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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   4058 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 16, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Which residential electrical system do people think is better: 240V, or split-phase 120? The latter seems like such a clever idea to get extra safety for only 33% more copper, but in practice it causes so many headaches.

Loose neutral in Europe? Easy: your lights go out, fix it.

Loose neutral in the US? Congratulations: your house is now possessed by a fucking poltergeist.

On the other hand, UK electrical circuits with 230V and 32amp breakers will cook an elephant if he sticks a fork in the socket.

On balance I think I prefer the American system, especially as a DIYer. Not least because the UK barely allows you to change your own lightbulbs...

3 phase 120.

If anything’s loose in my breaker box, I want to know about before the fires start.

Also, I spent enough time learning about deltas and wyes in college that I feel obligated.

230V with three phases is great. Balancing the load between three phases is harder than doing the same with two, like in the US, but it's not rocket surgery. In return you get lots of power and simple circuits.

Wow, I didn't know there were places that did three phase residential. That must be fun to deal with.

Yeah, it's not as simple as routing single phase, but at least your incoming wires are of manageable gauge.

Not least because the UK barely allows you to change your own lightbulbs...

The UK is notorious for its health and safety nannying (even though they left the EU). In the Netherlands everything beyond the meter is in principle yours to fuck with as you please, though if it's not up to code and your house burns down, the insurance won't pay out.

That said, the UK is special in another way, because it uses ring circuits. Instead of running individual wires from the boxes to the outlets, they run a wire from outlet to outlet and back to the breaker again in the end. Because in that way, every socket is principally wired twice, letting them get away with pretty much doubling the load. This is why the UK has 32-amp breakers instead of the 16-amp ones on the continent. You can put more sockets on the same wires.

Of course, with a radial circuit, if the wire breaks or comes loose the power goes out and you'll notice. With a ring circuit, if the wire breaks on one end, the other end is now theoretically overloaded, but everything will keep working until you actually put a big load on it, and then it'll catch fire. And the breaker won't trip because it's sized for two wires. DIY Dad is going to have a much worse time if he fucks up.

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