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I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. Also, I wonder why compressors in heatpumps are not multi-speed (basically ene

I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. Also, I wonder why compressors in heatpumps are not multi-speed (basically energy consumption can be modulated). If you are an expert please let me know I'd love to talk more.

masklinn 3y ago
> I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. You can find them but they'll be in the semi-professional space and above (relatively expensive high-duty). They're very rare in the consumer space because - it requires running more hot water lines / extensions, historically houses are built with lots of cold water lines but hot water lines only where required - for their heating requirement, a normal electric plug is more than sufficient in the land of 230V, this is is a similar issue to kettles basically - they require an internal heater anyway as residential water circuits come nowhere near the high temperature cycles: 50-53C is common to avoid risks of scalding but some are set as low as 45, the standard high temp cycles for washing machines are 60 and 90, and dishwasher commonly have a heavy cycle around 65 - it makes the machines more convoluted since they needs more inlets, a mixing valve, etc... - they're not really compatible with hot water tanks: you don't want your dishes or laundry to empty your shower water, plus hot water tanks are commonly electrical so there's no real gain given per the above the machines need a heater anyway
- philwelch 3y ago
  > for their heating requirement, a normal electric plug is more than sufficient in the land of 230V, this is is a similar issue to kettles basically US uses a split phase system so you can combine two 120V circuits to get 240V. This is how most heavy appliances are wired.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    Right but that means you need a special setup either way. In europe you just have a normal electric plug, nothing special.
    - philwelch 3y ago
      North America has standard plugs for 240V too. They’re different from the 120V plug for the obvious reason, but it’s not a particularly special setup.
      - lazide 3y ago
        The odds a random US plug will be 240v is essentially zero, unless you’re standing next to an electric range/stove/dryer. And those plugs typically have one outlet and it’s already in use. Unless the prior owner was a welder anyway. Then you might have a few in the garage. Either way, not convenient for kettles.
        philwelch 3y ago
        Maybe I should make the obvious reason more explicit. If you have something designed to operate on 120V and plug it into a 240V outlet, there will be safety issues. It might even catch on fire. So the two voltages have to use different outlet and plug shapes for safety reasons. An outlet is not “randomly” going to be one voltage or the other because that would be a terrible idea. And yes, the 240V outlets are set up for heavy appliances rather than small countertop appliances. Remember, we were talking about washing machines and dishwashers, and the claim that European appliances don’t need to consume hot water because they have 230V circuits. American appliances have 240V circuits and they still consume hot water so that’s not a satisfying explanation. It’s true that Americans don’t plug electric kettles into a 240V plug. There are a few reasons for that: * Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. So the tea kettle is usually a lower priority in an American household compared to a British one. * Stovetop tea kettles and microwaves are both perfectly fine at boiling water. Are they as optimal? Maybe not but it’s not a priority. (Microwaves might be just as fast actually.) * Electric kettles work totally fine on a 120V circuit anyway. I have one. Is it as fast as it would be on a 240V circuit? No, but it’s not a priority. We probably make up the time difference by having faster dishwashers and washing machines that consume hot water in addition to using 240V power.
        lazide 3y ago
  - mcv 3y ago
    > US uses a split phase system so you can combine two 120V circuits to get 240V. This is how most heavy appliances are wired. So what do you do with an induction stove? For ours, we had to combine two 230V connections to get 380V.
    - nkurz 3y ago
      Generally there is no option to do this in a US residence. The drop to the house coming from the transformer only provides two single phase 120V to neutral circuits, which can be combined to provide 240V. Commercial and industrial sites will often have higher voltage 3-phase available. In practice, this isn't an issue. Induction devices sold in the US for residential use simply are designed to work on 120V or 240V. The heat output for the 120V ones too limited for some purposes, but once you are up to 240V it's generally not a limiting factor.
- mnw21cam 3y ago
  Also, in quite a few houses, the initial run of water out of the hot tap is cold for quite some time until the hot water has either made it round from the hot tank, or if you have a combi boiler system then after that has fired itself up, got up to temperature, and then the hot water has made it round the pipes from there. It may be that the washing machine uses so little water that most of the water it gets from the hot supply is cold, wasting all that energy.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    That is true, I assume hot water appliances handle that case internally, but that's yet more complexity.
  - teekert 3y ago
    For me indeed it takes >30 sec to get hot water in the kitchen (modern kitchens have small boilers), but the washers are near the boiler, so hot fill would be more efficient. The boiler supplies 60 deg C water though, so that is not enough for the 90 deg C program for example. And then you need a heating element anyway...
    - egwor 3y ago
      These days most washing cycles run a lot cooler. My washing powder/soap recommends 30 but I usually run at 40. I know that I need to do the occasional high temp wash too though.
- fouc 3y ago
  for laundry - cold/warm setting + cold water detergent is popular these days, further reducing the heating requirement.
  - TeMPOraL 3y ago
    Oh yes, what's up with that anyway? I recently noticed laundry detergent companies making some magic "wash in 20 degrees Celsius" product, and heavily advertising it on the grounds of energy savings. I wonder how that works. I'm not sure my washing machine can even go as low as 20 degrees.
    - brianwawok 3y ago
      My US appliances have a tap cold setting, warms the water 0. 20F isn’t an uncommon water temperature for water coming from the city. Can even go a tad cooler in the winter.
      - ben_w 3y ago
        Do you really mean "20F", or was that just a typo? Because if you really do mean F, this tells me something I didn't already know about additives to the US water supply.
        twic 3y ago
        Maybe his supply is at 800 bar.
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        Makes sense - high pressure to minimize loss of heat in transmission. Like with high voltage lines. Though this would be like skipping the final transformer and feeding 40kV straight into your house wiring, which I don't think anyone does...
        brianwawok 3y ago
        C lol
- Amezarak 3y ago
  From the US perspective, I have trouble understanding most of these. > - it requires running more hot water lines / extensions, historically houses are built with lots of cold water lines but hot water lines only where required Don't you need hot lines almost everywhere anyway? Every sink, bath, and shower has both cold and hot lines. So you're simply running two extra hots...one for the washer, one for the dishwasher. But usually dishwasher supply is run off the kitchen sink supply, so the "extra" hot line is just a couple feet. Actually, there's no cold line at all to our dishwashers, only the hot, come to think of it. So there's zero extra piping for the dishwasher in the US, and yes, one extra run for the washer. > - for their heating requirement, a normal electric plug is more than sufficient in the land of 230V, this is is a similar issue to kettles basically As other comments mentioned, the US does have 220V plugs for heavy appliances. It's already standard to have 220 in the laundry room and kitchen anyway - the dryer and oven use them. So this doesn't seem to explain the difference. It would be very easy run a 220 to your washer in the US, you'd need maybe two feet of cable and an outlet. Indeed, I don't know if it's code or not, but a lot of laundry rooms especially probably have the 120 outlet the washer uses actually wired up with four conductor cable, with the extra hot unused, because the cable for the dryer is right there next to it and why run the three conductor cable from elsewhere, when it's easier to use the four conductor. So they could literally just pop in the 220 outlet and be done with zero extra work instead, if washers were on 220. > - they require an internal heater anyway as residential water circuits come nowhere near the high temperature cycles: 50-53C is common to avoid risks of scalding but some are set as low as 45, the standard high temp cycles for washing machines are 60 and 90, and dishwasher commonly have a heavy cycle around 65. This is incorrect. My washer doesn't have any heating element. The dishwasher does to superheat the water, since at the maximum settings it boils water. (The steam cycle.) The thermistor is set during normal non-steam operation to run at around 130F/54C, which is the temperature of my water heater heater supply, but it's true that inlet temp is not guaranteed; different people will have different settings and the pipe run entails some heat loss. Plus it does need the heating element for the dry cycle. > - it makes the machines more convoluted since they needs more inlets, a mixing valve, etc... Dishwashers only have one inlet in the US. It's true that the washer has two, but it's not much more complexity. At least on mine, it just opens both valves at the same time, there is no "mixing valve." If you select hot it only opens the hot valve, warm opens both, and cold opens only the cold. > - they're not really compatible with hot water tanks: you don't want your dishes or laundry to empty your shower water, How are they "not really compatible" when it's bog standard? Your dishwasher uses a pretty minimal amount of water (mine fills with 1 gallon.) Washing machines use ~10-20 gallons. The standard hot water tank in the US is 50+ gallons. People do sometimes run out of hot water, but it's not from running the dishwasher at the same time.
- fomine3 3y ago
  Dehumidify method is an often missed part for dryer. On heat pump system, it's done by the other end of heat pump. On heater system, it's done by exhausting hot moisty air or use cold water for dehumidify. I don't know what method is used for average dryer in each country.
- thworp 3y ago
  > 50-53C is common to avoid risks of scalding but some are set as low as 45 Wait what, isn't the minimum temperature where Legionella will die around 60°C? Are you talking of a country where they (noticeably) chlorinate the water? I thought that was very uncommon, except for Southern Spain and Italy. If you set your boiler to 45°C in a country with (nearly) unchlorinated water you'll have a nice Legionella culture after your 3 week vacation.
  - 0x457 3y ago
    My water tank and hot tub had "self-cleaning" cycle that would heat up and circulate water to prevent bacteria buildup regardless of what temperature it was set to.
amluto 3y ago
My dishwasher is European and is hot-fill. It doesn’t even have a cold water connection. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cold fill dishwasher in the US. I wonder what’s up in Europe.
- b112 3y ago
  Most dishwashers only have one inlet. And most also heat the water(more), even if fed hot water. I believe the premise is, with 240V, they can heat faster. So people plumb them with cold when in 240V land, and hot when in 120V land.
  - 0x457 3y ago
    I personally hate dishwashers that don't heat up their water. I've been to multiple places where "hot water" stats being hot only after 5-10 minutes. It greatly reduced dishwasher efficiency.

masklinn 3y ago

> I always wondered why we cannot find hot filled appliances in the old continent. You can find them but they'll be in the semi-professional space and above (relatively expensive high-duty). They're very rare in the consumer space because - it requires running more hot water lines / extensions, historically houses are built with lots of cold water lines but hot water lines only where required - for their heating requirement, a normal electric plug is more than sufficient in the land of 230V, this is is a similar issue to kettles basically - they require an internal heater anyway as residential water circuits come nowhere near the high temperature cycles: 50-53C is common to avoid risks of scalding but some are set as low as 45, the standard high temp cycles for washing machines are 60 and 90, and dishwasher commonly have a heavy cycle around 65 - it makes the machines more convoluted since they needs more inlets, a mixing valve, etc... - they're not really compatible with hot water tanks: you don't want your dishes or laundry to empty your shower water, plus hot water tanks are commonly electrical so there's no real gain given per the above the machines need a heater anyway

philwelch 3y ago
> for their heating requirement, a normal electric plug is more than sufficient in the land of 230V, this is is a similar issue to kettles basically US uses a split phase system so you can combine two 120V circuits to get 240V. This is how most heavy appliances are wired.
- masklinn 3y ago
  Right but that means you need a special setup either way. In europe you just have a normal electric plug, nothing special.
  - philwelch 3y ago
    North America has standard plugs for 240V too. They’re different from the 120V plug for the obvious reason, but it’s not a particularly special setup.
    - lazide 3y ago
      The odds a random US plug will be 240v is essentially zero, unless you’re standing next to an electric range/stove/dryer. And those plugs typically have one outlet and it’s already in use. Unless the prior owner was a welder anyway. Then you might have a few in the garage. Either way, not convenient for kettles.
      - philwelch 3y ago
        Maybe I should make the obvious reason more explicit. If you have something designed to operate on 120V and plug it into a 240V outlet, there will be safety issues. It might even catch on fire. So the two voltages have to use different outlet and plug shapes for safety reasons. An outlet is not “randomly” going to be one voltage or the other because that would be a terrible idea. And yes, the 240V outlets are set up for heavy appliances rather than small countertop appliances. Remember, we were talking about washing machines and dishwashers, and the claim that European appliances don’t need to consume hot water because they have 230V circuits. American appliances have 240V circuits and they still consume hot water so that’s not a satisfying explanation. It’s true that Americans don’t plug electric kettles into a 240V plug. There are a few reasons for that: * Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. So the tea kettle is usually a lower priority in an American household compared to a British one. * Stovetop tea kettles and microwaves are both perfectly fine at boiling water. Are they as optimal? Maybe not but it’s not a priority. (Microwaves might be just as fast actually.) * Electric kettles work totally fine on a 120V circuit anyway. I have one. Is it as fast as it would be on a 240V circuit? No, but it’s not a priority. We probably make up the time difference by having faster dishwashers and washing machines that consume hot water in addition to using 240V power.
        lazide 3y ago
- mcv 3y ago
  > US uses a split phase system so you can combine two 120V circuits to get 240V. This is how most heavy appliances are wired. So what do you do with an induction stove? For ours, we had to combine two 230V connections to get 380V.
  - nkurz 3y ago
    Generally there is no option to do this in a US residence. The drop to the house coming from the transformer only provides two single phase 120V to neutral circuits, which can be combined to provide 240V. Commercial and industrial sites will often have higher voltage 3-phase available. In practice, this isn't an issue. Induction devices sold in the US for residential use simply are designed to work on 120V or 240V. The heat output for the 120V ones too limited for some purposes, but once you are up to 240V it's generally not a limiting factor.
mnw21cam 3y ago
Also, in quite a few houses, the initial run of water out of the hot tap is cold for quite some time until the hot water has either made it round from the hot tank, or if you have a combi boiler system then after that has fired itself up, got up to temperature, and then the hot water has made it round the pipes from there. It may be that the washing machine uses so little water that most of the water it gets from the hot supply is cold, wasting all that energy.
- masklinn 3y ago
  That is true, I assume hot water appliances handle that case internally, but that's yet more complexity.
- teekert 3y ago
  For me indeed it takes >30 sec to get hot water in the kitchen (modern kitchens have small boilers), but the washers are near the boiler, so hot fill would be more efficient. The boiler supplies 60 deg C water though, so that is not enough for the 90 deg C program for example. And then you need a heating element anyway...
  - egwor 3y ago
    These days most washing cycles run a lot cooler. My washing powder/soap recommends 30 but I usually run at 40. I know that I need to do the occasional high temp wash too though.
fouc 3y ago
for laundry - cold/warm setting + cold water detergent is popular these days, further reducing the heating requirement.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Oh yes, what's up with that anyway? I recently noticed laundry detergent companies making some magic "wash in 20 degrees Celsius" product, and heavily advertising it on the grounds of energy savings. I wonder how that works. I'm not sure my washing machine can even go as low as 20 degrees.
  - brianwawok 3y ago
    My US appliances have a tap cold setting, warms the water 0. 20F isn’t an uncommon water temperature for water coming from the city. Can even go a tad cooler in the winter.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Do you really mean "20F", or was that just a typo? Because if you really do mean F, this tells me something I didn't already know about additives to the US water supply.
      - twic 3y ago
        Maybe his supply is at 800 bar.
        TeMPOraL 3y ago
        Makes sense - high pressure to minimize loss of heat in transmission. Like with high voltage lines. Though this would be like skipping the final transformer and feeding 40kV straight into your house wiring, which I don't think anyone does...
      - brianwawok 3y ago
        C lol
Amezarak 3y ago
From the US perspective, I have trouble understanding most of these. > - it requires running more hot water lines / extensions, historically houses are built with lots of cold water lines but hot water lines only where required Don't you need hot lines almost everywhere anyway? Every sink, bath, and shower has both cold and hot lines. So you're simply running two extra hots...one for the washer, one for the dishwasher. But usually dishwasher supply is run off the kitchen sink supply, so the "extra" hot line is just a couple feet. Actually, there's no cold line at all to our dishwashers, only the hot, come to think of it. So there's zero extra piping for the dishwasher in the US, and yes, one extra run for the washer. > - for their heating requirement, a normal electric plug is more than sufficient in the land of 230V, this is is a similar issue to kettles basically As other comments mentioned, the US does have 220V plugs for heavy appliances. It's already standard to have 220 in the laundry room and kitchen anyway - the dryer and oven use them. So this doesn't seem to explain the difference. It would be very easy run a 220 to your washer in the US, you'd need maybe two feet of cable and an outlet. Indeed, I don't know if it's code or not, but a lot of laundry rooms especially probably have the 120 outlet the washer uses actually wired up with four conductor cable, with the extra hot unused, because the cable for the dryer is right there next to it and why run the three conductor cable from elsewhere, when it's easier to use the four conductor. So they could literally just pop in the 220 outlet and be done with zero extra work instead, if washers were on 220. > - they require an internal heater anyway as residential water circuits come nowhere near the high temperature cycles: 50-53C is common to avoid risks of scalding but some are set as low as 45, the standard high temp cycles for washing machines are 60 and 90, and dishwasher commonly have a heavy cycle around 65. This is incorrect. My washer doesn't have any heating element. The dishwasher does to superheat the water, since at the maximum settings it boils water. (The steam cycle.) The thermistor is set during normal non-steam operation to run at around 130F/54C, which is the temperature of my water heater heater supply, but it's true that inlet temp is not guaranteed; different people will have different settings and the pipe run entails some heat loss. Plus it does need the heating element for the dry cycle. > - it makes the machines more convoluted since they needs more inlets, a mixing valve, etc... Dishwashers only have one inlet in the US. It's true that the washer has two, but it's not much more complexity. At least on mine, it just opens both valves at the same time, there is no "mixing valve." If you select hot it only opens the hot valve, warm opens both, and cold opens only the cold. > - they're not really compatible with hot water tanks: you don't want your dishes or laundry to empty your shower water, How are they "not really compatible" when it's bog standard? Your dishwasher uses a pretty minimal amount of water (mine fills with 1 gallon.) Washing machines use ~10-20 gallons. The standard hot water tank in the US is 50+ gallons. People do sometimes run out of hot water, but it's not from running the dishwasher at the same time.
fomine3 3y ago
Dehumidify method is an often missed part for dryer. On heat pump system, it's done by the other end of heat pump. On heater system, it's done by exhausting hot moisty air or use cold water for dehumidify. I don't know what method is used for average dryer in each country.
thworp 3y ago
> 50-53C is common to avoid risks of scalding but some are set as low as 45 Wait what, isn't the minimum temperature where Legionella will die around 60°C? Are you talking of a country where they (noticeably) chlorinate the water? I thought that was very uncommon, except for Southern Spain and Italy. If you set your boiler to 45°C in a country with (nearly) unchlorinated water you'll have a nice Legionella culture after your 3 week vacation.
- 0x457 3y ago
  My water tank and hot tub had "self-cleaning" cycle that would heat up and circulate water to prevent bacteria buildup regardless of what temperature it was set to.

amluto 3y ago

My dishwasher is European and is hot-fill. It doesn’t even have a cold water connection. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cold fill dishwasher in the US. I wonder what’s up in Europe.

b112 3y ago
Most dishwashers only have one inlet. And most also heat the water(more), even if fed hot water. I believe the premise is, with 240V, they can heat faster. So people plumb them with cold when in 240V land, and hot when in 120V land.
- 0x457 3y ago
  I personally hate dishwashers that don't heat up their water. I've been to multiple places where "hot water" stats being hot only after 5-10 minutes. It greatly reduced dishwasher efficiency.