I have 220 circuit going to a water heater I want a 110 outlet from this can I cut into this and how to do it

Question

I have 220 circuit going to a water heater I want a 110 outlet from this can I cut into this and how to do it

Answer 1

OK... let me see you haven't gotten any good answers yet... let me see if this helps.

On a hot water heater there normally is no neutral wire (white), so you really do not have the capability of even having 120v at an outlet.  It would be much better to just add a new breaker in your panel, depending what you want to use the outlet for.  You could even find a place where there has been a splice made, usually in a light box.  Just make sure it's a constant power source not one controlled by a switch.  Lowes.com has some good how-to stuff and even in the store itself they have an example of how to wire certain items up.

I have over 6 years experience in the field and I also teach electrical classes.  Hopefully this helped some.

Answer 2

Not possible; the water heater will have two ungrounded (hot) conductors and a groundING conductor; it will not have the groundED conductor (neutral) that you will need for a 120 Volt circuit.

Answer 3

you really can't have it two ways and have either work correctly.

What happens is that both the 240 volt line and the 120 volt line would become unbalanced, and you would find yourself re-setting circuit breakers every now and then. Afterawhile the wirings insullation would become brittle and the circuit breakers would wear out from so much overheating.

Answer 4

No, Plain and simple...

Answer 5

It is not safe to pull 110V circuit off a 220V circuit.

If anything goes wrong with the 110V circuit, the breaker will NOT trip.  This can be a fire hazard.  

Have an electrician run a proper circuit from an existing 110V circuit or a completely new circuit from the breaker box.

Answer 6

Call a licensed electrician.  No amateur should try what you propose.

Answer 7

You can do it...........you just need one leg and a neutral....but you should have a pro do it...........you need a junction box and the real truth is.........the hot water tank should be on it's own circuit for a reason.............just depends what your going to be stealing from Peter to pay Paul for: not much I hope.:)

Answer 8

It's easy. Take one leg of the 220 and the common to your new outlet.

Regardless, get an electrician to do it though.

Answer 9

you should run a separate 110V run, but you COULD, if you really wanted to, and it would not be exactly legal, pull the hot and netural off the 220V and run it to a 110V outlet.

Follow the grounds to both the 110 and the 220v boxes.

The really bad thing about this setup is that it will not be on a breaker, it will be on the 220v breaker, but since the 220v breaker is basically two 110v breakers held together at the throw, if something happened on the 110v side, it may not be able to cause the breaker to open.

remember, if you burn down your house, and the inspectors see hthis, you will not be able to claim insurance.