[Amps] 240V Outlet

[Gudguyham at aol.com]

In a message dated 8/11/2009 3:28:13 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
jim at audiosystemsgroup.com writes:

You  should not change the outlets. NEMA 5-20P plugs come installed 
>only on  equipment drawing just under 15 amperes up to 20 amperes. 
>If the  equipment draws this much current, it should have a 
>dedicated circuit.  Using NEMA 5-20R receptacles for general purpose
>outlets invites you to  easily overload the circuit. All you have to
>do is plug in two items  using this configuration.



Standard house wiring usually contains a string of about 10 15A 120v   
receptacles.  This is  perfectly legal, so technically one could plug  in 30 15 
amp devices in all of them on the one circuit.  This is why the  circuit is 
protected by a 15A breaker to limit the current draw on the entire  chain of 
outlets.  Code only requires a "dedicated" outlet under certain  conditions 
based on the load item it serves.  At that point it reverts to  the mfg. of 
the load involved and if they require it to be a dedicated  circuit.