• PetteriPano@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I live in a 50 year old house. All the breakers are 16A, so 220V x 16A = 3.5kW

    The electric sauna does three-phase @ 400V. My energy tracker usually peaks around 9.5kW when it’s heating.

    • RejZoR@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Most are actually 230V which is even more at standard 16A, 3680W to be precise.

      Countries that use 110V have so many weird limitations that we don’t even know in Europe. For them, 230V is the “special” outlet for special purposes.

      • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Actually, in the US the outlets are often wired with 1 leg, while giving 2 legs gets you back to 240v.

        110 is probably better in terms of general safety (which is good because our houses are death traps), but it means when you do need power you need a special circuit.

        We should have both more common, but the plugs are terrible (basically they turn the left prong 90 deg).

    • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Nominally EU voltage is 230V, and may be 240V. In fact, it can be as high as 230V +10% = 253V. Higher voltage means more power for a given current, so nominally it’s 16A x 230V = 3.68kW, but you could have say 16A x 250V = 4.0kW.

      If your sauna is 400V then it sounds like you’ll be 230V (400V / sqrt(3) = 230). But the voltage can also be 230V -6% = 216V, so 220V is within scope.

      But yeah, standard voltages in the EU are either 230V/400V or 240V/415V. They’ve been harmogenised, but if you look at the numbers you’ll see the trick - 230V +10% is roughly the same as 240V +6%. So the range is 230V-6% and 240V+6%.

      You’ve got a 3 phase connection though so you might find you’ve got different single phase breakers on different phases (eg lights on one phase, sockets on another), with slightly different voltages for each one.