Can You Run A 240v Heater On 120v

However your 240v wiring is a miss.

Can you run a 240v heater on 120v.

You are indeed spot on that your heater will draw 9 375a when connected across a 120v supply. Clothes dryers water heaters and and other high power 240 volt appliances cannot be run. Yes you can wire a 240 volt rated water heater with 120 volts exchanging the second hot red wire for a white neutral wire to the neutral bus. To get 240v from a 120v supply you use a 120 240v step up transformer.

As we know that the same water heater rated for 240v can be operated on 120v. If so the heater element may damage or burn out which may leads to fire. Prograde certified electrical contractor replied 2 years ago no a 50 amp circuit is not suitable for that use in that manner. Double pole right circuit breaker.

Generally a 240 volt circuit breaker will have a double pole due to the large supply of energy that is needed to power the heater. Contrast with a properly wired 240v circuit which can carry 3840 watts or almost 3x as much that is why baseboard heaters are mostly 240v. Single pole left vs. Keep in mind that you can t operate a 120v water heater on 240v ac.

And your 120v wiring is correct as well you are indeed correct that the two water heater hots should be connected to hot and neutral of the 120v supply and the supply ground should ground the water heater. Because of ohm s law and the fact that the resistance of the circuit stays the same half the voltage means the watts of heating energy generated is reduced to one quarter of what it was at 240 volts. There are no adaptors. So it wouldn t matter if you got a big baseboard heater that is 120v you couldn t hook it up anyway.

Electrical circuit breakers should have amperage marked on the togle handle or on the top part of the module. A 120 volt will normally have a single pole.