 120/240 systems and the less common 120/208 systems. (ETA: though obviously the heating will be reduced on the 208 systems, requiring longer drying times)
I read this and thought how much simpler it is for us in the UK. Our power circuits are all 240 volt except for a dedicated feed to an electric oven if you have one. That feed is also 240 volts but has thicker wires to accommodate the greater load. Each three pin socket is rated at 16 amps but plugs normally have a maximum 13 amp fuse fitted. The three wires (blue, brown and green/yellow) are ‘called’ live neutral and earth. This is shorthand as all switches are single pole and only cut power to the ‘live’ side.
The oven feed has to be a direct unbroken line to the breaker board and terminates on the wall near the cooker (The cooker has a double pole switch). There is almost always a standard three pin 16 amp socket on the front of the switch box as well.
I noticed this transformer- adapter referenced as a solution, last week at Princess Auto ( in the Toronto area) I did a double take, and saw it online at Home Depot via a search shortly after seeing it at Princess Auto.
However, it seemed so new and a no-brainer, I wanted to source this in more detail. It looked too good to be true. What was the catch? Why is this adapter not on the market decades ago?
Days later I Spent 2 days all over BUffalo area being told by very knowledgable Electrical people that such an animal does not exist, and code violation. Forum talk suggests this is one unusual case where CSA approval occurs long before UL and NEC. In almost all other cases CSA takes forever to approve - being safety paranoid. Not sure why CSA is confident with this adapter - other than the draw being 15 amp 120v is so small compared to the capacity of the outlet. The breaker helps of course. maybe having whole panel surge protection would be a wise back-up plan.
Too bad there is not a way to have a simplified compact adapter transformer that can handle maybe a 20 amp and 2 15 amp outlets (dedicated) from the one 50 amp outlet.
Same concept as replacing outlet with a sub-panel, breakers and new outlets - just in a very compact package. This would save aggravation for the high draw toasters, Forman Grills, Rice Cookers, and Korean washer/ driers that draw 120 volt 15 amp to full capacity and blow fuses all the time on shared circuits.
These counter-top appliances and ductless driers are rarely in a dedicated electrical spot and often fall prey to being located in the most desired spot where the closest outlet is shared with many things. The stove outlet adapter offers a dedicated line reprieve for these situations. Now we need a similar adapter for the 30 amp drier outlet.