Question for the NES Electricians

Disclaimer: I am not an electrician, and every wiring job I have EVER done has been checked by a certified electrician prior to the walls being drywalled. I wired a house in Florida, a house we fortified and wired with 220 for lights and appliances in Iraq, and recently, my buddies basement was completely framed out and wired to make it a man-cave.

That being said, I would see if the 220 line can be intercepted at the breaker box and disconnected, then re-routed to a dedicated 15amp breaker. Then you won't have to run new wires, as I'm pretty sure that 110/15A can be run on the same wire as a 220/20a(12/3 Romex, I think). The outlet would have to be changed to fit the new plug, but that would seem like the most cost effective course of action in my mind, assuming that meets all the housing codes. 14/2 is minimum for 15A circuits, as the electrician told us for the basement we just did, with 12/2 for the 20a dedicated and 14/3 for the smoke detectors to link them.

EDIT: Cursory search confirms that 220 and 110 run on the exact same wire gauges, dependent on the total amps running through them. So the wires in there now should work fine for 110.

Edit for clarification:

I am speaking of the 220 line that already feeds the electric range, not the 110 that feeds the microwave. 220 converts to a 110 circuit, the 110 already in place remains untouched. IANAE YMMV

Transformer boxes are not a good idea, thanks to these posts, my knowledge has grown. as such, this post has been edited for clarity and to remove asinine ideas that might have worked in the '80's with equipment that did not exist.

That circuit does not have to dedicated but you shouldn't run it off your microwave. if there is nothing else close by just run a new wire back to panel instead of bumping off something else you'll save yourself a bigger assache. A 15 amp circuit should be all you need, I think the power is for a clock and ignition for the gas burners.

BigTig helped me out Give him a PM.

220 is just 2 110 lines. You could easily split the current circuit into 2 110 circuits. You should replace the 220 breaker with 2 110 breakers or you could just disconnect the extra hot wire (usually red) and disconnect it in the panel and install a 110 breaker and a 110 outlet. If it is a 4 conductor circuit you should have a black, red white and either bare or green wire
black and red are both hot 110 , white is neutral and green or bare is ground.

Originally Posted by Scarecrow

That being said, unless there is some kind of transformer that can be mounted in-line on a 220 circuit to step it down to 110, I don't think there is any way to do that.

In the US 220 residential is 2-phase (both ends of the transformer) Neutral (mid-point or "center tap" of the transformer) and an Earth ground. So you don't use a "step-down" transformer to convert from 220 to 110 like you would going from European power (single phase 220) to US residential (single phase 110). You connect across 1 HOT and the Neutral to get 110. If you pass it through a transformer you'll have 110 two-phase with the nuetral wire sitting 55V from each phase.

I'm also not an electrician, but I've also done a lot of wiring.

You should be able to replace the 2-phase circuit breaker at your distributor box into 2 single phase circuits and split the 4 wires at the current outlet. There may be a code issue with running two outlets off the same neutral line though (electricians should chime in here)

Assuming running a common neutral to seperate plugs is not a code violation:

Pull the 2-phase breaker at the breaker box and replace it with 2 single phase breakers
Pull the 4-conductor 2-phase outlet
Using a 2-plug 15A or 15/20A outlet (only use a 20A outlet if the breaker and wires are rated for 20A also). On the "HOT" line side, locate the bus-bar between the top and bottom outlets (metal tab on the side that shorts the two outlets together) and cut it to seperate the two outlets.
Conenct the bare ground wire to the ground terminal on the new outlet
Connect the insulated neutral wire to one of the neutral terminals on the new outlet (with the bus bar in place, this will connected both plugs to the same nuetral line.
Connect the two hot wires to seperate hot terminals on the outlet (one top and one bottom)
Finish the installation of the 2-plug 15A or 15/20A outlet.

This will result in a single 15A or 15/20A outlet where the top and bottom plugs run on independant circuit breakers.

As I said before, you should verify that running a common neutral wire for two circuits connected to seperate phases is not a code violation.

As a licensed electrician, I love these threads.

And ShadeWPI, the sharing of a neutral by two different branch circuits is a violation. Also, there is no 2-phase. There is two-pole. Unless you're living large, that's a single-phase transformer on the pole nearby.

Spanz, as long as the terminal is rated for it, no big deal. It's the other way around that is the problem, i.e. no 14AWG hooked up to any breaker larger than a 15A.

There is also the issue of what wiring for the range was installed. You're gonna have one hell of a time wrapping an 8AWG or 6AWG around the screw of a 15/20A receptacle, (and that's a definite no-no too, Daffy!).