I am wondering if these are set up to work as double pole or if they are meant to get 240v from one hot (single pole). Standard single pole european wattage is 220-240v. May need to call mfg.

A modern appliance will not have the ground (or earth as they say on the other side of the pond) connected to either of the current carrying wires. The fact that they would normally have one side of the appliance connected to the earthed conductor shouldn't make a difference if you connect it to an american style system. I've seen several euro 240 appliances (my neighbor is swiss and brought a lot of stuff with him from Europe) care.

I wasn't worried about the ground, was wondering if it required two hots or one. Would it be correct to just wire nut (or splice?) two 120 hots to the one wire that requires 240? Would the two 120s at the connection be at risk of overheating being exposed to 240 total? How is it wired is what I am wondering.

In a word, no it doesn't make a difference. The voltage is 240 in either case. Voltage isn't an absolute. It's always a differential between two points. It makes no difference here if one of the points is referenced to ground (as it is in Europe) or if it is referenced to 120 from ground. As long as the ground is not connected to the circuit the unit has no way of knowing if it is fed from a grounded system or not. In fact, you could feed this thing from an isolation transformer and it wouldn't have ANY reference to ground (not 120, not 240) and it would work the same.

You hook it up just like any other 240v appliance in the US. Two hots and a ground. Neutral is not used. Though I would run the two hots, neutral and ground to the box/receptacle on the wall in case some day someone wants to install a 120/240v appliance.

I'm going all whaaaaaat about this because this means I COULD possibly get UK appliances for my kitchen (220-240) and get them to work without burning the motor? Specifically food processor and blender.

I do have a 3000W transformer for occasional use of electric tools but not sure it'd be ok running kitchen appliances off of one.

What's the cost of getting such a set up for the kitchen?

It's trivial to put a 240 receptacle in the kitchen. As I stated, my Swiss neighbor has one. Alternatively you can use a small countertop transformer made for such things. The problem is then whether the appliance can run on 60 Hz. My mother was gifted a pastamatic from Italy long before they were available in the US. The thing ran on the transformer we obtained, but it overheated and shutdown frequently.

Here with the cooktops she's talking about, it is OK because it's explicitly spec'd to run at either 50 or 60 Hz (in fact, I suspect the thing converts things to DC before it does anything with it). You'll need to check your individual appliance you want to use ESPECIALLY anything with a motor (small hand appliances like mixers typically have "universal" motors which won't care), large things...stand mixers, pasta machines, etc... may indeed have problems.

Sigh, I will call my questions a bona-fide brain fart. Sorry about that. I was thinking that cooktop used their standard outlet type with one hot, one neutral, and one ground since they are normally at 240v over there. I was thinking the neutral on their plug was not interchangeable with a hot.

Good to know. I did note that most appliances say 60Hz though.... does it matter if they have a universal motor but state that frequency?

If it says 60Hz you should be good in the US (we're 60 Hz).

Blekh -doing too much at once - I meant to say 50Hz.

Trying to use a 50Hz motor on 60Hz will not be good for either your pocket book or the motor.

2nd thing is that a US 240v outlet won't have the same prongs as a Euro plug. You'll have to change the plug on the Euro appliance. Not a big deal, just be aware.

Yep, have about a dozen international converters so that won't be an issue but I guess the bigger problem is the frequency. I thought it may not matter as Ron Natalie stated earlier the case of universal motors.

Translationalq, I can verify that a European appliance rated 50-60 hz will run on US 220-240V. For a while, I ran a British kettle on a normal US 220 v 15 amp outlet with a plug converter. When I had my kitchen renovated, I asked my electrician to install an actual British outlet. He was happy to do so, but wouldn't guarantee that it would pass inspection. Meanwhile, the kettle runs great.

ooh, you got him to install a British outlet, how wonderful. The 110 kettles take so long to boil water when you are used to the 220 ones - lol.

I'm very tempted to buy a UK kettle again on my trip in a few days because of this very reason! Can you confirm if you passed inspection and everything still working alright?

I think it's definitely worth the investment if you use a kettle a lot. British kettles are a lot cheaper than American ones, and boil water in less than 1/2 the time. I'm not sure it's worth the effort to actually buy a kettle in the UK though, when you can simply buy one on Amazon UK and have it shipped here. A good basic kettle on Amazon goes for GBP20 (about $31). If you have it shipped to the US, you'll save 20% VAT ($6) and pay GBP13 (about $20) shipping. So it will cost you an extra $14 to have it shipped home, and save the hassle of trying to fit a bulky item in your luggage.

I ordered the outlet and back box from Amazon UK as well, but had those shipped to my hotel room on my last trip to the UK, as many of those items won't ship to the U.S.

Putting in an actual UK-style outlet was a small affectation on my part. It's absolutely not necessary, as the kettle will work perfectly well on a standard US 15 amp 220 V circuit. You'll just need either a converter plug or to cut off the kettle plug head, and put a new one on. Most people simply change the plug heads, as the converters loosen up over a period of time.

As far as the inspection goes, my electrician thought that the biggest risk would be that the inspector would require it to be a GFI outlet (even though the plug isn't near water). In that case, he said that he could come back and put a GFI breaker on the circuit. I was still a bit worried though, as my town has pretty strict inspectors, and switching the circuit back to a standard American one would be expensive (as a British back box is a different size than an American one - so you'd have to open up the wall, replace the box & outlet, and then re-tile). In the end, I unplugged the kettle and put the microwave in front of the outlet. The inspector never noticed it.

Hmm....need to find an electrician easy to work with them! Most I've spoken to seem too afraid of unfamiliar territory.

Didn't know about the backbox issue..I was told that if the item doesn't say UL on it, they won't install it. I pretty much gave up at that point.

British plugs are not UL listed, as UL doesn't exist in the UK. Instead they comply with a British standard called BS1363. In fact, a BS1363 plug is the safest plug in the world for several reasons. First, the ground pin on the plug is longer than the other 2 pins. So the appliance is always grounded before electricity is delivered to the device. Second, the electrical sockets are covered by shutters that won't open unless the ground pin is first inserted into the sockets. This is much safer than the standard tamper-resistant American outlets. Third, the plug has a fuse in it providing an additional layer of protection in addition to the fuse on the breaker box. Finally, the plug is designed in a way that it can't be removed by yanking on the cord. I found an article about this somewhere online and showed it to my electrician before he agreed to install it.

Here is the outlet & back box that I ordered while I was in the UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00BF15XFK?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008LTH1T0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00

You can see that they're very cheap, so there's not much risk in buying them and then seeing if your electrician will install it.

The biggest issue from my perspective is that British and American back boxes are different sizes. So a British outlet won't screw onto an American back box, and an American outlet won't screw onto a British one. So if you do convince your electrician to install it and the inspector makes you change everything back, then it will be a bit of a headache.

As I said before though, there's absolutely no reason you can't run a British kettle from a standard 220V American outlet. Just get a converter (Quick220.com sells them for $6, or get a NEMA 6-15R plug ($8.50 at Home Depot) and change the plug (or ask your electrician to do it).

I did think of doing the plug change but I wasn't sure how well the new ones would work. Having done that before going UK to EU plugs, they always felt like a hack job rather a proper one. Maybe it was a poor hack?

I'd feel better if the plug was the original but if it can be done in a way that leaves the plug and appliance just as safe, its probably less hassle than the whole socket change.... then theres the matter of later resale and the pain of having to change to US outlets for that.

We've been using converters for small electronics so far and a 3000W transformer for the drill machine and other bits of heavy duty tools that are only used in short bursts, a few times a year.

Have you got a UK Food processor by any chance? I've bought and returned at least 3 if not 4 of the US ones. Even the Kenwood one here isn't really as high powered as the UK one. I'm debating if I really need one or I feel I need one because I grew up with my mum havign at least two in the house along with a cupboard full of every kind of kitchen electronic you can get.

I think Europeans are used to hacking off plugs and putting on cheap standard plugs when they move around. In the U.S. though, 220V is generally used only for heavy-duty appliances, and the plugs tend to be heavy duty as well. Look at this one from Home Depot:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Pass-Seymour-15-Amp-250-Volt-NEMA-6-15P-Industrial-Grade-Plug-PS5666XCCV4/100206376

I don't think you would have to worry about this plug or its connections loosening up. It is a bit ugly to have sitting on your kitchen counter, though, which is why I decided to take a chance on a British outlet.

There are 2 other possibilities, both of which I've tried and can vouch for. The first is a simple plug converter from Quick220.com:

http://www.quick220.com/ADAP001.html

I used this when I first wanted to prove that the kettle would work on American 220V, and the converter worked fine. Please note though, that it's not a transformer, and you'll still need a 220v circuit. Quick220 also makes devices that will plug into 2 off-phase 110V circuits and give you a 220V circuit. It's a bit of work finding 2 off-phase circuits, but the guy at Quick220 is very helpful and will walk you through it. If you don't want to have new circuits put in right away, this might be a better solution than using a transformer.

Finally, you can get a custom extension cord made using a British receptacle on one end and an American plug on the other. I had one made at stayonline.com before we had our kitchen renovation done and it worked perfectly. The cost is about $42, depending on the length of cord ordered. If you're interested in this option, let me know and I'll walk you through how to do it.

We don't plan on selling our house anytime soon, so putting things back to an American standard wasn't really a consideration for us. If we did sell the house, I suppose I would try to leave the socket as is and give the buyer a nice British kettle as a housewarming gift. Otherwise, the circuit could simply be disconnected at the breaker and the outlet tiled over.

We don't use a food processor very much, but I can see how a British unit might be more powerful than an American one. Check the wattage to make sure. I had thought about getting additional UK outlets in our kitchen for a toaster and Nespresso machine, but the U.K. units were no more powerful than the American versions.