Who's rewired their house for this hobby?

[Chuck Guzis]

On 11/25/2014 12:17 PM, Eric Smith wrote:

> On the other hand, distributing three-phase to residences, while great
> for people with shop equipment or old computers, seems like expensive
> overkill for normal homes.

And expensive.  Copper isn't cheap and a 3-phase distribution 
transformer costs considerably more than a single-phase one--and 
provides very little advantage.

I'll submit that if your goal is phase-to-phase balancing, distributing 
single-phase to individual residences and then shifting the residences 
to one phase or the other is probably better in that respect.  In 
Germany, ordinary wall receptacles are single-phase, so depending on the 
homeowner to phase-balance his load is probably not the best policy.  On 
the other hand, doing the same for multi-residence (i.e. apartment 
blocks) does make sense.

The homes on my loop (each has its own single-phase stepdown 
transformer, but the loop itself is fed by 3-phase HV) are, every few 
years, rebalanced.  Each residence has a large green distribution box 
where the property line meets the street.  All three HV lines come into 
each box--re-balancing is just a matter of of swapping connections in 
the box.  Takes but a few minutes.

This may not be typical for the US, but my utility is a rural electric 
co-op, so there's less emphasis on profits and more on member benefits.

--Chuck