British vs American Homes

[Sky-Knight]

That's a bit of an urban myth....

http://www.kidneystoners.org/information/myths/

Talk to my dad's doctor... he hasn't had any more after cutting back on the calcium, both in chicken intake and use of RO / Distilled drinking water.

For my part, being his son, I'd like to avoid that little joy in life if possible. Also, as I said... we have uranium in the ground water here... so it's not like that's the only heavy element distillation deals with.

 

[frase]

Geez where do you live near Vault 101

 

[Bryce W]

As someone who currently lives in Australia. Used to live in the UK and Tokyo, and spent many months in the US. I hopefully can add a little bit to this discussion. I enjoy observing cultural differences so I look out for this stuff.

I read that your outlets have switches right on the outlets? I haven't seen that. You folks wouldn't just unplug a toaster for example but rather turn off the switch?

I always thought that the US was crazy for having to unplug stuff, its just so messy. The UK and Australia has switches, Japan being more US focused was a mish-mash of switches and no switches. Speaking of US sockets, the two pin has to be one of the worst in the world (Japan had it too). Stupid thing would always fall out of the wall. The Aussie was is pretty good (in that it stays in), but I think the best was the UK because of its safety features. Every plug has a built in fuse, most sockets had a plastic "door" stopping kids from electrocuting themselves and the ground was up the top.

Tom Scott did a great episode on them:

That you don't have garages?? or Mixing facets but rather separate facets for hot and cold???

Garages is probably to do with space. In the UK, space is pretty premium, expecially in the big cities. They have a fantastic public transport system so they are needed less (This is true in much of Europe).

Seperate faucets was for health reasons from what I remember. Keeping the hot water in a tank would grow bacteria so you dont want to drink from the hot water. So you had them seperate. I dont think its a problem now in most of the world. I'll let Tom Scott explain again:

I read you all don't have air conditioning???

The UK doesnt really need it. EXCEPT when they had a massive heatwave when I was there and was freakin dieing. Its essential in Australia and Japan though.

 

[NETWizz]

As someone who currently lives in Australia. Used to live in the UK and Tokyo, and spent many months in the US. I hopefully can add a little bit to this discussion. I enjoy observing cultural differences so I look out for this stuff.


I always thought that the US was crazy for having to unplug stuff, its just so messy. The UK and Australia has switches, Japan being more US focused was a mish-mash of switches and no switches. Speaking of US sockets, the two pin has to be one of the worst in the world (Japan had it too). Stupid thing would always fall out of the wall. The Aussie was is pretty good (in that it stays in), but I think the best was the UK because of its safety features. Every plug has a built in fuse, most sockets had a plastic "door" stopping kids from electrocuting themselves and the ground was up the top.

Tom Scott did a great episode on them:

Garages is probably to do with space. In the UK, space is pretty premium, expecially in the big cities. They have a fantastic public transport system so they are needed less (This is true in much of Europe).

Seperate faucets was for health reasons from what I remember. Keeping the hot water in a tank would grow bacteria so you dont want to drink from the hot water. So you had them seperate. I dont think its a problem now in most of the world. I'll let Tom Scott explain again:

The UK doesnt really need it. EXCEPT when they had a massive heatwave when I was there and was freakin dieing. Its essential in Australia and Japan though.

That British plug certainly seems like a better design. That said in the USA it isn't really as bad as it seems. First of all we do NOT have different color standards like British homes that are wired different dates. Black is always HOT, white is always NEUTRAL, and GREEN or bare is always GROUND. With 240v there is a second hot, which is RED, and either RED or BLACK to NEUTRAL is 120v, but RED to BLACK is 240v.

USA is STAR wired instead of a RING, which is better; I think... We DO have GFCI at some outlets, and AFCI at some breakers.

In the USA, we really should wire ground up, but it is actually wired with ground on the bottom EXCEPT in situations where it is done to tell you something is different.

For example in some areas, they will switch an outlet (with a wall switch), and those are sometimes turned upside-down (ground up).

Usually this is done at like Apartment Complexes that are too cheap to provide overhead light. People plug in their lamps and leave them connected, which is obviously less safe than permanently wired, overhead lighting because cords may end up getting frayed rubbing under a bed or night-stand etc.

One of the oddities are polarized plugs. They fit in only one way. The wider one is neutral, which is bonded to ground . You will notice a plastic lip to prevent your hand from sliding up and touching the conductors.

Now, we have Tamper Resistant (TR) Outlets, too, but only as of 2015 did they get added to our electric code. I have them in my house, which was built toward the end of 2015. Ours are different because the ground wire doesn't open it. You have to press evenly upon insertion inserting both the hot and neutral leads at the same time:

As for cords falling out, it happens after many years of connecting and disconnecting. Specifically, look at the difference... The outlet on the left is worn out and cords probably fall out. It got so loose that the resistance was high and it heated up when somebody put a load on it!





In contrast, here is a new new one. Notice how much tighter this is? You will have to give a solid pull to yank a cord out of this one for a couple years:





We have mixer taps, and it is common to drink a little hot water in the USA since maybe 2% to 7% gets mixed in with the cold. Usually, it is harmless, but it is a good idea to heat tanks to 130F or higher to kill off listeria, but you are not supposed to heat above 120F to prevent scalding.

We clearly haven't got it all figured out, but you really do not hear much about water illness in the United States. They probably mis-diagnose it as something else.

 

[Diggs]

And there's still some cool things you can do with our standard outlets like this plug-in adapter that instantly gives you 6 outlets -

 

[Moltuae]

And there's still some cool things you can do with our standard outlets like this plug-in adapter that instantly gives you 6 outlets -

We have similar adaptors but probably none quite so neat ...

(Where is the overload protection fuse in that thing by the way? )

For a more permanent solution, one that avoids the need to chisel out a bigger hole, there are also adaptors that fit over a single socket to give 3 or more sockets, although these are generally wire-in adaptors rather than plug-in (ie you have to remove the single socket):

 

[Diggs]

(Where is the overload protection fuse in that thing by the way? )

None - Every wall outlet or couple of outlets in a room are wired to a circuit breaker (fuse) in the main electrical box where they are all lined up and labeled by location.[/QUOTE]

 

[Moltuae]

None - Every wall outlet or couple of outlets in a room are wired to a circuit breaker (fuse) in the main electrical box where they are all lined up and labeled by location.

Ah, that makes sense. If every socket is individually wired back to a circuit breaker then I guess you don't really need overload protection at the outlet.

Ours are usually wired to a 'ring main'. Typically every socket on each floor of the house (and sometimes, in older/smaller houses, every socket in the entire house) is protected by a single circuit breaker. So, to protect the outlet socket and wiring from overload, all of our plugs and adaptors are usually fused individually (max 13A).

 

[fencepost]

Where is the overload protection fuse in that thing by the way?

It's in the circuit breaker - or if the house is old enough and using a bunch of those, it's the old copper penny stuck into the fuse box.

And in the US unless it's a special dedicated circuit, the circuit breakers are generally "zoned" - "Bedrooms," "Kitchen," etc. though there may be separate lines for higher-demand appliances like refrigerators, laundry, etc. if they're all-electric.

 

[NETWizz]

Ah, that makes sense. If every socket is individually wired back to a circuit breaker then I guess you don't really need overload protection at the outlet.

Ours are usually wired to a 'ring main'. Typically every socket on each floor of the house (and sometimes, in older/smaller houses, every socket in the entire house) is protected by a single circuit breaker. So, to protect the outlet socket and wiring from overload, all of our plugs and adaptors are usually fused individually (max 13A).

I think that is actually more dangerous. The reasoning is that each of your outlets are in parallel.

Hence, if you have a 13A fuse on four (4) items and attach all four (4) items on the ring, you are calling for up to 52 Watts from the Ring.

Each fuse only sees its own <13 A load... Essentially, you have four (4) 13 A fuses in parallel, which I cannot imagine being safe.



In the US there may be a single outlet, wall of outlets, or most commonly a room of outlets wired back to a single 15A breaker.

If you plug in two (2) 12 A loads, that is 24 Amps and bows the 15A breaker.


Essentially: All this added together cannot be > 15 A or it blows a breaker.

 

[Moltuae]

I think that is actually more dangerous. The reasoning is that each of your outlets are in parallel.

Hence, if you have a 13A fuse on four (4) items and attach all four (4) items on the ring, you are calling for up to 52 Watts from the Ring.

Each fuse only sees its own <13 A load... Essentially, you have four (4) 13 A fuses in parallel, which I cannot imagine being safe.

It doesn't quite work like that. The idea is that the ring balances the load (albeit somewhat asymmetrically in places). The cable used is generally capable of carrying loads in excess of 20 amps (assuming the cable runs aren't too long), enabling the ring to comfortably carry up to 40 amps in total. Typically the breaker protecting the ring is around 32 amps. The biggest downside of a ring main is that you have to consider the total power consumption of everything plugged into it if you don't want to trip the breaker. But, at 240 volts, 32 amps provides over 7kW of power per ring, so it's generally not an issue unless you have a lot of things like heaters or electric ovens plugged into the ring.

As for the outlets, typically plugs are fused at a rating just above the equipment's power consumption (eg 1A, 3A, 5A, 10A, etc) so any faulty equipment will usually only take out its own fuse. And any plug or extension has a maximum fuse rating of 13A so individual outlets are always limited to 13A.

 

[Diggs]

But, at 240 volts, 32 amps provides over 7kW of power per ring, so it's generally not an issue unless you have a lot of things like heaters or electric ovens plugged into the ring.

Wowee!!! That's actually quite huge. We have 240v outlets (120v x 2) but they are always dedicated. Clothes dryers, stoves, my welder sit on a 240v 50 amp outlets. My old home is lacking as it only has 100 amp 240v service. Most new homes are 200-300 amp 240v main service these days.

(Side story - My old corporate division ran 600 amp 480 volt service for my production area. The main breaker was right out side my old office. After we upgraded a few pieces of equipment we used to trip that breaker regularly for awhile. It was like a rifle going off outside my office. Raised me three feet in my chair every time - heh. Got pretty dark too.)