Differences between US and U.K. homes

[Youngatheart00]

Just a ponderous thread as it’s my day off and I’ve been thinking, mainly following the abundance of Netflix we’ve all watched over the past year, but also some of my travel experiences (not recently, obviously!)

Some of the differences I’ve noticed are;

• many more of the US homes seem to be fully open plan downstairs. Some don’t even seem to have doors between the rooms?

• the bathroom count / ratio to bedrooms is much higher! (Eg 3 bed / 3 bath or even 2 bed / 2.5 bath)

• heating systems, I don’t recall seeing radiators, instead vents in the floor, are these used to flip between hot and cold air depending on the time of year? How effective / efficient are they compared to our big radiator bars here?

• toilets - they seem smaller and the flushing mechanism is different

• baths - they also seem smaller, short and strangely blocky

• Space and size - all of the bathroom stuff is unusual when the overall size of homes, even cheaper ones, is so much larger. And some ‘back yards’ are absolutely huge! Obviously more land space in the US compared with the U.K. but still, notable but often not much privacy / fencing?

• waste disposal units - what ARE these?

• closets - I haven’t seen any free standing wardrobes. Are these just not used in the US?

Anyone got any others to add or any comments?

You can buy hard liquor in the Evanston Target nowadays :-)

Great news for the current crop of Northwestern students!

I learned to order my beer by the pitcher when I was there...

Why is America so uptight about alcohol? Is it still a hangover from Prohibition?

What American’s describe as ‘small’ (especially in certain states), are actually MASSIVE!! I guess it’s because there’s just a lot more land in somewhere like Texas whereas there’s not so much room here meaning generally smaller houses unless you shell out loads.

Why is America so uptight about alcohol? Is it still a hangover from Prohibition?

That's looking at it a bit backward actually. Prohibition passed originally because of strong religious views that alcohol encouraged sin and criminal behavior. On a national level, it was concluded that the cure was worse than the disease, so it was eventually repealed. That let the controlling law devolve to the states, who then regulated alcohol as they pleased. There are very few places that are completely dry, it's more along the lines of limiting sales on Sundays or not serving alcholo before noon in most places.

@BitOfFun

Why is America so uptight about alcohol? Is it still a hangover from Prohibition?

Not everywhere is. Boston seems little different from the UK in terms of ease of buying alcohol (other than sometimes being carded, always of you look under 30). The people we know drink in much the same way as we do. (They are less worried about drinking and driving but that's another story).

Not everywhere is. Boston seems little different from the UK in terms of ease of buying alcohol

New York is about the same as MA, as is New England generally. Boston drivers are a hazard drunk or sober. When we take DS to uni we detour around the city just to avoid the crazy, aggressive motorists there. The suburbs are better, but only marginally.

US electric kettles seem to be very fancy compared with ours. A friend of mine in SoCal has one and it has different temperature settings depending on what hot drink you want to make.

My kettle has an on/off switch and it boils water... pretty simple.

But don't get me started on how many coffee makers and milk frothers we have in my house...

@BitOfFun

Why is America so uptight about alcohol? Is it still a hangover from Prohibition?

When DH went to a US university in 1987 he was allowed to buy alcohol at 18, then while he was there the age was raised, but he was grandfathered.

I know my oldest (age 19) drinks at university, but when I asked her recently if she's ever actually tried to buy alcohol, and she said 'God no, I get people to buy it for me. I don't have any fake ID. They'd never serve me.'

New York is about the same as MA, as is New England generally. Boston drivers are a hazard drunk or sober. smile When we take DS to uni we detour around the city just to avoid the crazy, aggressive motorists there. The suburbs are better, but only marginally.

nods

And there's one bit of the drive down route 1 into Boston where pretty much every time we drive it there is a car on fire.

I almost always take the bus or train now, to minimise the stress.

I almost always take the bus or train now, to minimise the stress.

We were once in Boston stopped at a traffic light behind a bloke in a pickup truck who was waiting to make a right-hand turn. Rather than wait any further he drove up onto the pavement (sidewalk to us Yanks) to go around the car in front of him and make the turn. Three pedestrians had to step back into a shop door to let him by. No one seemed to think this was unusual.

Another time in the suburbs we were driving up a hill on a two-lane road and the car behind us went into the opposite lane to pass us approaching the top of the hill in the wrong lane. If there had been a vehicle approaching the top of the hill from the other direction I doubt he would have had time to avoid a head on collision.

Incidents like these make me appreciate that New York drivers are generally quite curteous.

Prohibition passed originally because of strong religious views that alcohol encouraged sin and criminal behavior.

Including views about the perceived connections of alcohol to domestic violence. Women adherents of temperance were among the first in the US to articulate domestic abuse as a societal issue.

That let the controlling law devolve to the states, who then regulated alcohol as they pleased.

Except for the drinking age. In 1984 Congress passed a federal law that “encourages” states to have a minimum age of 21 or lose a portion of federal funding for highways. Most of the states that had 18 or 19 quickly moved to raise the age. All states now have 21, although some have exceptions (eg. in private with parental consent, religious purposes, students in culinary school as part of their education).

Times have definitely changed. When I went to college, the drinking age was 18 in that state, and there was a rathskeller on campus where you could buy beer by the glass.

@MissConductUS

Not everywhere is. Boston seems little different from the UK in terms of ease of buying alcohol

New York is about the same as MA, as is New England generally. Boston drivers are a hazard drunk or sober. When we take DS to uni we detour around the city just to avoid the crazy, aggressive motorists there. The suburbs are better, but only marginally.

I refused to drive in Boston while we were there, because of the insanity that is Boston driving. It took me a long time to be able to be driven through the tunnels with my eyes open, for the first few months I was sure I was in imminent danger of death. However, in central Boston the drivers are very courteous to pedestrians, they will stop and let you cross if it looks like you might be thinking about it. Then they will go back to cutting each other up, beeping furiously, making u turns and randomly changing lanes. Out of towners who show any impatience with pedestrians will find themselves harangued by bystanders for daring to think they have any form of right of way. Jay walking is a way of life there.

@LadyPoison

US electric kettles seem to be very fancy compared with ours. A friend of mine in SoCal has one and it has different temperature settings depending on what hot drink you want to make.

Those kettles are available over here. My parents have one and use the different temperatures for different teas and coffee.

All states now have 21, although some have exceptions (eg. in private with parental consent, religious purposes, students in culinary school as part of their education).

Yet you can buy a firearm 3 years younger than that.

Ds went on holiday to RI, at 20, and was horrified that he couldn't buy a glass of wine to go with his food. I should have known that there was a chef's byelaw!

Lovely thread, thanks to all who have explained how things work. I spent 5 years in NJ, but only ever rented as a recent immigrant. I still remember the ad for the brownstone I didn't buy that had an octagonal library, for under $100k.

I wanted to explain more re property tax from where I live. The base is 1% of purchase price, and it adjusts upwards annually depending on voter initiatives for school or emergency funding (or the like). If you were very lucky to have bought many years ago, and not sold, you will be paying 100's, not the thousands we pay now - currently mine is $13,800 for this year. Planning for retirement means that, even if you have paid off your mortgage, you still have this to come up with each year.

As to kettles, we have had electric ones since shortly after I moved here, and burned right through the stovetop one DH had. It didn't have a whistle, if I recall, so I just forgot about it. Oh the smell. We do have the fancy type that boils to the right temperature - DH drinks tea, from leaves, and I drink coffee, slow drip, so it works for both.

They don't periodically revalue the houses for property tax 2018SoFarSoGreat? Ours get revalued every 10 years IIRC, to avoid that situation you describe.

They did revalue ours a few years ago and as all the values had gone up so much, they dropped the mill rate, so that the actual tax we paid stayed approx the same.

It's still high, but I do appreciate the millionaires with their McMansions paying nearly 6 figure property taxes each year to subsidise our schools.

@ZZTopGuitarSolo no, only if you do major construction or sell.

We have not had DC in school for many years, but are glad to ensure that our DGS's education continues to be supplemented by our tax dollars.

There is constant revaluation here.

Appealing your property tax raise is a cottage industry.

Evanston was formerly known unofficially as Heavenston, very prim and dry.

Oak Park was dry from 1872 to 1973 and still has no out and out bars.

Houston drivers were pretty bad (and the roads were often in awful condition too). The only reason people don’t beep their horns so much is because there’s a good chance the offending motorist is tooled up and likely to start waving a gun around.

I went to university in the UK in a city that was formerly Quaker - there were very few pubs, but we did at least have bars in the halls of residence.

I've been to Houston a couple of times for work. I always seem to spend ages in ubers and the drivers there always want to talk. Last time the driver told me that we'd have plenty of time as long as it didn't rain because "nobody in Houston can drive in rain" and we would be held up by accidents. Sure enough it started to rain and we were held up by a couple of fender benders.
There must be a dividing line in the US which defines where chatty Lyft and Uber drivers are allowed to work. In the south they never stop talking, I've covered everything from UK politics, public transport, alcohol laws, the health service and the Higgs Boson in Houston and Atlanta. Stony silence in Chicago, Boston and New York. I did discover that Houston, which is vast, has no public transport, so everybody has to drive, which is a problem for those who struggle to afford to run a car.