Can you adapt a vintage British teasmade to work in the US?

Vintage teasmades are hard to find in the United States, so some enthusiasts choose to source them in the UK and import them.

However, if a teamade is of British origin, there will be problems caused by the difference in voltage and hertz. 

Voltage

UK voltage is different from the USA. In American houses with a 120 volt supply you will need to use a transformer to step up the voltage. These can be obtained from specialist shops and internet suppliers.

Hertz

The USA electricity supply has 60 rather than 50 cycles. This difference makes any UK electric clock run 20% fast when used in the USA. Unfortunately there is no easy solution to this problem. You cannot, for example, buy a frequency converter at a practical price or size to use with a bedside appliance.

The only reasonable alternative is to use a separate electronic (digital) timer.

This can be deployed in two ways:

1. Use the timer to stop the unit receiving power for 3 hours 12 minutes during the daytime (the time will be approximately correct when going to bed), then using the same digital timer stop the power by 1 hour 36 minutes during the night. This (with occasional minor adjustment) will give a accurate alarm at the correct time in the morning. With a seven day digital timer you could even set the tea maker up for a different brewing time at the weekend!
2. Set the unit to manual/tea now and use the timer to switch the power on 15 mins before you want tea and off 15 after. Again, with a seven day timer you can alter the brewing time for weekends. For example, to make the tea maker work an hour later at weekends, interupt the supply for 1 hour after tea is made on Friday and again for 11 hours on Sunday. The clock will be right again on Monday.

Can you re-gear the clock?

We received this question in 2002:

My husband and I just bought a Swan Teasmade on e-Bay and had it shipped (at an expense nearly matching that of the appliance itself) here to us in California. We bought a step up power transformer that was capable of supplying it with the 220v and 800+ watts that it needs. It makes great tea. Because power here in the US runs at 60hZ as opposed to the British 50hZ the clock runs 10 minutes fast on every hour. Is there a Teasmade clock expert out there who can direct us to instructions on re-gearing our clock? An alternative would be for us to pull out the power on the clock and power it on a power supply that would not supply the high wattage, but would run at 50hZ. Thoughts? We're very much enjoying our Teasmade.

Doug replied:

I doubt it would be possible to re-gear the clock. If you do not need the clock for telling the time (most people have a digital bedside appliance) then set the switch to manual and use an electronic timer to switch on 15mins before you want your tea and off 10 mins later. The beauty of an electronic timer is that they can be set to switch on/off at different times on different days. I have one set up to go off an hour later at weekends. It works fine.
Cheers, Doug

If you have been put off by these complications, check out my list of teasmades available in the United States.