I am not sure what I said about the microwave before. I looked at mine that is around 20 years old or more, maybe 30 and it has the 3 prong plug. I may have thought it only had 2 wires as I gave a quick look in the kitchen and saw a receptical with 2 devices with 2 wires in it. Turns out they are the toster oven and a can opener. The microwave was pluged in behind it and out of sight before I moved it for a look.
My mistake, mine does have 3 wires. Looked at the wrong receptical. See another post.
GFCI receptacles work fine on multiwire (Edison) circuits as long as you use 2 of them. (One on each leg at the split in a quad box) You can't have too many receptacles in the kitchen anyway these days. I have exactly the scenario you are talking about in mine and all 4 have something plugged in all the time. I am pissed I didn't do at least 3 duplexes or even 4.
That's OK I was wrong about the year the NEC required kitchen GFCIs (it was 87 and the ones near the sink). At least we corrected our mistake. ;-)
I think that's pretty much what I had just said... :)
I was curious as to what style was on a 1940s appliance--I can't recall ever having any such until well after then...just curious as would have required here anyway to have replace the wall socket to use the device or use a polarized adapter because there weren't any polarized sockets at all until folks redid the house in the late 70s/early 80s. That could have been pretty common back then...
OT: I wonder now many people know about that method of showing control characters. CTRL-H used to show that as you type.
One thing that has a non-polarized plug is a string of miniature Christmas lights. These have 2 little fuses in them.
It almost never showed the sequence '^H' when you type. Instead, it backspaced over the most recently typed character.
I am not sure how they are connected, but I seem to have plenty in the kitchen. Two on one counter, two on another, one behind the refrigerator that is for it only,one at the end of a bar that one end is at a wall, two more near floor level that could be used.
Speaking of the Edison circuit reminds me of a problem at work. One receptical had power, but as soon as anything was pluged into it and turned on, the GFCI would trip. I finally found that whoever wired up the room had ran a neutral from another circuit to that receptical and that neutral to a different receptical that was paired with a different breaker.
In one general area I have a can opener, toaster, food processor and 2 wall warts plugged in. The next duplex down the counter has the coffee maker and a wall wart for the answering machine. Out of 8 in 4 feet I have 1 empty slot.
All the outlets installed in out (at the time) 88 year old house in
1957-58 were polarized. It was rewired in 1957-58 - had only one outlet in the kitchen and one light in each room prior to that. Rewired the whole house with grounded romex.
Canadian code required the outlets to be "split" in the kitchen. That's 2 circuits for each duplex outlet. Didn't matter how many you installed - if they were at a "countertop" they had to be split - impossible to plug in more than 1 15 amp device per circuit.
Will do it every time - - -
Is "split" a technical term in the code and what does it mean? If it's a shared neutral/Edison circuit, then why can't you support two 15a or two 20a loads, one on each half?
Still almost 20 yr too late for the 40s toaster, though! :)
Progressive altho not totally remarkable for by then...reminds me of the "little house" in which I grew up (that was bought and moved to the farm when the Army Air Force base for training B-26 pilots was built as it was on that property west of town) was remodeled in early 50s...I'm sure the addition which included a new kitchen was 3-wire but don't recall that the rest of the house was rewired then.
Both houses were re-wired in '47/'48 when the REA power reached us but that was done with 2-wire. Prior to that were on the 32VDC Delco windcharger system...but grandparents house was wired K&T when built in '14/'15 with an essentially modern layout of lights and outlets even back then. There's still a fair amount of the old cloth wiring abandoned in place...I don't know about the little house; when folks did the big house and moved over, it was sold and moved to town so it was located in its third location in about 40 years...
Reminiscing is interesting...
You only had one receptacle per circuit? What was the counter spacing requirement? I can see the number of circuits required for a reasonable sized kitchen soaring.
The house I lived in from 54 to 65 was a "GI Bill house" (built in 54) and at that time 3 wire Romex was required although they still used
1-15 (2 pin) receptacles. They were polarized but I don't remember actually seeing a polarized plug cap until the late 70s. I know for sure the "Hot Chassis" TVs and radios were not because the rule was if you got shocked, flip the plug over.
That's interesting...all the stuff Dad pulled from the old house is in a box in the hayloft as well as an old bushel basket that's been there since '48 that has most if not all the old Delco DC-rated stuff. I'll have to double check but I don't think there's a single one that is polarized socket.
I did think to look at the old toaster with the unpolarized plug at breakfast this AM...it is a replacement hardware store plug, not original. I do recall when I had it apart to rearrange the internals after one of grandkids got excessively physical with prying to retrieve a caught piece of bread that as somebody noted, the switch is double-pole...I would presume they are all that given the lever action it's trivial to build that way; harder not to.
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That just doesn't sound reasonable...something missing in the translation here, methinks...
My wife's 1957 GE clock radiuo stilkl has the original polarized plug on it. The cord in my '46 philco (with a power transformer) is not polarized. My old heathkit VTVM has a non polarized plug too - about the 3 oldest electrical devices left in my house.
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