[sbradford26]

So your first statement is correct for apartments and condos. Typically 3 phase comes into the building then each unit gets 2 phases and a neutral ran to them. This actually works out to 208V phase to phase but phase to neutral is still 120v. Appliances like cooktops and ovens are definitely less power when ran off of 208v. For single family homes you only get a single phase, a center tapped transformer steps down the voltage to 240V leg to leg so coming into the house is two legs from the transformer and the center tap which is your neutral. Some really large houses sometimes get 3 phase but that is very rare. Usually large houses will just bump to 400 amp service.