I bought an appliance and it says I need a 15 amp NEMA (standard) outlet to plug it into. The picture looks like that of a household plug outlet, 2 prongs and 1 bar, but drawing is round instead of oval. Says if not available to call electrician. Are these the same (household outlet and the NEMA 15 amp)?
Yes. A standard wall outlet is 110, 115, or 120. They are all the same thing. The big plug like for your drier or stove is a 220 or 240 depending on who you ask. Just for your information, the only time a few volts made a difference was with older TVs. If you remember, some TVs when plugged into a different outlet the picture was just a little too big or too small for the screen. This was due to the slight differences in the voltage. For example if the TV was designed and set up for 115v and your outlet was 120v it would not hurt the TV but the very outside edges of the picture would be cut off since the picture was bigger than the screen, if that makes sense.
Its a standard outlet, and can be used anywhere. If it shows only one outlet it could be saying that it needs to be dedicated but realistically any outlet that is in the laundry area of your home is already supposed to be independent of any other outlets. No big deal.
It is a normal 120VAC outlet that is required. If it is a replacement appliance plug it into the outlet its predecessor used. If there are any problems you may find the main breaker trip, and at that point you can look into a dedicated circuit. Otherwise plug it in and be happy.
What they are describing is a single outlet rather than the normal duplex outlet that we are all familiar with. They want you to have a dedicated single outlet protected by a 15A. circuit breaker. Most house receptacles are on a 20A. circuit and for some reason they want you to protect the appliance with only 15A. hence the different receptacle. Since you do not state what appliance this is I cannot advise you if the regular duplex 20A. receptacle would be OK to use. If they want you to use the NEMA 5-15R it would be best to follow their recommendation and have a dedicated line run protected with a 15A. breaker. I just noticed that you asked about the six outlet power bar. This is not exactly what they want but those power bars are usually protected with a 15A. mini breaker. You could use that but do not plug anything else into the other outlets on the bar and try to connect the power bar into a dedicated line. It seems that the appliance manufacturer wants the device protected by a 15A breaker and does not want the power robbed by anything else plugged into that circuit.
