LastYearsIrritant comments on The "standard" car charger is usually overkill—but your electrician might not know that [32:26]

[–] LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 year ago (6 children)

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Any modern US house would have a similar capability, it's just older homes that would struggle since there would never be a need for such high power devices in a garage.

Most older garages would only need enough power to run a single lightbulb, if it was slightly newer, maybe a low power automatic garage door opener.

It's the same in any country with buildings over 100 years old.

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[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

It’s the same in any country with buildings over 100 years old.

In here 100+ year old houses are pretty common but practically all of them still have at least somewhat up to date electrics with that 3-phase input. It's been around for decades after all. My house is built originally 1928 and my mothers house is from 1909 and both of them have 3x25A main breakers with those 380V 16A CEE sockets around.

And as garages commonly double as a work space with 3-phase induction motors on the tools it's still pretty common to have that 3x16A available as it's not that much more expensive to pull 5x2.5mm² cable to the garage compared to 3x2.5mm² for single phase 16A outlet.

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[–] antimidas@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago*

Also, it's typically not that expensive to upgrade your panel, if you live in a zoned area. Buildings in the unzoned area typically have good electrical connections since in the countryside you typically want access to three phases.

As an example for moving from older single phase service to 3x25A, it costs around 810 € typically, with 2000-3000 € as a worst case scenario. That's in Lahti, Finland – in Espoo it seems to be around 500 €

Of course there's then the need to upgrade the panel as well, but that's a relatively simple operation.

My childhood home had 3x90A breakers since it originally had a resistive heat setup, in a relatively large building (plus some other energy intensive equipment housed there). In reality it was far too much even then, the max load we calculated under full load was more like 25-30 kW.

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[–] antimidas@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Yep – US also doesn't generally do residential three-phase unlike many countries in the EU. A lot of garages around here have 3x16A 230V, not (only) due to the power requirements but because having three phases allows for simplest induction motors for things like blowers and circular saws. When you have three phases having a proper outlet in the garage starts making sense.

Around here (Finland more specifically) we have three-phase even in most apartments. My two bedroom apartment has a 3x25A main breaker, and two devices on 3x16A circuit's – the sauna stove and oven+stovetop. Most single-family homes have 3x25A or 3x36A as well.

US households are missing out on a lot of things due to their split-phase system.

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[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

having three phases allows for simplest induction motors for things like blowers and circular saws

Which is really nice. No capacitors or other electronics needed. My old drill press has 750W 3-phase motor and it just works. Also having the power available gives options like running a 7kW log splitter with circular saw at the end of 20 meter long extension cord.

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[–] mholiv@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

Ohh! I spent some time in the U.S. and there are 230v mains available. They just have special plugs. All homes have 230v. It’s just not available through the shocked face plug.

https://youtu.be/jMmUoZh3Hq4

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[–] antimidas@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I might've been unclear, I don't mean 230 V by itself, but three-phase distribution. The standard socket is labeled either 3x16A 230V alternatively labeled 380V 16A. Typically uses an IEC 60309 plug that looks like this:

(Source: https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/IEC60309_2.html)

Three phase has other benefits besides just more power, the US has it with their lower voltage as well, but typically reserved just for larger buildings.

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