Basically here in England we learned from The Three Little pigs. We understood that straw and wooden houses could be easily blown down so we tend to build ours of brick.
Not just how easily American houses can be blown down, but also how quick that wood and plastic will burn down. I've seen videos where a small fire starts in the living room and within 3 minutes every square foot of the gaff is ablaze 😕
@chitster it's possible now with the oceans warming up. I think the strongest we've had here was a category 2 hurricane. It took down trees, wooden structures and the odd house roof. It took lives also, but there wasn't many houses felled. Now the way they are throwing up houses here, nowadays? That could be a different story. They're certainly not building them the same way that they used to
Cold is OK. The problem is when it is wet windy and cold at the same time - which is what Scotland is like. No wonder the Romans never bothered to conquer Scotland.
@@Sitislik82 And eaten alive. You can't forget the midges. It's not a real summer in Scotland unless you've had to spit out at least one midge that you've nearly swallowed.
Every house in the uk has a kettle. It’s odd not to have one. They are cheap, and do the job quick. Probably because our mains electricity is a higher power. We can have sockets in the bathroom, but they are half our normal strength, and only for shavers and electric toothbrush chargers.
I've got shaver/toothbrush sockets in my bathroom. One of them is 240v and the other is 120v. Doesn't need to be half the voltage. It varies a lot but I'd say most people don't have any sockets in the bathroom.
If we don’t have electric kettle, we have a stove top kettle. Even if you are not a tea drinker, there would still be a kettle. What do you do if you need hot water? Cooking, cleaning, or a hottie?
@@RyanSmith-on1hqthink the bathroom ones have to be that shape in order for condensation not to get into the socket. Our voltage higher but don’t think it’s to do with voltage like you said just condensation etc, they have a little plastic sleeve that slides across when you plug something in. Bathroom steam etc.
We can have sockets 230v in UK bathrooms but they have to be (I think) 3 meters away from the bath to comply with British electrical regs but not many people have bathrooms that big in the UK
I would argue that combined washer/dryers in the UK are worse than a separate washing machine and tumble dryer. The only real reason to buy a combined one is because you don't have space for both. We have separate ones for good reason.
I had a combination washer/dryer years ago. The drum gets ridiculously hot on the dryer cycle that you worry that it’s going to scorch the fabric, yet it never seemed to act fully dry the contents within a reasonable time, I absolutely hated it. I now have a smaller kitchen, so I don’t have the room for a separate dryer but I have quite happily gone without one for quite a few years now.
I have a washer drier - for good reason too :) Small kitchen, no space for a second one - plus, it washes fine and dries fine. Never really had one that doesn’t.
I saw a walk-in cupboard in London that would make Harry Potter blush, go for £500,000 about ten years ago, prices in London are bloody schizophrenic depending in what Manor you live in.
was about to say, 450k for several acres of land and a mansion, compared to spending 950k on a normal sized 3 bed/2 bath house in London. The trade off is that there's way more the space in the US for you to live on, but you also live in the arse of nowhere, so it takes 2 hours to buy milk when you need it. Whereas in the the UK, you have way less space, and are crammed into a shoebox sized house, but there's also a corner shop your hallway, so on the way to make a cup of tea in the morning, you can grab a pint of milk without having to leave your house. /s
An early Victorian mid terrace workman's cottage goes for £999, 950 around here. A three up, two down, 22 ft wide, terraced house for £50 shy of a million 🤯. Doesn't even have a parking space, the garden is about 30ft by 22ft. That's SW London, head across the River, and the same will cost you another £250k.
@@mej6519sorry but there is no way that we only get 3 weeks in Surrey. Last year was bad but usually you have a lot more good weather here than up North.
@@WyndStrykeI know right? My kids and I debated sleeping outside on the trampoline but then remembered that the fox comes to jump on it every night and probably wasn’t the best idea, so we just laid inside and waited for death. 😂
In a recent survey it was estimated that 95-96% of British houses had an electric kettle. All offices etc have them. Plus 90% of hotel and B&B rooms have them.
I won’t be the only one who groaned when Lawrence appeared on the screen, it looks like he might have done some research though. Good interesting video JT, I’m glad you survived the eclipse 😁
We have lovely Savannah grass here that makes beautiful thatching Mostly it's a luxury lifestyle thing here So a lot of resorts use thatched bungalows for the aesthetic
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud You are aware there are brick houses in certain areas of the US, right? New England in particular has them. You're also aware there are many wood frame homes that are very sturdy and have lasted many years, right? Wood is plentiful here so it's commonly used. It does happen to be cheaper than brick too, but it also has some give which is important to withstand certain weather phenomena. I wouldn't trade my large, lovely home for any house in the UK, so no, I'm definitely not jealous.
When I moved to Los Angeles for a while I was horrified by their flimsy windows & house construction which were little more than rendered sheds. if these houses were built in the UK they would last maybe 5 years, & the drafty windows will annoy with their wind induced rattling as perpetual hypothermia takes hold.
Garbage disposal (masserators) are illegal in many countries because the small problem at your end becomes a big problem for the water/sewerage system! One of the reasons why water is expensive! You can get imprisoned in Portugal, I believe.
Ha ha hearing a really super posh expensive house described as "wow no less than $450,000" like thats a big deal ! thats only £360 thousand ! thats the average house price here,and it would get you a very normal small house,a large posh house with a large garden would be £1million ++++
someone told me there that modern timber houses last 20-50 years, the old colonial houses are built very differently because the English built those like their houses back home. it seems to depend where you are, the colonials are mainly to the East & the modern timber houses are out West. this same California resident told me that in Hollywood there are very few homes 100+ years old, these are considered ancient. they are often demolished & replaced very quickly comparatively. a big problem I hear with wooden homes is termites.
@RollerbazAndCoasterDad Figggghhhhtttt 😡 We all know there's no such place as Scotland Me mam always said she was from there... we found a good nut house, comfortable, after all, it wasn't her fault
We had a stove top kettle when I was a child, but when electric kettles came out, us Brits swapped to those. They have a MAJOR advantage: they switch themselves off. It was such a novelty to be able to leave the room and know the kettle wasn't going to boil dry or you had to stop what you were doing to stop it whistling all through the house.
Where you a child in the early 1920s? The auto-off ones date from 1955. The very first electric kettle came out in 1890, the submerged heating element dates from 1922..
When I'm travelling around and have no electricity then I use gas and the funny thing about the Americans is that an American invented the electric kettle 😂😂
@@narrowboatbb So you boil water every time you want a cuppa? I have a stove top one and I boil water in it, once, then decant it into a flask. It stays hot for about 8 hours.
Nope, in many places you are not allowed to hang washing out, in some areas, like where I am the front yard isn't allowed to have a fence, and if the grass goes beyond a certain height you are warned and if you don't mow it they will come round and do it, and bill you for it
@@colinbrown9549 That sounds like hell. In the UK to fence or not is normally your own choice, in some areas the height of front garden fences is restricted to three feet, and back fences to six feet, and everywhere that I have lived if you wanted a wildflower meadow in the front garden to help wildlife that was OK. The only time I came across a place where fences were not allowed in the front I helped the owners plant a hedge. Some of the neighbours didn't like it but there was nothing they could do because a hedge isn't a fence. The last time I went past there around 2/3 of the gardens had hedges round them.
hanging out washing in California will dry your clothes crisp & sun bleach & fade them very quickly. plus of course the petty HOA rules often prevent the washing being hung out. this would probably provoke a fine.
dryers shrink clothes and cost too much to run just impractical considering you can have things dry within a day or a day like today we had 4 loads of washing on all dried within hours lol free drying the US misses out on that
My house built in 1863 in 2007 I had the roof refreshed, needed some new slates. Don’t know when the central heating was put in it was here when I moved in 35 years ago replaced the boiler in 2007 as well. Don’t need a/c got thick walls keeps it cool in summer and warm in winter. I would never buy a house under fifty years old as I am not a fan of these new wood frame buildings. My mate lives in one and if someone puts a plug in one room you can hear them doing that in the next room as theses houses only have stud walls. All my walls are brick 😊
@@Sofasurfa same here in my 1860 home. Solid brick. Great to keep warm in winter and cool in summer but a bugger to hammer a nail in to hang a picture.
When I was a kid, we had a gas kettle - you fill it with tap water and boil it on the stove until it whistles and then you could pour it in your cup or mug or a tea/coffee pot. My parents eventually invested in an electric kettle because it was deemed safer. And the design of these have changed over time too. First off we had a kettle with a detachable flex, so you could unplug it to fill the kettle without getting the socket wet. Then came lift- off kettles, which have a base with a flex running to the plug and the socket to power the kettle is underneath it, where if you were to overfill the kettle, the socket wouldn’t get wet. These tend to be the current type, but there are ‘water saver’ type kettles too - I own one of these. It is a kettle you can either fill at the tap, or fill with a bottle or other container - I fill it this way as I have Arthritis in my hands and can’t hold a full kettle most of the time. It then fills a receptacle inside with enough water for a mug (200ml) and boils that only, dispensing it into the mug automatically. The mug sits on a drip tray in case of any spillages; it’s based on a coffee maker without the coffee ! Mine is called a ‘One Cup’ so you can look it up to see what it looks like.
When I was younger we used to have a kettle that had a whistle and you put it on the stove. The whistle was very important, once my sister put the kettle on and forgot the whistle, then forgot she'd put the kettle on. When she remembered she found a molten lump of metal that had once been the kettle. My mum was not happy! 🤣🤣
I've only lived in 3 places in my life and all were totally different styles. First was a ground-floor flat in a huge Georgian townhouse, second was a small Victorian terrace and now I live in a post-war 1950's semi-detached. I do love all the different house styles we have here!
@@pisquared1827I think they’re guaranteed for about 25 years though, so there is probably maintenance checks that should be carried out every few years or so but the roof itself should last a few decades before any major work is needed.
Not the ones where I grew up. They all burnt down due to a combination of chimney fires or fireworks night rockets landing on the roof! Also, insurance costs for thatched roof house is also insane! As JT said, nice to look at but not necessarily to live in.
Chocolate box houses go back to when Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree (chocolate makers) were still owned by those Quaker families. They provided education, medical facilities, and community gardens for their employees and their families. They also provided affordable housing and built the houses, now recognised as chocolate box houses. Going against Quaker beliefs, the chocolate boxes were made more flamboyant and pictures of the cottages were featured on the boxes. Giving us .... chocolate box houses.
Regarding the plugs in the bathrooms, there's a reason for that- here in the UK there's a legal requirement to keep plugs a certain distance from the bath so you CAN'T accidentally (or otherwise) fry yourself. Helnce, no plug sockets in the bathroom. The one exception is for electric razors, which have a weird nonstandard plug so it's only them that can be plugged in there.
We live with buildings and structures where 1,000 years is really old. So our idea of structurally well built implies a degree of permanence. There are stonebuilt walls of Neolithic dwellings on our Orkney isles SKATHA BRAE that are older than the great pyramids of Giza (5,000 years).
You say about pressing the button for the washer then pressing again for the dryer. On a washer dryer you dont have to press a button to start drying it's one cycle.
From Wikipedia: Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (Cladium mariscus), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of the vegetation stays dry and is densely packed-trapping air-thatching also functions as insulation. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates. Thatch is still employed by builders in developing countries, usually with low-cost local vegetation. By contrast, in some developed countries it is the choice of some affluent people who desire a rustic look for their home, would like a more ecologically friendly roof, or who have purchased an originally thatched abode.
Materials supply also affected British building styles; timber framing was the norm (like the black and white ones you showed) and the use of green oak was common until the government decided, quite rightly, that as an island we needed a mighty navy and there's only so many trees on a small island. Luckily we are blessed with a lot of clay soil which isn't great for growing crops but brilliant for making bricks, so much cheaper and easier than quarrying stone. The States has a huge supply of timber, so it's no surprise buildings are made of wood. We were also lucky that most of North Wales consists of slate, the perfect material for making roof tiles and because we're small we could dig canals and move stuff around quickly and easily, because we have a lot of rain to keep them filled. We were basically blessed by nature which enabled the industrial revolution to happen.
You are not missing out on a garbage disposal, we had one and it decided to break down and block the sink on Christmas day just before we were about to start preparing lunch! As for combined washer dryers, they aren't very good at the drying part of the process. We have separate washer and dryer, but I hang about 70% of my clothes to dry because they all seem to say 'do not tumble dry' nowadays - and even when the label says you can tumble dry the clothes, they end up shrinking anyway!
I live in a ground-floor flat, in a converted Victorian three-storey terrace. What used to be one huge family home, is now SEVEN individual, self-contained flats. Apparently, the street I live in was one of the most desirable addresses in the city......... 100 years ago!! 🤣🤣🤣
I'm sure it still looks lovely. 😊😊I too live in a Victorian house converted into flats (first floor; which is second floor in the US) and I love it! There are basement flats and attic flats, and because we are basically a row of terraces, we all know each other in our own 'house' block. 😁
Also the wood panelling on the typical American houses reminds me of the traditional weatherboard cottages in the area of the UK I'm from (Sussex). I really like that style of house.
Depends where your looking to be honest. As someone who lives not in london, but within the m25, i was astonished at housing prices near a friend of mine down in cornwall. Anything under 1300 pcm near me is only going to be one bedroom and you'd be lucky if you had it to yourself. Down his way you could get a 3/4 bed house for 1500
That's what *I* thought. I remember the one in 1999 here in UK. Everyone was outside to experience it. It was the most amazing thing as it grew darker and darker and the birds stopped singing. It went dark really fast and was just like night time fo what seemed like several minutes before getting light again. I am really glad I could experience something so unique.
" Older houses...built in the 70s" Such a different perspective on what is old. Ours was built in the 30s. There are houses near us that were built when Cromwell was in charge.
Here in the UK it would be very rare, almost impossible, to get a house the way you did. Hardly anybody lives in 'trailers' in the UK. There are some trailer parks but these are usually for vacation use, with few as regular homes. The voltage in the UK is 240 volts, which is twice the power of that in the US, which is why we have safety plugs, & no sockets in the bathroom.
That's what I was thinking! $450,000 (£354,982) isn't going to get much where I live. In Kent where I am the average house price is £400,000 and flats or condos are ranging from £180,000 to £300,000.
My nan had a stove top kettle that whistled. That was in the 70's. I couldn't imagine doing it now. I have a one cup electric kettle. You fill it like a normal kettle and push a button and it dispenses one cup of boiling water so much faster than waiting for the kettle to boil. It's also safer to use for me because I have neuropathy in my hands, so no lifting kettle full of boiling water.
In the UK, we have electric kettles, where you fill it up like a normal electric kettle, but there is a separate compartment at the bottom, that fills up with about a mug of water, which boils in about 30 seconds, after switching it on, then it pores out the hot water into your mug, All you have to do is switch on the kettle, put your tea, coffee, latte, cappuccino or hot chocolate, the sugar, (if you have sugar, then after it pours out the water, pour your milk in, (if you have milk), If you time it right, from switching on the kettle, putting the ingredients into the mug, (which shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds), then after it pours the water, quickly add the milk, It will take no longer than 1 minute for each brew, The only downside is that it only boils enough water for one brew at a time, 🇬🇧😎👍🏼
Had mixer taps in my houses since the 80s. Can forget the kettle we use a one cup. Put a tea bag or coffee in a cup. Put under the spout and press a button. Water boils fills the cup and stops. Saves water and electricity. You can also now get a mixer tap for the kitchen that provides hot and cold water, but also boiling, soda and ice cold waters.
My first home was an early victorian terrace circa 1850’s, second a Victorian terrace circa 1890’s. Now live in a detached Victorian house built in 1887, yes our houses are built to last
If you liked some of the older style houses/properties shown for the UK you should maybe check out the town of Ludlow in Shropshire, it has quite a few Tudor and Georgian properties in it but it has a hotel called The Feathers which is a Tudor black and white building. One of my Grannies was from Ludlow and so every summer my Dad and his brother were taken there to visit their Granny (this was from the mid forties until the early sixties) and they would often stay at The Feathers. My Dad hated it because he was convinced it was haunted. It was built in 1619 (so is actually Jacobean but very much a ‘fancy Tudor style) and though built as a home, became a hotel around in around 1670. You might also be interested in Skara Brae, which is located on Orkney and is a small village that is older than either Stonehenge or The Great Pyramids of Giza. It’s a group of small stone built houses (because very few trees grow on Orkney, Shetland or the Outer Hebrides) that are still very recognisable as homes. It is estimated that Skara Brae was built sometime between 3000BCE and 2500BCE making it part of the Neolithic era and over 5000 years old.
@@FallenAngel9979 both are actually used. BCE is the term that isn’t based on Christianity and stand for Before Common Era and CE (Common Era) is the non Christianity version of AD. So I wasn’t incorrect in the terminology used, so I didn’t require correction.
The kettle issue is in part down to the mains supply deficit, ( 240v /110v ) . A traditional kettle probably boils water just as fast as an electric one at 110v.
A normal US socket outlet cannot provide the same power (kW) due to limitations on the Amp carrying capacity of the outlet. Which actually doubles the time it takes. Gas is more time efficient in the US.
The reason *we* don't have plugs in the bathroom is because 240V and water isn't a great combination. You only have 110V over there which is barely a tickle.
Notice the Brit pronounces the word 'houses' with a Z sound in the middle. In the US they use an S sound. It's house with an S sound in the singular only in the UK.
We have electric kettles but in case of power cuts I also have a stove top in a cupboard. I try to hang my laundry on a line in the garden when it's not raining because it costs nothing and smells so fresh from blowing in the wind.
agreed, I've never had a drier, and wouldn't ever buy one, as it's a waste of electricity, when you can hang the washing on a line outside, or on an air drier inside near a radiator. Houses in the US are plenty big enough to have space for an air rack to dry clothes surely. it'd save so much energy. I've only ever used one when I had to do washing at the laundry.
Mine is 121 years old, 2 up 2 down with 1960s extension for kitchen and bathroom, teeny tiny rooms and the house next door is currently for sale for £675,000!! Madness!! Others on the row sold a few years ago for just over half a million...
@hannahrowlands2285 Piss on a stick... really. I saw a 5 bed detached new build, a Really top one, big gardens for £299,000 Where I live Move to where us peasants exist ❤️from Northeast England ❤️
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud it's mad where I live - I think the south is always more expensive anyway but we're just across the river from Windsor castle! That explains it!
Actually,most newer sinks/baths in uk have combined taps (faucets)...but,obvs there are still many (mostly) older ones with separate taps btw all you need is to put a plug in to mux hot and cold🎩
I live in the UK and had an electric waste disposal grinder in the kitchen sink in 1994 in the days before food waste collection and recycling were a thing. Getting rid of the food scraps there and then rather than putting them in a single bin with general waste meant that infestations of flies and bad smells in the kitchen decreased. Eventually the device broke down, by which time kerbside collections of separately binned food waste had begun. I would never go back to one now as the waste, albeit finely ground, may still contains fat, oils and particles which might congeal and give rise to sewer blockages which are a perennial problem for water companies. Also the loud, grating sound made by these units is highly disturbing to neighbours if you live in a flat or an attached house with thin walls. I don't like them.
Hi there. The narrator in the video which we all are watching just now is soo out of date on many levels.....he left the U.K. 11 years ago,and I don’t know when he made this video,but I wouldn’t hold too much store by what a lot of things he says about the U.K. !!!
Condos are lease hold flats, shared common areas and shared facilities costs. But a lease is all you get, no outright purchase, effective long-term prepaid rental, and a massive con with no authority and all the expense.
On the subject of house size, let me leave you this... The State that matches closest in area to the UK is Michigan, which is approximately 250,493 sq km, while United Kingdom is approximately 243,610 sq km, making United Kingdom 97.25% the size of Michigan. Meanwhile, the population of Michigan is ~9.9 million people while 57.9 million more people live in the United Kingdom.
As a rule I wouldn't listen to a word Lawrence says. He's been out of the UK for so long he is hopelessly out of date on almost every subject related to the UK. For once the only aspect he doesn't have a clue about is the price of houses now. Remember that in the UK once you've built a house it tends to stay built - we don't have hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes to dismantle them. When it comes to kettles you have to take into account that we have a household electrical system that runs at twice the voltage and doesn't have everything trip out when you apply a heavy load to the system.
I like the way people carve names and dates into brick work. I have notes carved into the brick work on my side wall and some day I am going to do the same.
Apparently 75 to 80 percent of the UK have electric kettles, Though I have never met anyone that doesn't actually have one, as well as houses most hotel rooms in the UK have electric kettles too, as well as all the offices ect. we do love our Tea and coffee. so much so if there is a major televised event the national grid gets ready for the add breaks because there will be a surge from people turning their kettles on together.
I've noticed in America that many houses the downstairs is open plan, where as in the UK most rooms are separate. I much prefer separate because you can just close the kitchen door if you're cooking smelly food and you don't have the smell going all around the house.
In the USA, 40% of the housing stock, overall, is in an HOA - but *82% of all new builds are.* Developers discovered they are a licence to print money.
Washer dryers are a bit of a minefield. They save space so for some houses are the best option, but they cost more and are also a lot more complex so a lot more can go wrong with them. We had a couple, neither lasted as long as a typical washer or dryer.
JT you should have a look at how we Thatch rooves here. It's a fascinating and beautiful process that will last longer than your average slate or shingle roof!
Council houses are not a style though, it’s historically who built them. There are also very few “council houses” these days, as most have been sold off to housing companies to manage and the councils have not been allowed to replace any that were sold through the right to buy scheme for even longer than that. But maybe you meant semi-detached as a style of housing, as I think he skips them?
Wooden housing in England died a death after the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was decreed that the rebuilt city would not use wood as the primary construction material because of the risk of another fire and the rest of the country followed suit over the decades. Meanwhile much of our timber was being diverted away to build wooden ships for the ever-expanding navy.
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloudthey only have 110V electricity and that means the power available from a socket is much less so an electric kettle can take more than twice as long to boil as it does in the U.K. - which means a stove kettle can often boil quicker, which is rarely the case in the U.K. Growing up, we always had stove kettles and I didn’t experience regularly using an electric one until I bought one for myself when I left uni I think. I think electricity came down in price and made them more attractive or something - growing up we had “economy 7” electricity and would try to avoid using any during the day as it was so much more expensive than overnight, so maybe that’s why? Never thought about it before.
I remember a longtime ago going to America, New England and Boston, and I was amazed how very British the environment looked. The houses had front and back gardens, there was a little high st, with post office, parish church, town square, even some places a local cricket green. I was stunned. It felt like being in the British isles itself. The only subtle difference was, you’ll see American flags in some places.
New subscriber. Couple of points for you. The washer dryer combo. It has pros and cons, most will be able to auto start the drying cycle. They work as a condenser dryer as the warm air with any fluff and water vapour hits a cold metal plate. There is an extra electronic magnet water valve that during drying drips water on to the plate. So as the moist air hits the plate the water vapour condenses back into water the fluff is also caught on to the plate, the combined fluff and water ends up in the sump and pumped out of the waste. The limitation is that with the size of the drum you are more limited if combined wash/dry cycle or a just as a dryer. So you can only put in the load of laundry that can tumble on that cycle. About a third less than full wash. So if your has a ten pound max load, if drying just over six pounds If you do a second wash as a dryer now you have three. wash/cycles. My biggest pain is if you need multiple two or more loads. You cannot start the next load until the dryer part is finished.
The saying raining cats and dogs comes from thatched roofs, the animals would sleep on them as it was nice and cosy. When it rained they would slide off hence raining cats and dogs.
So lots of UK houses have sockets in their bathrooms, but they are 2 pin. I think this is to prevent you from plugging in anything that hasn't been designed to be safe for use in the bathroom. Such items don't need an earth as they will be double insulated, and it prevents someone from deciding to use something that might not be properly insulated like a kettle, toaster* or more likely a hair dryer in the bathroom, which wouldn't be safe. *Ok this one seems unlikely, I can't imagine anyone making toast in their bathroom but you get the point :)
Thatched roofs use waterproof reed stems. They are incredibly waterproof and has high insulation properties but tit is very expensive, we have a couple of houses like that in our small village.
the biggest differences are we do not have basements. our houses are also very expensive because we are a small island, land comes at a premium, hence why the square footage of our homes is much smaller. To be fair, I used to think Americans were mad for using A/C until I went to Florida in August on holiday and I was so thankful for it. Here in the UK we do not have A/C because our weather simply never gets hot enough, regularly enough to justify it
I went my whole adult life having to buy a new electric kettle every 2 to 4 years because the manufacturers *ENSURE* that the on/off switches are _SO_ flimsy and made out the thinnest plastic. This goes for expensive as well as cheaper brands. This didn't used to be the case; electric kettles in my parents' era went on for decades ... it had to be the element that died before the thing was finished, and even then you might be able to get the necessary part replaced. Once these newer kettles' switches snap they're completely unfixable and _of course_ out of warranty (you better believe the manufacturers ensure those switches will outlive the warranty!). The longer this went on, the more I felt like I was an idiot to keep lining the kettle companies' pockets for them, so I finally bought a beautiful stove-top kettle. I'm sure it takes a bit longer to heat and uses a bit more electricity (I don't have a gas stove), but at least I'm saving the cost of all the new kettles and there are fewer things going into landfill.
Combined washer dryers aren't very popular in the UK as they take for ever to dry clothes, it's far better to have them separately as then you can put another load of washing on, while the first load is drying, we also have mixer taps, think Laurance hasn't lived in the UK for sometime and is a bit out of touch.
In the UK, electric kettles are probably used more than in the US. This is because our domestic voltage is twice as high as in the US. So you can boil a kettle of water in the UK in approximately half the time it takes in the US. Stove top kettles are therefore more popular in the US, (because electric kettles take an age to boil water.)
There'll be a lot of UK houses that are older than the US. Houses built with brick and stone have walls with thermal mass which means they'll be cooler in summer and (so long as you can heat them) warm in winter. During recent hot summers my house has been cool enough inside that I've pulled a long sleeve top on. Houses built with timber frames and thin walls don't have the same ability to control the internal temps without a large AC unit. Midges will get past any size of mosquito screen
The combined washer/dryers you can buy in the UK are not ideal: they are intended to save space rather than increase the convenience of mechanical washing and drying. Firstly, you cannot normally seamlessly dry clothes after washing: the load capacity for drying is smaller than for washing so some laundry items normally have to be removed between the two and the same washing cycle, unless the loadwas small to begin with, will normally require several, manually initiated drying cycles. Of course any clothes bot suitable for machine drying need to be removed in any event. Secondly, unlike having two separate machines, washing and drying of different loads of laundry cannot be done in parallel so the laundry process takes longer. Thirdly, a washer/dryer is typically less effective at drying clothes thoroughly and may require a longer drying cycle and/or damper results at the end. I have had combined washer/dryers for 40 years so can attest to their usefulness despite the flaws.
Americans just don't get, until they visit, that the UK is at the same latitudes as Alaska & Newfoundland. Whereas the contiguous US is at the same latitudes as the Mediterranean and North Africa. We then have the advantage that we are a relatively small island, surrounded by sea/ocean, which makes the extremes MUCH more moderate.
Hearing the difference in house pricing is crazy! I live in London and our 1 bedroom 200sq ft flat was £350,000… other 2 bedroom tiny houses on our road cost easily £550-600,000… madness!
Everyone here has an electric kettle, the only time we would maybe use a stovetop kettle is when camping. We use (usually) ceramic teapots, which you put tea and then add boiling water to, which is then poured into cups which have milk in, my family only tend to use a teapot if lots of people are visiting. Also we have stone houses usually the local stone. Most thatched roofs are made from reeds I believe, there's a thatched cottage just down the road. We also have bungalows (I'm currently in one) which are on 1 level. There are places called allotments which aren't attached to properties but are like gardens for people who don't have one. Most people will have a garden shed which can be very simple for garden equipment or fancy ones that are like an extra room. We tend to use hedges, wooden fence panelling and maybe walls to differentiate boundaries of properties. I wish the insect screens were more easily accessible here, I'm allergic to bees so it would be nice to be able to open a window without the worry of coming across a bee.
Our voltage is higher in UK, electric kettles boil really quickly so nobody boils kettles on stove top.We also have taps in kitchens that dispense boiling water, cold filtered water plus carbonated all from same tap on the sink.These new taps are great but add at least £1200 onto price of your new kitchen.
Putting the water in the microwave is CRAZY JT!!!! Plug in kettle all the way! Only issue we get with this, is after time it gets limescale depending on where you live (North of england has softer water, meaning less limescale and I believe this is due to it being less built up and South of England, is hard water with more limescale.)
Congratulations on learning to say rural correctly JT. The chocolate box house is what we call a thatched roof, which is made from tightly packed reeds. Thatched roofs need replacing every 15 years or so, and thatching is a dying art.
I'm in my 5th house in Britain ( i was a home birth in 1968) The house my and my wife have lived (my 5th) in since '96 is the oldest built in 1926 all of the others were new builds. We've got a separate washing machine and dryer. I'm a lorry (truck) driver and the last time i used a stove kettle was about 4 years ago when i used a portable gas burner stove for hot water when i was having nights away from home, apart from that i haven't used one in years, as we've always had an electric kettle. Our house used to be semi detached but the previous owner had a house built where the garage would've been for an elderly relative, with an interconnecting door. Then before she moved out she had the houses officially separated. Also in Britain it helps if you and your neighbours, on both sides, have a live and let live attitude. The previous neighbour on one side was an utter arsehole. He moved out about 4 years ago, the man that lives there now is fantastic. We feel that the devil "went down to Georgia" and an absolute angel moved in, in comparison!!! Also my sister has just sold her 2 bedroomed house in London for £430,000 =$545,100. But that shows how expensive London is.
Surely Americans must have used kettles at one point. It’s okay for them to say “we use the microwave”, but microwave ovens are a relatively new invention. They weren’t even developed until the 1970s, and weren’t in every house until the 1980s, so how was water boiled prior to that. They must have used stove top kettles, right? And yes, every Australian and British home has a microwave too, but we didn’t throw out our kettles when we got them. We have both.
We have stove top kettles too, but the electric ones don't use gas (the hob can be electric or gas) and they turn themselves off. (You don't really need to keep an eye on it like you do with a stove top one).
Basically here in England we learned from The Three Little pigs. We understood that straw and wooden houses could be easily blown down so we tend to build ours of brick.
Yip
Many a truth in fairy tales and nursery rhymes
😊
Not just how easily American houses can be blown down, but also how quick that wood and plastic will burn down. I've seen videos where a small fire starts in the living room and within 3 minutes every square foot of the gaff is ablaze 😕
Id love to see a brick house that can withstand a class 5 tornado or hurricane lol
@chitster it's possible now with the oceans warming up. I think the strongest we've had here was a category 2 hurricane. It took down trees, wooden structures and the odd house roof. It took lives also, but there wasn't many houses felled. Now the way they are throwing up houses here, nowadays? That could be a different story. They're certainly not building them the same way that they used to
@@chitster I think you are correct Once Florida disappears under the water it wouldn't really matter what type of house you have.
I'm in Scotland know why there's no A/C.Because it's always bloody freezing 😂
Aye, same in the née ware carld the North East... 😢😢😢
Except for two or three days when we are roasted alive 😂
Summer's on a Wednesday this year. Wish I knew which one, I'd get the Factor zero ready 😢
Cold is OK. The problem is when it is wet windy and cold at the same time - which is what Scotland is like. No wonder the Romans never bothered to conquer Scotland.
@@Sitislik82 And eaten alive. You can't forget the midges. It's not a real summer in Scotland unless you've had to spit out at least one midge that you've nearly swallowed.
Every house in the uk has a kettle. It’s odd not to have one. They are cheap, and do the job quick. Probably because our mains electricity is a higher power. We can have sockets in the bathroom, but they are half our normal strength, and only for shavers and electric toothbrush chargers.
I've got shaver/toothbrush sockets in my bathroom. One of them is 240v and the other is 120v. Doesn't need to be half the voltage. It varies a lot but I'd say most people don't have any sockets in the bathroom.
If we don’t have electric kettle, we have a stove top kettle. Even if you are not a tea drinker, there would still be a kettle. What do you do if you need hot water? Cooking, cleaning, or a hottie?
@@RyanSmith-on1hqthink the bathroom ones have to be that shape in order for condensation not to get into the socket. Our voltage higher but don’t think it’s to do with voltage like you said just condensation etc, they have a little plastic sleeve that slides across when you plug something in. Bathroom steam etc.
@@sailingayoyothat’s what I just said- I use the kettle for so much.
We can have sockets 230v in UK bathrooms but they have to be (I think) 3 meters away from the bath to comply with British electrical regs but not many people have bathrooms that big in the UK
I would argue that combined washer/dryers in the UK are worse than a separate washing machine and tumble dryer. The only real reason to buy a combined one is because you don't have space for both.
We have separate ones for good reason.
Don't have a washing line 😮
Agreed. It's like washer/dryers have to much to do to be good at either...the most schizophrenic of all white goods...😊
Washer/dryers are the least reliable piece of equipment of ever seen.
I had a combination washer/dryer years ago. The drum gets ridiculously hot on the dryer cycle that you worry that it’s going to scorch the fabric, yet it never seemed to act fully dry the contents within a reasonable time, I absolutely hated it. I now have a smaller kitchen, so I don’t have the room for a separate dryer but I have quite happily gone without one for quite a few years now.
I have a washer drier - for good reason too :)
Small kitchen, no space for a second one - plus, it washes fine and dries fine. Never really had one that doesn’t.
Living in London, the $450,000 would probably get you a car parking space
You can 10 terrace house in bradford for $450,000
I saw a walk-in cupboard in London that would make Harry Potter blush, go for £500,000 about ten years ago, prices in London are bloody schizophrenic depending in what Manor you live in.
was about to say, 450k for several acres of land and a mansion, compared to spending 950k on a normal sized 3 bed/2 bath house in London.
The trade off is that there's way more the space in the US for you to live on, but you also live in the arse of nowhere, so it takes 2 hours to buy milk when you need it. Whereas in the the UK, you have way less space, and are crammed into a shoebox sized house, but there's also a corner shop your hallway, so on the way to make a cup of tea in the morning, you can grab a pint of milk without having to leave your house. /s
Might get you a dog house, but only in somewhere like Barking
An early Victorian mid terrace workman's cottage goes for £999, 950 around here. A three up, two down, 22 ft wide, terraced house for £50 shy of a million 🤯. Doesn't even have a parking space, the garden is about 30ft by 22ft. That's SW London, head across the River, and the same will cost you another £250k.
You don't need AC when we only have 3 weeks of half decent weather a year.
Best to build a house that keeps the warmth in.
Three…Whole…Weeks..? You must live in Devon!
@@frugalitystartsathome4889 2 weeks in june, 1 week in september. usual surrey bs mate.
@@mej6519 Could have done with some AC when it was 42c a couple of years ago. It's always hotter in my flat than outside, it was awful. (42c = 107f)
@@mej6519sorry but there is no way that we only get 3 weeks in Surrey. Last year was bad but usually you have a lot more good weather here than up North.
@@WyndStrykeI know right? My kids and I debated sleeping outside on the trampoline but then remembered that the fox comes to jump on it every night and probably wasn’t the best idea, so we just laid inside and waited for death. 😂
In a recent survey it was estimated that 95-96% of British houses had an electric kettle. All offices etc have them. Plus 90% of hotel and B&B rooms have them.
And those 4 to 5% of houses that don't have one are probably derelict!
Yeah, whereas the only time I've even SEEN a 'stovetop' kettle in the last 30 years was when we were out camping
@@nihtgengalastnamegoeshere7526 I had one a few years ago... But I was living on a narrowboat at the time.
well you can now can built in boiling water in taps so don't need a kettle. My work doesn't have a kettle just a hot water boiler tap
@@Bridgercraft I have a stovetop one. Boil the water, and decant into a flask for use throughout the day. Stays hot for about 8 hours.
I won’t be the only one who groaned when Lawrence appeared on the screen, it looks like he might have done some research though. Good interesting video JT, I’m glad you survived the eclipse 😁
i hate his take on what he thinks is British
Me too
Yeah I used to quite like him back I the day but he has lived in the US for so long that many of his ideas of British life are quite outdated.
TBF I think he did quite well here.
@@ac1646 yeah this was one of his better vids.
Thatched roofs are made of reeds not straw.
The ignorance of people 😂
long straw is the most common actually followed by combed wheat and water reed.
We have lovely Savannah grass here that makes beautiful thatching
Mostly it's a luxury lifestyle thing here
So a lot of resorts use thatched bungalows for the aesthetic
It always makes me laugh seeing how Americans react to our brick houses, especially when most Americans live in houses made of wood or trailers 🤷🏼♀️
I'd like to see how they react after they have been blown away by a gust of wind.
Jealous I believe may be their expression 😢
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud You are aware there are brick houses in certain areas of the US, right? New England in particular has them. You're also aware there are many wood frame homes that are very sturdy and have lasted many years, right? Wood is plentiful here so it's commonly used. It does happen to be cheaper than brick too, but it also has some give which is important to withstand certain weather phenomena. I wouldn't trade my large, lovely home for any house in the UK, so no, I'm definitely not jealous.
When I moved to Los Angeles for a while I was horrified by their flimsy windows & house construction which were little more than rendered sheds. if these houses were built in the UK they would last maybe 5 years, & the drafty windows will annoy with their wind induced rattling as perpetual hypothermia takes hold.
@@cookielady7662
Nooooo...... don't undermine my mockery 🤫
You mock like a Chihuahua, same size as your house!🤣@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud
Garbage disposal (masserators) are illegal in many countries because the small problem at your end becomes a big problem for the water/sewerage system! One of the reasons why water is expensive! You can get imprisoned in Portugal, I believe.
I have a macerator in Scotland and we have to have the waste go under our garden in a special drain sump scenario
which is a pity i think it would be great for getting rid of the hair when you are done shaving
Ha ha hearing a really super posh expensive house described as "wow no less than $450,000" like thats a big deal ! thats only £360 thousand ! thats the average house price here,and it would get you a very normal small house,a large posh house with a large garden would be £1million ++++
Older houses.... from the 70's?
How short is the average life span of a house in America?
Until the wind blows 😂
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud No wonder they are all aghast at the architecture they see ,visiting the UK and Europe.
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud When I worked in Washington DC there were plenty of houses over two centuries old. They seem to have done alright.
@@wessexdruid7598Built by Europeans in the style they built them where they came from.... as opposed to planks?
someone told me there that modern timber houses last 20-50 years, the old colonial houses are built very differently because the English built those like their houses back home. it seems to depend where you are, the colonials are mainly to the East & the modern timber houses are out West. this same California resident told me that in Hollywood there are very few homes 100+ years old, these are considered ancient. they are often demolished & replaced very quickly comparatively. a big problem I hear with wooden homes is termites.
JT, i live in the north england, our houses, are the row houses as you call them, terraced we call them, 130 years old, and still good condition,
Aye, that says it all. I love MY North East.
I'm a Piyakka, from County Durham. And love our terrace 😊
The north UK is here in Scotland. You live down south in the north of England 😊
@@RollerbazAndCoasterDad your right, i have edit that, it was, a mistake, talking to americans calling it UK, i agree, i have edited comment
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud im county durham also, not your county durham name,
@RollerbazAndCoasterDad
Figggghhhhtttt 😡
We all know there's no such place as Scotland
Me mam always said she was from there... we found a good nut house, comfortable, after all, it wasn't her fault
We had a stove top kettle when I was a child, but when electric kettles came out, us Brits swapped to those. They have a MAJOR advantage: they switch themselves off. It was such a novelty to be able to leave the room and know the kettle wasn't going to boil dry or you had to stop what you were doing to stop it whistling all through the house.
Electric kettles are also the most efficient way to boil water.
@@billyhills9933 only if you don't over fill.
@@martinwoollett8468 I would have thought that overfilling would have reduced the efficiency of any heating method.
In winter when I have my range lit 24/7 I have 3 stove top kettles on it all the time so that I always have hot water.
Where you a child in the early 1920s? The auto-off ones date from 1955. The very first electric kettle came out in 1890, the submerged heating element dates from 1922..
Almost everyone uses electric kettles here.
The only person I know who doesn't, lives on a narrow boat.
Some Americans haven't seen one... ever... 😮
Kettle and narrow boat
I live on a narrow boat and I have an electric kettle gas is to slow.
@@narrowboatbb
I sure plenty of people do. Just in my case that's the only person I know who doesn't have one.
When I'm travelling around and have no electricity then I use gas and the funny thing about the Americans is that an American invented the electric kettle 😂😂
@@narrowboatbb So you boil water every time you want a cuppa? I have a stove top one and I boil water in it, once, then decant it into a flask. It stays hot for about 8 hours.
Surely with the amount of sun you get you hang your washing out to dry rather than use a tumble dryer
Nope, in many places you are not allowed to hang washing out, in some areas, like where I am the front yard isn't allowed to have a fence, and if the grass goes beyond a certain height you are warned and if you don't mow it they will come round and do it, and bill you for it
@@colinbrown9549 That sounds like hell. In the UK to fence or not is normally your own choice, in some areas the height of front garden fences is restricted to three feet, and back fences to six feet, and everywhere that I have lived if you wanted a wildflower meadow in the front garden to help wildlife that was OK. The only time I came across a place where fences were not allowed in the front I helped the owners plant a hedge. Some of the neighbours didn't like it but there was nothing they could do because a hedge isn't a fence. The last time I went past there around 2/3 of the gardens had hedges round them.
hanging out washing in California will dry your clothes crisp & sun bleach & fade them very quickly. plus of course the petty HOA rules often prevent the washing being hung out. this would probably provoke a fine.
@@colinbrown9549 Doesnt he live somewhere rural?
@@Llama_charmer I don't live in a rural area though JT does
We never use a dryer. We either hang our washing outside on a washing line, or if its raining we hang them inside in front of a radiator.
dryers shrink clothes and cost too much to run just impractical considering you can have things dry within a day or a day like today we had 4 loads of washing on all dried within hours lol free drying the US misses out on that
@@lewismitchell3751 You realize we have clotheslines here for that "Free dying" too right?😏
One risk is mould from inadequate ventalation if you dry in doors. So still worth the occassional dryer use.
Properly built the British bulldings Last for years 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
Centuries
Except the new ones, which subside, flood or will have scaffolding around them a few years later.
My house built in 1863 in 2007 I had the roof refreshed, needed some new slates. Don’t know when the central heating was put in it was here when I moved in 35 years ago replaced the boiler in 2007 as well. Don’t need a/c got thick walls keeps it cool in summer and warm in winter. I would never buy a house under fifty years old as I am not a fan of these new wood frame buildings. My mate lives in one and if someone puts a plug in one room you can hear them doing that in the next room as theses houses only have stud walls. All my walls are brick 😊
Centuries even. Like mine. 1860.
@@Sofasurfa same here in my 1860 home. Solid brick. Great to keep warm in winter and cool in summer but a bugger to hammer a nail in to hang a picture.
In England we also have a lot of 70s style simple houses and also quite a lot of tower blocks
Oh please don't
Most are so diabolical aren't they 😮
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud there all hideous. I think they should all be renovated
Between 95% and 97% of homes in England have and use electric kettles.
When I was a kid, we had a gas kettle - you fill it with tap water and boil it on the stove until it whistles and then you could pour it in your cup or mug or a tea/coffee pot. My parents eventually invested in an electric kettle because it was deemed safer. And the design of these have changed over time too. First off we had a kettle with a detachable flex, so you could unplug it to fill the kettle without getting the socket wet. Then came lift- off kettles, which have a base with a flex running to the plug and the socket to power the kettle is underneath it, where if you were to overfill the kettle, the socket wouldn’t get wet. These tend to be the current type, but there are ‘water saver’ type kettles too - I own one of these. It is a kettle you can either fill at the tap, or fill with a bottle or other container - I fill it this way as I have Arthritis in my hands and can’t hold a full kettle most of the time. It then fills a receptacle inside with enough water for a mug (200ml) and boils that only, dispensing it into the mug automatically. The mug sits on a drip tray in case of any spillages; it’s based on a coffee maker without the coffee ! Mine is called a ‘One Cup’ so you can look it up to see what it looks like.
When I was younger we used to have a kettle that had a whistle and you put it on the stove. The whistle was very important, once my sister put the kettle on and forgot the whistle, then forgot she'd put the kettle on. When she remembered she found a molten lump of metal that had once been the kettle. My mum was not happy! 🤣🤣
I've only lived in 3 places in my life and all were totally different styles. First was a ground-floor flat in a huge Georgian townhouse, second was a small Victorian terrace and now I live in a post-war 1950's semi-detached. I do love all the different house styles we have here!
Thatched roofs last 100 years. many of the houses using Thatch are over 500 years old...!
You have to change the thatch regularly though.
@@pisquared1827I think they’re guaranteed for about 25 years though, so there is probably maintenance checks that should be carried out every few years or so but the roof itself should last a few decades before any major work is needed.
Not the ones where I grew up. They all burnt down due to a combination of chimney fires or fireworks night rockets landing on the roof! Also, insurance costs for thatched roof house is also insane! As JT said, nice to look at but not necessarily to live in.
@@pisquared1827 Which is a problem as there are not many thatchers around now and there is a shortage of suitable straw and reed
@@colingoode3702 they treat them these days BUT you are correct many villages have stringent fire rules with thatched houses in the area.
Chocolate box houses go back to when Cadbury, Fry and Rowntree (chocolate makers) were still owned by those Quaker families. They provided education, medical facilities, and community gardens for their employees and their families. They also provided affordable housing and built the houses, now recognised as chocolate box houses.
Going against Quaker beliefs, the chocolate boxes were made more flamboyant and pictures of the cottages were featured on the boxes. Giving us .... chocolate box houses.
Regarding the plugs in the bathrooms, there's a reason for that- here in the UK there's a legal requirement to keep plugs a certain distance from the bath so you CAN'T accidentally (or otherwise) fry yourself. Helnce, no plug sockets in the bathroom.
The one exception is for electric razors, which have a weird nonstandard plug so it's only them that can be plugged in there.
We live with buildings and structures where 1,000 years is really old. So our idea of structurally well built implies a degree of permanence. There are stonebuilt walls of Neolithic dwellings on our Orkney isles SKATHA BRAE that are older than the great pyramids of Giza (5,000 years).
You say about pressing the button for the washer then pressing again for the dryer. On a washer dryer you dont have to press a button to start drying it's one cycle.
From Wikipedia: Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (Cladium mariscus), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of the vegetation stays dry and is densely packed-trapping air-thatching also functions as insulation. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates. Thatch is still employed by builders in developing countries, usually with low-cost local vegetation. By contrast, in some developed countries it is the choice of some affluent people who desire a rustic look for their home, would like a more ecologically friendly roof, or who have purchased an originally thatched abode.
Materials supply also affected British building styles; timber framing was the norm (like the black and white ones you showed) and the use of green oak was common until the government decided, quite rightly, that as an island we needed a mighty navy and there's only so many trees on a small island. Luckily we are blessed with a lot of clay soil which isn't great for growing crops but brilliant for making bricks, so much cheaper and easier than quarrying stone. The States has a huge supply of timber, so it's no surprise buildings are made of wood. We were also lucky that most of North Wales consists of slate, the perfect material for making roof tiles and because we're small we could dig canals and move stuff around quickly and easily, because we have a lot of rain to keep them filled. We were basically blessed by nature which enabled the industrial revolution to happen.
You are not missing out on a garbage disposal, we had one and it decided to break down and block the sink on Christmas day just before we were about to start preparing lunch! As for combined washer dryers, they aren't very good at the drying part of the process. We have separate washer and dryer, but I hang about 70% of my clothes to dry because they all seem to say 'do not tumble dry' nowadays - and even when the label says you can tumble dry the clothes, they end up shrinking anyway!
I live in a ground-floor flat, in a converted Victorian three-storey terrace.
What used to be one huge family home, is now SEVEN individual, self-contained flats.
Apparently, the street I live in was one of the most desirable addresses in the city......... 100 years ago!! 🤣🤣🤣
I'm sure it still looks lovely. 😊😊I too live in a Victorian house converted into flats (first floor; which is second floor in the US) and I love it! There are basement flats and attic flats, and because we are basically a row of terraces, we all know each other in our own 'house' block. 😁
Also the wood panelling on the typical American houses reminds me of the traditional weatherboard cottages in the area of the UK I'm from (Sussex). I really like that style of house.
I was thinking the same. I lived in West Sussex and my boyfriend at the time, lived in Kent. Love the style.
To add; do you think it was due to ship building in Kent? Lots of wood available?
I love watching 'My lottery dream home' huge houses in America and so cheap, the same here in the UK wouldn't even by a garage!!
Depends where your looking to be honest. As someone who lives not in london, but within the m25, i was astonished at housing prices near a friend of mine down in cornwall. Anything under 1300 pcm near me is only going to be one bedroom and you'd be lucky if you had it to yourself. Down his way you could get a 3/4 bed house for 1500
You know you only get about 2 total eclipses in your life locally. I think the eclipse was more important than this 😂
What
There's been an eclipse...
We wouldn't know in the Northeast
There has to be a Sun for that 😢
Summer is no a Wednesday this year 😢😢😢
I think Kentucky only got a partial eclipse tbf
That's what *I* thought. I remember the one in 1999 here in UK. Everyone was outside to experience it. It was the most amazing thing as it grew darker and darker and the birds stopped singing. It went dark really fast and was just like night time fo what seemed like several minutes before getting light again. I am really glad I could experience something so unique.
I think I lived through four including one total eclipse...
Did think he missed something there.
" Older houses...built in the 70s"
Such a different perspective on what is old.
Ours was built in the 30s.
There are houses near us that were built when Cromwell was in charge.
Mine was from the 1870'S
Some guy tried to kill Cromwell when he stayed in one of our local pubs.
1870s here too
Ours was built in the 1830s - and it isn't even the oldest one on the street! 😂
Yeah, the 70s may as well be a new build
Here in the UK it would be very rare, almost impossible, to get a house the way you did.
Hardly anybody lives in 'trailers' in the UK. There are some trailer parks but these are usually for vacation use, with few as regular homes. The voltage in the UK is 240 volts, which is twice the power of that in the US, which is why we have safety plugs, & no sockets in the bathroom.
$450,000 for the colonial sounds cheap in a city where a two bedroom flat costs £300,000 (that's $380,000).
450k gets you a fucking mansion in Belfast hahahaha
That's what I was thinking! $450,000 (£354,982) isn't going to get much where I live. In Kent where I am the average house price is £400,000 and flats or condos are ranging from £180,000 to £300,000.
London is ridiculous
@@Shamushead That's not London prices; most 1-bedrooms will cost much than £350k+, let alone a 2-bedroom.
@@richardjohnson2026ohhh you're making me laugh mate. Try Sydney prices, second most unaffordable property market in the world, to Hong Kong.
My nan had a stove top kettle that whistled. That was in the 70's. I couldn't imagine doing it now. I have a one cup electric kettle. You fill it like a normal kettle and push a button and it dispenses one cup of boiling water so much faster than waiting for the kettle to boil. It's also safer to use for me because I have neuropathy in my hands, so no lifting kettle full of boiling water.
In the UK, we have electric kettles, where you fill it up like a normal electric kettle, but there is a separate compartment at the bottom, that fills up with about a mug of water, which boils in about 30 seconds, after switching it on, then it pores out the hot water into your mug,
All you have to do is switch on the kettle, put your tea, coffee, latte, cappuccino or hot chocolate, the sugar, (if you have sugar, then after it pours out the water, pour your milk in, (if you have milk),
If you time it right, from switching on the kettle, putting the ingredients into the mug, (which shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds), then after it pours the water, quickly add the milk,
It will take no longer than 1 minute for each brew,
The only downside is that it only boils enough water for one brew at a time,
🇬🇧😎👍🏼
Had mixer taps in my houses since the 80s. Can forget the kettle we use a one cup. Put a tea bag or coffee in a cup. Put under the spout and press a button. Water boils fills the cup and stops. Saves water and electricity. You can also now get a mixer tap for the kitchen that provides hot and cold water, but also boiling, soda and ice cold waters.
My first home was an early victorian terrace circa 1850’s, second a Victorian terrace circa 1890’s. Now live in a detached Victorian house built in 1887, yes our houses are built to last
If you liked some of the older style houses/properties shown for the UK you should maybe check out the town of Ludlow in Shropshire, it has quite a few Tudor and Georgian properties in it but it has a hotel called The Feathers which is a Tudor black and white building. One of my Grannies was from Ludlow and so every summer my Dad and his brother were taken there to visit their Granny (this was from the mid forties until the early sixties) and they would often stay at The Feathers. My Dad hated it because he was convinced it was haunted. It was built in 1619 (so is actually Jacobean but very much a ‘fancy Tudor style) and though built as a home, became a hotel around in around 1670.
You might also be interested in Skara Brae, which is located on Orkney and is a small village that is older than either Stonehenge or The Great Pyramids of Giza. It’s a group of small stone built houses (because very few trees grow on Orkney, Shetland or the Outer Hebrides) that are still very recognisable as homes. It is estimated that Skara Brae was built sometime between 3000BCE and 2500BCE making it part of the Neolithic era and over 5000 years old.
BC. NOT “ BCE”🤦🏻♀️
@@FallenAngel9979 both are actually used. BCE is the term that isn’t based on Christianity and stand for Before Common Era and CE (Common Era) is the non Christianity version of AD. So I wasn’t incorrect in the terminology used, so I didn’t require correction.
The kettle issue is in part down to the mains supply deficit, ( 240v /110v ) . A traditional kettle probably boils water just as fast as an electric one at 110v.
110 volt kettle is a lot slower to boil compared to 240v.
A normal US socket outlet cannot provide the same power (kW) due to limitations on the Amp carrying capacity of the outlet.
Which actually doubles the time it takes. Gas is more time efficient in the US.
The reason *we* don't have plugs in the bathroom is because 240V and water isn't a great combination. You only have 110V over there which is barely a tickle.
Notice the Brit pronounces the word 'houses' with a Z sound in the middle. In the US they use an S sound. It's house with an S sound in the singular only in the UK.
We have electric kettles but in case of power cuts I also have a stove top in a cupboard. I try to hang my laundry on a line in the garden when it's not raining because it costs nothing and smells so fresh from blowing in the wind.
agreed, I've never had a drier, and wouldn't ever buy one, as it's a waste of electricity, when you can hang the washing on a line outside, or on an air drier inside near a radiator. Houses in the US are plenty big enough to have space for an air rack to dry clothes surely. it'd save so much energy. I've only ever used one when I had to do washing at the laundry.
My mid terrace house is 100 years old this year 🎉
Youth... 😂
Mine is about 140 years old. I was born in a house that was from the 1700s
Mine is 121 years old, 2 up 2 down with 1960s extension for kitchen and bathroom, teeny tiny rooms and the house next door is currently for sale for £675,000!! Madness!! Others on the row sold a few years ago for just over half a million...
@hannahrowlands2285
Piss on a stick... really.
I saw a 5 bed detached new build, a Really top one, big gardens for £299,000
Where I live
Move to where us peasants exist
❤️from Northeast England ❤️
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud it's mad where I live - I think the south is always more expensive anyway but we're just across the river from Windsor castle! That explains it!
Actually,most newer sinks/baths in uk have combined taps (faucets)...but,obvs there are still many (mostly) older ones with separate taps btw all you need is to put a plug in to mux hot and cold🎩
I live in the UK and had an electric waste disposal grinder in the kitchen sink in 1994 in the days before food waste collection and recycling were a thing.
Getting rid of the food scraps there and then rather than putting them in a single bin with general waste meant that infestations of flies and bad smells in the kitchen decreased. Eventually the device broke down, by which time kerbside collections of separately binned food waste had begun.
I would never go back to one now as the waste, albeit finely ground, may still contains fat, oils and particles which might congeal and give rise to sewer blockages which are a perennial problem for water companies. Also the loud, grating sound made by these units is highly disturbing to neighbours if you live in a flat or an attached house with thin walls. I don't like them.
Hi there. The narrator in the video which we all are watching just now is soo out of date on many levels.....he left the U.K. 11 years ago,and I don’t know when he made this video,but I wouldn’t hold too much store by what a lot of things he says about the U.K. !!!
Only 11? He talks as if it was 111.
Electric kettle always - except if there is a power outage then its a saucepan on the stove-
Thanks for sharing- love seeing the differences😊
Condos are lease hold flats, shared common areas and shared facilities costs. But a lease is all you get, no outright purchase, effective long-term prepaid rental, and a massive con with no authority and all the expense.
On the subject of house size, let me leave you this... The State that matches closest in area to the UK is Michigan, which is approximately 250,493 sq km, while United Kingdom is approximately 243,610 sq km, making United Kingdom 97.25% the size of Michigan. Meanwhile, the population of Michigan is ~9.9 million people while 57.9 million more people live in the United Kingdom.
As a rule I wouldn't listen to a word Lawrence says. He's been out of the UK for so long he is hopelessly out of date on almost every subject related to the UK. For once the only aspect he doesn't have a clue about is the price of houses now. Remember that in the UK once you've built a house it tends to stay built - we don't have hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes to dismantle them. When it comes to kettles you have to take into account that we have a household electrical system that runs at twice the voltage and doesn't have everything trip out when you apply a heavy load to the system.
I like the way people carve names and dates into brick work. I have notes carved into the brick work on my side wall and some day I am going to do the same.
Who said it tough to leave a mark on the world was talking absolute tosh 😊
The $450,000 house you said, in the uk you could only really get a small 3 bed maybe 4 bed with a small garden for £450,000
11:05 "this house would be expensive, at least $400,000" One thing I do love is how cheap the houses actually are there 😊
Apparently 75 to 80 percent of the UK have electric kettles, Though I have never met anyone that doesn't actually have one, as well as houses most hotel rooms in the UK have electric kettles too, as well as all the offices ect. we do love our Tea and coffee. so much so if there is a major televised event the national grid gets ready for the add breaks because there will be a surge from people turning their kettles on together.
I've noticed in America that many houses the downstairs is open plan, where as in the UK most rooms are separate. I much prefer separate because you can just close the kitchen door if you're cooking smelly food and you don't have the smell going all around the house.
It's because of the difference in climate. In the cold, you want to keep heat in, draughts out - when it's hot, you want big, airy spaces.
The crooked house in Lavenham is 600yrs old . 😊
Everyone has electric kettles here in the uk.
After some of the HOA'S that I've read about I would never live in one
In the USA, 40% of the housing stock, overall, is in an HOA - but *82% of all new builds are.* Developers discovered they are a licence to print money.
Hey JT, love your stuff, much love to you, Anna, the dogs and cats, and anything else you happen to adopt :D
Love that the standard reactions are flowing again after the move.
You need to look into Hyperia Uk. Opens next month.
Washer dryers are a bit of a minefield. They save space so for some houses are the best option, but they cost more and are also a lot more complex so a lot more can go wrong with them. We had a couple, neither lasted as long as a typical washer or dryer.
JT you should have a look at how we Thatch rooves here. It's a fascinating and beautiful process that will last longer than your average slate or shingle roof!
Love how the Brit conveniently forgot to mention 'council houses' (which make up quite a large sum of housing in the UK)🤨
Not a fraction of what we had before Thatcher.
Council houses are not a style though, it’s historically who built them. There are also very few “council houses” these days, as most have been sold off to housing companies to manage and the councils have not been allowed to replace any that were sold through the right to buy scheme for even longer than that.
But maybe you meant semi-detached as a style of housing, as I think he skips them?
That's not a style. Plenty council houses look like those terraced houses.
@@philjones45 I don't dispute. And may she rot.
@@michaelprobert4014 No they don't, one assumes you've never been on a council estate.
Wooden housing in England died a death after the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was decreed that the rebuilt city would not use wood as the primary construction material because of the risk of another fire and the rest of the country followed suit over the decades.
Meanwhile much of our timber was being diverted away to build wooden ships for the ever-expanding navy.
The roof is thatch not straw- made from reeds🏴
I don't think I know anyone who doesn't use an electric kettle, unless the electricity is out or the kettle is broken.
I know
It's unthinkable that some Americans haven't seen one 😮
Or camping :)
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloudthey only have 110V electricity and that means the power available from a socket is much less so an electric kettle can take more than twice as long to boil as it does in the U.K. - which means a stove kettle can often boil quicker, which is rarely the case in the U.K.
Growing up, we always had stove kettles and I didn’t experience regularly using an electric one until I bought one for myself when I left uni I think. I think electricity came down in price and made them more attractive or something - growing up we had “economy 7” electricity and would try to avoid using any during the day as it was so much more expensive than overnight, so maybe that’s why? Never thought about it before.
@@sputukgmail
When economy 7 came in, we actually started putting the heating on 🥶
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud 😂same! Although, not until we had frost on the inside of the windows
7:57 Will someone let that dog out 😂
I remember a longtime ago going to America, New England and Boston, and I was amazed how very British the environment looked. The houses had front and back gardens, there was a little high st, with post office, parish church, town square, even some places a local cricket green. I was stunned. It felt like being in the British isles itself. The only subtle difference was, you’ll see American flags in some places.
New subscriber. Couple of points for you. The washer dryer combo. It has pros and cons, most will be able to auto start the drying cycle. They work as a condenser dryer as the warm air with any fluff and water vapour hits a cold metal plate. There is an extra electronic magnet water valve that during drying drips water on to the plate. So as the moist air hits the plate the water vapour condenses back into water the fluff is also caught on to the plate, the combined fluff and water ends up in the sump and pumped out of the waste. The limitation is that with the size of the drum you are more limited if combined wash/dry cycle or a just as a dryer. So you can only put in the load of laundry that can tumble on that cycle. About a third less than full wash. So if your has a ten pound max load, if drying just over six pounds
If you do a second wash as a dryer now you have three. wash/cycles. My biggest pain is if you need multiple two or more loads. You cannot start the next load until the dryer part is finished.
We have houses like yours in the uk. They are rare though and we call them prefabs. (Prefabricated buildings).
The saying raining cats and dogs comes from thatched roofs, the animals would sleep on them as it was nice and cosy. When it rained they would slide off hence raining cats and dogs.
Ahhhh learn something new every day thank you for that info
So lots of UK houses have sockets in their bathrooms, but they are 2 pin. I think this is to prevent you from plugging in anything that hasn't been designed to be safe for use in the bathroom. Such items don't need an earth as they will be double insulated, and it prevents someone from deciding to use something that might not be properly insulated like a kettle, toaster* or more likely a hair dryer in the bathroom, which wouldn't be safe.
*Ok this one seems unlikely, I can't imagine anyone making toast in their bathroom but you get the point :)
Thatched roofs use waterproof reed stems. They are incredibly waterproof and has high insulation properties but tit is very expensive, we have a couple of houses like that in our small village.
the biggest differences are we do not have basements. our houses are also very expensive because we are a small island, land comes at a premium, hence why the square footage of our homes is much smaller. To be fair, I used to think Americans were mad for using A/C until I went to Florida in August on holiday and I was so thankful for it. Here in the UK we do not have A/C because our weather simply never gets hot enough, regularly enough to justify it
I went my whole adult life having to buy a new electric kettle every 2 to 4 years because the manufacturers *ENSURE* that the on/off switches are _SO_ flimsy and made out the thinnest plastic. This goes for expensive as well as cheaper brands. This didn't used to be the case; electric kettles in my parents' era went on for decades ... it had to be the element that died before the thing was finished, and even then you might be able to get the necessary part replaced. Once these newer kettles' switches snap they're completely unfixable and _of course_ out of warranty (you better believe the manufacturers ensure those switches will outlive the warranty!). The longer this went on, the more I felt like I was an idiot to keep lining the kettle companies' pockets for them, so I finally bought a beautiful stove-top kettle. I'm sure it takes a bit longer to heat and uses a bit more electricity (I don't have a gas stove), but at least I'm saving the cost of all the new kettles and there are fewer things going into landfill.
Combined washer dryers aren't very popular in the UK as they take for ever to dry clothes, it's far better to have them separately as then you can put another load of washing on, while the first load is drying, we also have mixer taps, think Laurance hasn't lived in the UK for sometime and is a bit out of touch.
In the UK, electric kettles are probably used more than in the US. This is because our domestic voltage is twice as high as in the US. So you can boil a kettle of water in the UK in approximately half the time it takes in the US. Stove top kettles are therefore more popular in the US, (because electric kettles take an age to boil water.)
There'll be a lot of UK houses that are older than the US.
Houses built with brick and stone have walls with thermal mass which means they'll be cooler in summer and (so long as you can heat them) warm in winter. During recent hot summers my house has been cool enough inside that I've pulled a long sleeve top on.
Houses built with timber frames and thin walls don't have the same ability to control the internal temps without a large AC unit.
Midges will get past any size of mosquito screen
The combined washer/dryers you can buy in the UK are not ideal: they are intended to save space rather than increase the convenience of mechanical washing and drying.
Firstly, you cannot normally seamlessly dry clothes after washing: the load capacity for drying is smaller than for washing so some laundry items normally have to be removed between the two and the same washing cycle, unless the loadwas small to begin with, will normally require several, manually initiated drying cycles. Of course any clothes bot suitable for machine drying need to be removed in any event.
Secondly, unlike having two separate machines, washing and drying of different loads of laundry cannot be done in parallel so the laundry process takes longer.
Thirdly, a washer/dryer is typically less effective at drying clothes thoroughly and may require a longer drying cycle and/or damper results at the end.
I have had combined washer/dryers for 40 years so can attest to their usefulness despite the flaws.
Never heard of a house/cottage with a thatched roof being called a 'chocolate box house' before.
Americans just don't get, until they visit, that the UK is at the same latitudes as Alaska & Newfoundland. Whereas the contiguous US is at the same latitudes as the Mediterranean and North Africa.
We then have the advantage that we are a relatively small island, surrounded by sea/ocean, which makes the extremes MUCH more moderate.
Hearing the difference in house pricing is crazy! I live in London and our 1 bedroom 200sq ft flat was £350,000… other 2 bedroom tiny houses on our road cost easily £550-600,000… madness!
Everyone here has an electric kettle, the only time we would maybe use a stovetop kettle is when camping. We use (usually) ceramic teapots, which you put tea and then add boiling water to, which is then poured into cups which have milk in, my family only tend to use a teapot if lots of people are visiting.
Also we have stone houses usually the local stone. Most thatched roofs are made from reeds I believe, there's a thatched cottage just down the road. We also have bungalows (I'm currently in one) which are on 1 level. There are places called allotments which aren't attached to properties but are like gardens for people who don't have one. Most people will have a garden shed which can be very simple for garden equipment or fancy ones that are like an extra room. We tend to use hedges, wooden fence panelling and maybe walls to differentiate boundaries of properties.
I wish the insect screens were more easily accessible here, I'm allergic to bees so it would be nice to be able to open a window without the worry of coming across a bee.
I just googled it and apparently its in the region of 3852 miles (as the crow flies) from my house to "Kentucky"
Our voltage is higher in UK, electric kettles boil really quickly so nobody boils kettles on stove top.We also have taps in kitchens that dispense boiling water, cold filtered water plus carbonated all from same tap on the sink.These new taps are great but add at least £1200 onto price of your new kitchen.
"We literally moved into a field" JT 2024. 😎
Putting the water in the microwave is CRAZY JT!!!! Plug in kettle all the way! Only issue we get with this, is after time it gets limescale depending on where you live (North of england has softer water, meaning less limescale and I believe this is due to it being less built up and South of England, is hard water with more limescale.)
Congratulations on learning to say rural correctly JT.
The chocolate box house is what we call a thatched roof, which is made from tightly packed reeds. Thatched roofs need replacing every 15 years or so, and thatching is a dying art.
Everyone I know In the U.K. use electric kettles not stove kettles.
I'm in my 5th house in Britain ( i was a home birth in 1968) The house my and my wife have lived (my 5th) in since '96 is the oldest built in 1926 all of the others were new builds. We've got a separate washing machine and dryer. I'm a lorry (truck) driver and the last time i used a stove kettle was about 4 years ago when i used a portable gas burner stove for hot water when i was having nights away from home, apart from that i haven't used one in years, as we've always had an electric kettle. Our house used to be semi detached but the previous owner had a house built where the garage would've been for an elderly relative, with an interconnecting door. Then before she moved out she had the houses officially separated. Also in Britain it helps if you and your neighbours, on both sides, have a live and let live attitude. The previous neighbour on one side was an utter arsehole. He moved out about 4 years ago, the man that lives there now is fantastic. We feel that the devil "went down to Georgia" and an absolute angel moved in, in comparison!!! Also my sister has just sold her 2 bedroomed house in London for £430,000 =$545,100. But that shows how expensive London is.
Electric kettles for tea at home much faster which helps with our national tea addiction and turns it’s self off which is also handy 😊
Surely Americans must have used kettles at one point. It’s okay for them to say “we use the microwave”, but microwave ovens are a relatively new invention. They weren’t even developed until the 1970s, and weren’t in every house until the 1980s, so how was water boiled prior to that. They must have used stove top kettles, right? And yes, every Australian and British home has a microwave too, but we didn’t throw out our kettles when we got them. We have both.
My house in England looks very similar to the Cape Cod house only built in brick. Its a self build property constructed in the early 60s.
We have stove top kettles too, but the electric ones don't use gas (the hob can be electric or gas) and they turn themselves off. (You don't really need to keep an eye on it like you do with a stove top one).