Using 120v wire for 240v????

[WobblyHand]

Excellent, glad you stepped it. I am a mechanical guy, do a little electric but attempt not to provide advice that might cause problems. I think Tq60's understanding of Watts is a bit off as well, would you please elaborate on that as well since that misunderstanding can cause problems.

@tq60 's explanation a couple posts above is actually correct. Nothing he wrote was incorrect, although there were a lot of words...

The reason transmission lines are high voltage is to reduce power loss due to the resistance of the wires. By increasing the voltage by a factor of a 1000, say to 230KV, the power disapated in the wires is reduced by 1,000,000 (1 million). Increasing the voltage (for the same power) proportionally reduces the current. An increase of voltage by 1000, reduces the current to 1/1000 of it's original value.

But P = I x I x R, therefore the new power loss due to the wires is P = 1/1000000 Io x R. So there's a great incentive to increasing the voltage. It costs the power companies transformers, but this is still economic. Lost power is unbillable revenue. So high voltage transmission lines are used everywhere, for the power companies to maximize power delivery and reduce their costs.