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UK electrics are mad - with the ring main and what not requiring fuses in the enormous plugs. All vestiges of post-WWII design. By code a modern American kitch
by housemusicfan 3y ago
UK electrics are mad - with the ring main and what not requiring fuses in the enormous plugs. All vestiges of post-WWII design. By code a modern American kitchen must have:
- dedicated 50A 240V for an electric stove or oven (unless gas service is present)
- dedicated 20A 120V each for the fridge, microwave, dishwasher, disposal (the latter being uncommon outside the US and Canada). The last two often share a circuit.
- two 20A countertop circuits with GFCI protection (what the Brits call 'RCD' - the difference being ours trip at 5mA vs 30mA and won't knock out half the house.)
- iso1631 3y agoYou assert that it's mad but then describe a mad situation in the US. A typical British kitchen will have a ton of sockets (although never enough), to plug in a fridge (or two, or three), a microwave (or several - they rarely goes about 1kW anyway), a dishwasher, a washing machine, a tumble dryer (UK kitchens tend to have washers and dryers, rather than bathrooms. Larger houses have separate utility rooms) The only thing on a dedicated circuit would be a hard-wired oven.
- housemusicfan 3y agoThinking that having dedicated independent circuits is madness sounds like Stockholm syndrome. The point being a single faulty appliance won't knock out the lights and sockets to half the house simultaneously (a common occurrence during a fault in the UK, especially the RCD). It's also quite convenient to switch off a single appliance for service. Yes British sockets are all switched but not necessarily in a convenient location. A software analogy would be running all your services on separate VMs, as opposed to running them all on a single server which could go down at once. Brits don't even put outlets in the bathroom, minus a current-limited transformer-isolated one for an electric razor.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoAh, the regs have changed and we can now have a full socket in the bathroom as long as it's far enough from the bath (.6 + 2.5 = 3.1m from edge of bath), which rules out most bathrooms...
- housemusicfan 3y agoI assume the temptation to use the electric tea kettle whilst having a bath is too great...
- iso1631 3y agoIt's more about wet fingers and electricity.
- laurencerowe 3y agoMy apartment in San Francisco which I pay an absurd amount of money for has just two or three 20A circuits in total going by the breaker. I regularly trip the power.
- bluGill 3y agoHow old. What you describe sounds like it was built before 1970 and never updated to modern standards. Since the wire is often in okay shape few consider it worth the cost to replace it even though it really can't supply enough power for modern uses. (often you have to replace it all as if you touch it the insulation will break and then it isn't okay)
- laurencerowe 3y agoBuilt around 1910 I think but the wiring is definitely a lot newer than that, 70s or 80s at a guess. They just didn’t put many circuits in. Has never been an issue anywhere I lived in the UK. As I understand it they have been putting in 30A/230V ring circuits as standard for 75 years now.