snip--
[a] I'd personally consider that design
> to be two-phase, since the legs
> are 180 degrees apart, but the
> rest of the world disagrees with
> me and calls it single phase.
I have heard it referred to as split phase 220 ...
snip--
HOWEVER, if you grab two of the hot legs for the circuit, you're NOT
> getting 240V but instead, because it's 120 degree out of phase, you
> get (again, that's separate from the 120V... ) you get:
> 120V * (square root of 3) = 208V
Dropping alternate phases seems common all over the USA.
sidd