Who's rewired their house for this hobby?

[Peter Corlett]

On Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 02:46:29PM -0500, Todd Killingsworth wrote:
[...]
> How much of what you collect requires 220v?  How many big boxes do you keep
> running - 24/7 or just turn it on/off as you want to use it?

On this side of the Pond, everything is already nominally 230V and all UK
sockets are good for 13A :)

That's part of the source of the stereotype of the British always having a
kettle on for endless cups of tea: a litre of water boils rather quickly when
one dumps 3kW (i.e. 230V*13A) of heat into it.

> I guess somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized that old machines took
> lots of power.  But do the collectors here wire up their homes and keep
> machines there?  Or do you have another place (old warehouse or somesuch)
> that already supports multiple 220v hookups?  Or do you colo it somewhere?

I don't own anything that draws more than 13A, but if I did, I'd hook it into
the cooker circuit which is good for 40A (or 9kW).  While it would be somewhat
unusual, it is still legal and safe for a DIYer to do that without getting a
professional in.  As it happens, I *have* tapped into the cooker circuit, but
only because it was the most convenient supply for some white goods and not
because I needed the current.

Besides, doesn't the USA also have fairly chunky 220V cooker circuits?  I'd
just dive in with a reel of twin and earth and be done with it.  The only hard
bit is to do it in a tidy enough manner to not get a bollocking off the missus.