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?

@The90swereadecadeago nah, that’s a myth! Most people have gas on the stove kettles (and lots of ppl have boiling tap things) electric kettles are pretty niche but they exist and boil in the same time as an English one!

Coffee is often a more popular drink and most ppl have a coffee maker of some sort, along with hot water taps (latter is common in Italian American kitchens for the pasta) as a result and kettles are a bit of an afterthought - so much so that you’re often left in hotels / self catering places with the microwave to boil the water - oh the drama!

A local firm to us charges between £15-25 per sq metre to fit laminate or boards and £60 per sq metre to fit parquet.

Laminate isn't solid hardwood though, and it's more expensive.

You can lay laminate or parquet yourself. Parquet comes in slabs on a kind of netting which holds it all together - you don't have to lay down individual blocks. A solid wood floor requires a tradesman.

@LittleMy77, @The90swereadecadeago
It doesn't take days to blow dry hair in the US or nobody would make it to work on time, and American electric kettles boil water as fast as Irish ones do, presumably British too.

Laminate isn't solid hardwood though, and it's more expensive.
*Meaning solid hardwood is more expensive

Also, three prongs have been mandated since 1969 but you can find older appliances with the two pronged plugs.

Laminate isn't solid hardwood though, and it's more expensive.

I was actually replying to Chemenger who asked:-

Doesn’t parquet cost a lot more than boards to lay? All those individual blocks?

And I was saying that, yes, fitting parquet does cost a lot more than fitting laminate or hardwood - in the region of three to four times as much.

The figures I quoted were just the labour cost of doing the fitting which are on top of the cost of materials.

I've previously mentioned the typical cost of materials higher up the thread.

"Parquet comes in slabs on a kind of netting which holds it all together - you don't have to lay down individual blocks."

That's interesting as it's different in the UK - here we do have lay the individual blocks. Here's a story, with photos, of some one in the UK laying parquet in a Victorian home last year:-

DIY: Laying Engineered Oak Parquet Flooring

You'll see that the parquet just comes in a box and the individual blocks need to be fitted together and glued down - at least that's how it's done in the UK.

and American electric kettles boil water as fast as Irish ones do, presumably British too.

Only they don't though. Definitely faster than a stove top kettle but not as fast as British kettles.

The reason for this is that most British kettles are 3kw (3,000w) - although there are some really cheap ones (around the US$13 mark) that are lower than this.

On the other hand, US kettles are either 1.5kw or 1kw (1,500w or 1,000w). In other words they are only have one half or one third of the
power of UK kettles and so do take longer to boil water.

@mathanxiety I lived in the US for 10 years; even with a salon style hairdryer it took me nearly three times as long to dry my hair as when I’m in the uk, as the dryers just aren’t as powerful.

My hair dries pretty quickly with my Dyson dryer. It’s a bit of a lifesaver. My biggest problem drying my hair here in the US compared to the UK is that it’s much hotter and more humid here so I dry my hair then I have to dry my forehead and zap my hair with a cool blast.

I am living in the US and, hand on heart, y'all are talking nonsense about dryers and kettles...

Also, you can fit parquet yourself. It takes a while and a commitment to precision, and good ventilation. Cube patterns are the easiest (they come with the net backing) but chevron, herringbone and other patterns are possible to install yourself too.

I used to moan about how slow our toaster was in the US but it turns out our British toaster is slow too, the problem is actually that I am impatient.

I am living in the US and, hand on heart, y'all are talking nonsense about dryers and kettles...

I live in the US too, kettles are defintely way slower than back home. When I go to my parents house in Ireland I usually put the kettle on and go off to do something while it boils, like I do in the US but find I have to reboil it when I get back because it's already done and starting to cool. I timed it once, something like 7 mins for a full kettle. Unheard of in ireland / the UK.

Dryers though here are amazing.

Also, my ghd heats up slower and doesn't get as hot as back home (it's a UK version, I use an adaptor). Luckily I live in the desert so rarely need it, no humidity or frizz here

I am living in the US and, hand on heart, y'all are talking nonsense about dryers and kettles...

Really?

We rented a pre-war house in a nice old-fashioned suburb on Long Island in the early 80s.
In room size and layout it was much more like a UK house - L-shaped living/dining room, separate kitchen with doors, 1 large and 2 smaller bedrooms, 1 bathroom upstairs & a downstairs loo.
Woodblock floors throughout:
It had cast iron radiators, a boiler in the basement, and a small area off the kitchen with a washer. No dryer so I did have an actual washing line (& our bins were visible from the street 😮)
And it had a front verandah, but no railings.
Sash windows, with outer glass screens for double-glazing in winter, fly screens in summer.
It was lovely we were sad to leave.
Snowy picture was when we were there (Feb 82 blizzard)
Sunny picture is how it looks now. Much smarter!

Damn
I’m always losing pictures

@FromEden

Also, my ghd heats up slower and doesn't get as hot as back home (it's a UK version, I use an adaptor). Luckily I live in the desert so rarely need it, no humidity or frizz here

My GHDs warm up in about 15 seconds. But I bought the US version to use here in the US, which is perhaps the difference.

@GiantKitten

We rented a pre-war house in a nice old-fashioned suburb on Long Island in the early 80s. In room size and layout it was much more like a UK house - L-shaped living/dining room, separate kitchen with doors, 1 large and 2 smaller bedrooms, 1 bathroom upstairs & a downstairs loo. Woodblock floors throughout: It had cast iron radiators, a boiler in the basement, and a small area off the kitchen with a washer. No dryer so I did have an actual washing line (& our bins were visible from the street 😮) And it had a front verandah, but no railings. Sash windows, with outer glass screens for double-glazing in winter, fly screens in summer. It was lovely we were sad to leave. Snowy picture was when we were there (Feb 82 blizzard) Sunny picture is how it looks now. Much smarter!

Ah it does look lovely. That snow!

Lots of older houses in my village have cast iron radiators too. They're gorgeous.

How do you guys have dogs if you can’t fence the garden?

We are set way back from the road, so we just trained ours not to run down the driveway. A lot of people have Invisible Fences.

I should add that we could fence the garden, but we have a large lot and it would be expensive. Plus we don't really want to - we like it being open. We have trees on three sides between us and the neighbours, and a driveway on the fourth. I'd say in my area about 1 in 10 gardens is fenced. Some people fence in a particular part of the back garden for their dog.

@CrumpetsForAll

How do you guys have dogs if you can’t fence the garden?

Long walks on a lead. Dog parks. People parks that allow dogs. I've never lived in a house with a fenced yard, but we have always had dogs. Corgis, actually. And they need lots of exercise.

The idea that you have to have unleashed out door space for dogs is quite a UK centric idea I think.

My dog is on leash or off leash in a dog park and a lot of people have dogs in apartments.

Pet ownership is quite different in a lot of ways. When people live in a country where their pet is the one being eaten rather than the one doing the eating means entirely indoor cats are very normal