Electrical Tips for Wireless Home Lighting

Video Transcript

"Michael Raines, Expert Village. Now, moving on with our X10 systems. Let me give you a rundown of basic electricity. I'm going to start all the way up on the high power lines. If you look outside of your house, if you have high power lines there going to be on the top row of the telephone pole. Those are the high voltage lines. And, I mean high voltage. Anywhere from five thousand to fifteen thousand volts up high. Now, what's the deal with the high voltage? High voltage flows faster and easier through thinner wire. The higher the voltage, the thinner the wire, the faster the current flows. I won't get into too much detail, but that's specifics of it. Now, you say oh well it's fifteen thousand volts up top on that pole. How do I get a hundred and ten to my house? Simple. You're going to see big round grey canisters, those are transformers. It's going to be from the high voltage down to the container or canister, which is the transformer. They're usually grey. They're what blow up in a storm or blow up in a hurricane. Oh, the transformer blew; my neighborhood is out of power. That's what it is. It takes the fifteen thousand volts from on top of the telephone pole and transfers it into a transformer and changes it into two hundred and twenty volts. Basically, transforms it. That's why it's called a transformer. So, now fifteen thousand volts down into the canister our transformer gives us two hundred and twenty volts. Now, that's ready for service to the house. Two hundred and twenty volts is what actually comes to your house. Didn't know that, did you? So, you have basically three wires coming into your house. One and two legs are a hundred and ten volts each, the middle one is called the neutral. So, there you have it. You have two twenty with a neutral. One ten, one ten equals two twenty. Now, that's what is called three phased. And, that's three wires coming to your house into your main panel. Once it gets into your main panel, it splits up into two banks. You're going to have your neutral in the middle, left and right bank and the breakers are going to be connected. So, if you have a washer and dryer that works off of two twenty you get the two twenties straight into the washer and dryer. If you have appliances, television, stereo that takes one ten it will take the neutral, one ten or one ten, either side and just run the one ten and the neutral off to your appliance. So, you actually have two twenty into your house. But, it's split off into one ten on either leg as we say."