alt.energy.homepower

-> In the UK, purchase appliance, take home, plug in, use. Move
-> appliance to any UK house or office, plug in, use.

It's the same in North America for the vast majority of appliances that
use 110 volts. Just plug them in and use them. If they need to be
grounded, the plug will have a third pin which any wall outlet will
accept. If they don't need ground, just put the two pins into the two
holes that will accept them.

Only if 220 volts are needed do things get more complicated, depending
on power rating and whether 110 volts are also required. Big plugs,
with as many as four pins (ground, neutral, and two hot), are used. Of
course, it is impossible to accidentally plug a 110-volt appliance into
a 220-volt outlet, or vice versa.

I guess I'm older than you. In Britain when I first started playing
with these things, there were about half a dozen different sizes and
shapes of plug. Appliances were sold with no plugs on their power
cords. After buying one and taking it home, the first task was to get a
plug that would fit in whatever outlet you intended to use, and fix it
onto the cord.

Drove foreigners crazy!

dow