120V in the USA

[ppppenguin]

Apart from Robin Hood, I didn't realise that Nottingham was such a lawless place. Now if you'd said Durham and Barnard Castle......

A socket wired for 240V in the USA will be have both live and neutral at 120V wrt earth. OK until you're dealing with live chassis kit when an isolating transformer will be essential.

Which reminds me of a conundrum about UK installations. We usually use single pole MCBs and RCBOs that only interrupt the phase wire. But according to the regulations, both phase and neutral are to be treated as live wires. The neutral is normally pretty close to earth but it's often a few volts away and amps can sometimes flow if you connect them together. There are differences between TT, TNS and TNC-S (PME) but that's not the point. If you're working on a circuit then the usual procedure is to turn off the MCB, lock it off (or lock the consumer unit) and keep the key while you're working. But that leaves the neutral technically live.

PS: Wouldn't have been an RCD on that hairdryer, it's a GFI over there