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?

I wish all new builds in the UK had to have a built in wardrobe to qualify as a bedroom. It seems the developers can put in a room not much bigger than a single bed and describe it as a bedroom.

In America you will have a huge house. You will hardly ever be in it because you barely get any paid holidays off work. If you get poorly you will probably lose the house because of your medical bills.

@toffeebutterpopcorn

Ah - I just thought! House tax - how does that work?

VERY differently than here. There are some transfer taxes when you buy a house but it is a small fraction of what stamp duty would be. Instead you pay yearly abs the amounts vary depending on the value of your home and the amount assessed by your locality and state. For a home worth £800K in different parts of America you could be paying anywhere from £5K to £35K per year in property taxes. It’s easier to buy without having a huge chunk of cash upfront but rising rates and home values can surprise people. There are limits to how much it can be raised but over years it still adds up. It’s not uncommon for a pensioner with a paid-off mortgage to be priced out of staying in their house due to property taxes. Its mostly based on the individual states but in general areas with good schools tend to have high property taxes so it’s not unusual for empty-nesters to sell their homes once their kids are through school and buy somewhere cheaper in a lower-tax area. I’m not positive but I think Florida has very low property tax, which is one more reason why so many old people live there. Their state schools are atrocious but pensioners don’t care.

clearmountain yes, that sounds scarily true!

When I lived in the states on a temp work visa (ski bum) I had medical cover. But many of the Mexicans who worked in the kitchens washing dishes were undocumented and when they got sick they just left. It was horrible. They had the worst jobs on the worst pay.

I house sat for my boss who had the most amazing house/pool. That was a fun summer!

That’s the one! A cousin was saying that she paid the equivalent of £1k a month on her old flat. How can people who have retired afford thy?

I’d always be nervous to live in the US for lots of reasons but the main one would be schools. I think you have to be pretty wealthy/savvy to have access to a decent school. So you either live in a good area with a good school or you pay for it.

In the U.K. It feels like there are good schools everywhere. I know there are exceptions.

Very impressed they have to have a closet to call a room a bedroom.
If they tried that in the UK it would be classed as a bedroom.

This is completely off topic - but with lots of people who live in the US on this thread it's worth me questioning you here 😊.

Someone I'm in contact with says you don't do bank transfers from account to account, you send a cheque to them (or a check in US spelling). Is this really true ? Why use an old fashioned method when online is so much easier ?

@toffeebutterpopcorn they move to cheaper homes in cheaper areas. There are wide variations in tax rates in reasonably close proximity. I never thought about it before but I guess it frees up large family homes in good school districts and gives retirees some capital to help in their golden years. America’s social safety net is not good but for now people 77+ still get a basically livable amount of monthly income via social security. You can take it earlier but you get less per month.

@ItsReallyOnlyMe

This is completely off topic - but with lots of people who live in the US on this thread it's worth me questioning you here 😊.

Someone I'm in contact with says you don't do bank transfers from account to account, you send a cheque to them (or a check in US spelling). Is this really true ? Why use an old fashioned method when online is so much easier ?

This was true for a long time but now most people use Venmo or Apple Pay.

@Atalune

I’d always be nervous to live in the US for lots of reasons but the main one would be schools. I think you have to be pretty wealthy/savvy to have access to a decent school. So you either live in a good area with a good school or you pay for it.

In the U.K. It feels like there are good schools everywhere. I know there are exceptions.

You’re not wrong about America. Our kids went to private school in London so I can’t compare the U.K. but certainly the fact that schools are administered nationally must make a difference. In America everything varies by state, including the curriculum, standardized testing, and school schedules. Quality of schools is often down to individual small towns or cities.

@ClearMountain

In America you will have a huge house. You will hardly ever be in it because you barely get any paid holidays off work. If you get poorly you will probably lose the house because of your medical bills.

Here we go again 🙄

@Atalune

I’d always be nervous to live in the US for lots of reasons but the main one would be schools. I think you have to be pretty wealthy/savvy to have access to a decent school. So you either live in a good area with a good school or you pay for it.

In the U.K. It feels like there are good schools everywhere. I know there are exceptions.

Decent neighbourhoods with good schools are not the province of the wealthy. It’s just they have some really bad schools in neighbourhoods you’d never actually move to. They are actually well funded from the federal government but it doesn’t seem to overcome anything at all.

SimonJT If walk in closets become dusty, mouldy and musty, why do people love them so much?

I wouldn’t think you would lose your home due to medical bills if you were well insured?

An interesting difference in the US is that you only pay annual property tax if you own. Renters don't pay it.

It's why I'm still irrationally irked at having to pay council tax, based on the massively inflated value of a property I don't own, rather than a sales or income tax.

@Youngatheart00

I wouldn’t think you would lose your home due to medical bills if you were well insured?

You wouldn’t. Even if you had no insurance. It’s a dischargeable debt, unlike student loans.

I haven't seen a top loading washing machine in use since the mid 80's and even that was an old machine. Most in the uk are front load because they usually sit under the worktop in a kitchen or utility room.

Having wardrobes doesn't stop musty mouldy clothes either it you live in a damp house and it's against a cold external wall.

I associate top loading machines with old fashioned twin tubs, but they're really commonplace in the US. They're not all fully automatic and you can also open lots of them during the cycle, presumably as there's far less risk of flooding the place.

Also checks can be scanned into your account electronically but yes the US is still very fond of them for all sorts.

I don't actually think schooling is that different to the UK in terms of access. In some ways it is easier as if you live in the area for a school you will get a place.
Obviously some catchment areas are better than others but this is the same in the UK as well.

Americans have more holidays than you might think, they have a lot of bank holiday equivalents culturally they don't take such long vacations where we live though.

Cheques...they do love them. We had a problem when we moved into our apartment that the deposit had to be paid by cheque but we didn't have a cheque book. It is really easy to get a cashier's cheque from the bank though. People seem to use bank branches more as well.
I loved our top loading washing machine, it definitely didn't smell of a swamp but it did wash huge loads quickly.

@user64332

Basements! Laundry rooms. They never have washing machines in kitchens. Though actually washing machines and dryers in kitchens is pretty unique to the UK, something that I hate. Germans have the right idea with them in the bathroom. Americans tend to have big top loading washing machines, though more and more I notice front opening ones, but bigger sized. Most americans don't have kettles. I never see brick built houses in America, and almost never see carpet.

There are brick houses all over the United States. From very small to very large. Not sure where you are looking but I'm American and pretty much everyone I know lives in a brick dwelling.

@GeorgiaGirl52

At last, questions I can answer. I live in the South, so most of the houses are brick (made with the red clay that passes for dirt in Georgia) and most floors are hardwood due to the vast amount of available pine trees.

• No wardrobes. Closets are required for all bedrooms, by code.
• Screens on windows are also required. Even if the house has AC.
• New housing codes banned radiators in the 1960's. Furnaces and ACs are vented either in the floor or in the ceiling.
• Clothes washers and dryers are sold as sets. In many areas it is against code to have a backyard clothesline.
• I have never seen a kettle, except in UK movies or TV shows. we either have coffee makers or use the microwave to heat water.

Fyi, pine is a soft wood, not a hard wood.

Such an interesting thread, I’m addicted to American property shows (free view channel 42) my favourite is “Hometown” they usually restore old property’s in a place called Laurel which I think is in Mississippi most of the houses have front porches with a swing seat you could imagine yourself on the porch sipping a mint julep.
Yy the dark cabinets though they do seem to feature a lot on some of the show, I quite like the big ranges they remind of the ones here probably in the 60/70’s wee made by Cannon & had a double oven six rings with the grill that folded out above the rings they were so practical & looked brilliant I wish I could find picture to post.

@alphasox

I lived briefly in the US as a student and the family I stayed with had a laundry room behind the kitchen, but THE BEST thing was the chute from upstairs. So by one of the bathrooms upstairs you opened a cupboard, chucked your dirty washing in (no laundry basket cluttering the landing), and the clothes would fall down the chute to the laundry room into a basket next to the washing machine. Also as well as a huge washer and drier there was an iron, hanging spaces, drying racks for delicates etc. All good, but I bloody loved the chute!

They are now outlawed as the chutes create a chimney allowing house fires to spread faster.