They are available here in the Netherlands, and are/were commonly used to connect a washer and a dryer to a single circuit. These boxes cover the same situation, where a washing machine consumes a lot of power during the phase where it heats the water and could trip the breaker when a dryer which also uses a lot of power is used at the same time.
I don't know if they are available for the same purpose in the USA. And also I don't think they would still work so well as it did in the past, where such household equipment would still have an electromechanical controller and could reliably be paused by just cutting the line current. Todays machines with a microprocessor maybe would not handle this so well. But in your use case (with a close-in heater) that should not be an issue.
Interisting. I guess where you are at the circuit is around 240 volts for everything.
Here in the states most washers use 120 volts and the dryers are on the
240 volt circuit. That way they can be ran at the same time as the wires go back to the breaker box.
I don't know how others do it,but many days my wife will wash 2 or 3 loads of cloths. She will be drying the first load while the 2nd one is washing to save time.
and switchgear, and how peripheral devices are connected to the system - su ch as light fixtures and other devices not plugged in. A hard-wired relay w ould be considered "switchgear" and therefore covered.
hich UL is the most prevalent: UL regulates those devices that connect to t he system above, and has to do with (among many other things) grounding, el ectrical safety, loading, and so forth. This applies to stand-alone (comple te) devices. Note that such devices are "LISTED", not "approved".
- such as a relay in a control, or similar. That part does not stand alone . but may be replaceable. So, if one has a UL device of several parts, one fails, then that part *must* be replaced with a UR part to retain the UL li sting.
has property insurance, and reads the fine print, it will refer to things m eeting code and being properly inspected and so forth. It will also refer t o 'connected devices' or any number of other words for whatever one has to plug into the wall as being "listed".
amage such that the property owner makes a claim - and should the insurance inspector (and there will be one) determine that the cause was this unlist ed/unrecognized device - OOPS! Either the Company will not pay, or if it do es, it will then immediately cancel the policy. And the property owner wil l be quite challenged to get insurance in the future at any reasonable cost .
And combinations of current driven relays and contactors are sold to give priority or non-priority (first come keeps supply) access to limited power supply, e.g. showers or EV charging
Or for a more "interesting" presentation style ...
Breakers (thermal type) can tolerate a short-duration overcurrent, so all you really need is a low-voltage AC relay, coil in series with... the water heater.
Problem: if it turns off the dishwasher, does the electronic controller forget that it was in a cycle, or on a timer, and stay OFF? Old dishwasher controls (cam and motor) would continue after interruption.
Turn it around the other way, and sense current into the dishwasher, turning off the water heater... but the dishwasher has a complex cycle, not a constant current at all, how would you know the right current-draw threshold?
It can be done, but running another circuit to the kitchen is easier. While you're at it, see if 240V heaters are available, the wire won't have to be as heavy...
Here we have 230v line for all purposes (except industrial stuff which users 3x230v 3-phase, 400v between phases).
The problem would only occur in older installations where there is only a single circuit of maybe only 10A. Nowadays all circuits in homes are 230V/16A. So you can use a total of 3.6kW which should be enough, or else you could have 2 circuits. Main fuse is usually 35A.
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