I got a 70 years old chandelier from Turkey that is wired in 220V. The seller told me that the electric cable has been recently changed and that it will work in 110 or 220V.
I'm in Canada where the cabling is all 110V. The wiring of the chandelier is different from here and I was wondering if it's safe to use here… And if so, how to install it? My father is working in the home improvement industry and is able to install anything electric related but I want to make checks before.
Best Answer
There are a few things that would make me nervous about doing this:
For a given wattage, bulbs rated for 110 V will draw over twice as much current as those rated for 240 V. For example, 60 W @ 240 V is 250 mA; 60 W @ 110 V is 550 mA. Are the supply wires going to be able to carry enough current for as many bulbs and at the wattage you want? The extra live wire is probably to allow independent control of parts of the chandelier from two light switches, so the limiting factor will be the neutral.
In any light fixture that you could buy in the US or Canada, any exposed metal parts that could be energized in a fault would be grounded. Your photos don't show a ground lead -- is there one, and is it hooked up correctly?
My advice would be to talk to an antique dealer that specializes in lighting. I imagine that there's a market for importing and/or updating fixtures to current standards, and they would probably be able to put you in touch with someone who could do any work that's required.
Installation should be easy once it's ready. US wiring has color coded wires for live and neutral; if Canada is the same, you'd probably need to tag the neutral wire to indicate that it is neutral.