Home electrical question

[myndflyte]

I'm remodeling my kitchen and when I took down the drywall, all of the outlets were wired correctly (120V) but there was this one red wire that seemed out of place. In the process of adding some more outlets, that red wire got hooked up to a series of outlets. When we checked them, there were several outlets running at 240V.

There is this random 240V plug in my kitchen and it seems like in order to get it to 240, they just ran two 120V live wires to it. I'm guessing this is not normally how one would wire a 240V outlet?

Since then, we've disconnected that red wire from the electrical box for safety reasons. I have to think that something like that is really out of code.

 

[Tartan1]

Could the original install have been a split receptacle? It would have had 2 120VAC feeds (red and black) to one receptacle but the hot blade (on the receptacle) will be separated (broken). If you trace back to the breaker/fuse panel you might see a joined (bridged) breaker/fuse.

 

[MaxStout]

240V is just 2 legs of 120V each. Red and black are each a 120V hot, in relation to neutral. The sum of red and black is 240V.