Americans React to Differences Between Living in US vs UK Houses
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Reacting To My Roots
P.O. Box 439
Jasper, Indiana 47547
USA
In this video we react to differences between living in US vs UK houses. From AC and sockets to dryers and even the size of US vs UK homes, there are a ton of interesting features to compare in the houses of both countries. Is it true that most British houses have a conservatory? We would love to have one of those!
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We call it a Vegetable garden/patch when we grow veg & fruit 🥒🫑🥦🥬🥕🥔🧅
I call it an allotment.
@@Lloyd-Franklin An allotment is a piece of land away from your house you rent to grow vegetables. If it's in your garden, it wouldn't be an allotment.
Yeah vegetable garden/ patch/maybe plot but I see the real meaning for plot and definitely allotment being plots or allotments of land not connected to your residence that are grouped together where everybody gets their own designated space for a greenhouse or shed and a vegetable patch
Our washing machines have a spin cycle that gets rid of the majority of water so the clothes come out barely wet to the touch, definitely not dripping
We had an allotment when I was a kid, it was a plot of land my mum rented that was a couple of miles away that we grew veg & fruit in. I think allotments are quite large compared to your average patch in your own back garden.
I think if you asked two older people, you might get different answers, these two girls don't seem to have enough life experience.
Agreed its the same on some of their other videos
AND I can hardly understand what these two young women are saying ! They are typical of young people today !
Also the girls are talking from the perspective of students accommodation
@@janewalker3921You don't know many young people in real life do you? I do and work with young adults as well as having a huge family. These women aren't particularly typical of others at all other than being young and female 🙄 if you can't understand them, perhaps you ought to get checked out incase you have declining mental faculties or something. This bitterness towards younger people is just sad.
Wow. Way to be condescending!
Washing your clothes, especially bed linen on a windy spring day and hanging out on the line, bringing it in and smelling it, is one of the little joys in life .
Little joy, much work.
It’s not much work when you’ve done it all your adult life, and it really is lovely and fresh, and very clean in the sun’s UV rays. I have a dryer for back up but it’s not the same.
There's nothing better than getting your duvet cover, fitted sheet and pillowcases, and valance washed and hung outside in our garden on washing line. Hoovering the mattress and getting the same bedding back on. One of my favourite things is having a bath/shower and getting into your lovely bed with fresh bedding!! Heavenly. These young girls obviously don't have their own homes or have enough life experience to talk for everyone in general. We have always had a tumble drier and it's our 33rd wedding anniversary in August. We have been a couple since I was 15, and my husband was 16. So we definitely know one another very well. ❤❤❤
We do use the term 'back yard' in the UK, but here it means an area at the back of a house or shop which has concrete on the ground and no grass. They were mainly at the back of the rows of small terraced houses. In the past there would be a shed for storing coal for the fires, and another one which housed the outside toilet.
Most people hang their washing to dry outside on a washing line from March to November and we use a tumble dryer or radiators in the cold winter months.
I hang it outside every time. I only need to check the weather forecast first. In the last year I have only been thwarted by rain twice. It is not necessary to have a tumble dryer, they consume too much electricity.
A yard in the UK is an external area with a hard surface a garden is where plants grow.
Many of us prefer to dry washing outside weather permitting. They come in smelling fresh !
Most houses have washing machines with built in driers too !
Most people I know don’t have a tumblr dryer so in winter we use a rack inside
clothes do not come out of the washing machine dripping wet, so hanging them up indoors is not a problem.
Its not a problem if you leave the windows open to let the house breathe, otherwise you are opening yourself up
to damp problems.
I dry mine indoors and it works fine.
I thought this too. Who has a washing machine that doesn't spin the clothes to just damp before drying them? Only time it happens is if you heavily overload your washing machine so its literally too heavy to spin when everything is wet.
Maybe USA have old school washing machine that don't spin dry & the spin dry is incorporated in their drying machines 🤷♂️
I usually dry mine in my conservatory, I have a washer with a decent spin so never have drips to worry about. I have a tumble dryer too but only use it when I really need to.
Older houses have airing cupboards where the hot water boilers are. Once clothes are almost dry, they are put there and are cozy and warm when needed. In the US, I know that water boilers tend to be in the loft, so are not accessible for such use.
English weather is so interchangeable that we can use a conservatory to sit in the garden no matter how much it is raining or how windy it is.
Libdsey, our washing machines spin dry the clothes so they come out of the washing machine nearly dry, then can be hung on an _indoor_ drying rack in the winter, or in wet weather...or on the garden washing line (across the lawn or path) in better weather, (sunny, or dry but windy for example) and if the tumble dryers are used instead, we have static-reducing / scented fabric 'cloths' (bought in packs from the supernarket), to add to the tumble dryer which then circulates with the drying clothes, coming out of the dryer nicely scented _and_ 'static-free'!!😊
Nothing new in your reply, everybody has spin cycles on their washer, and we all use scented dryer sheets. Face it, if you're hanging clothes around the house or in the back yard you are a washer-woman living in the Midddle Ages.
I am old school and although I have a dryer, I prefer to dry outside whenever possible. It uses less energy (which is better for the environment) and it smells better and costs nothing.
We use our line across winter, works fine mostly though have frozen some clothes!
Nothing can beat line dried bedding.
Exactly right, I only use my dryer in winter. The summer heat will dry clothes quickly.
until a pigeon shits on your best shirt 🤣
Vegetable patch
Most people just grow flowers but some have a vegetable patch
Yeh, the problem with getting a picture of things from people this young is that generally they are likely to have very limited experience of the world outside the home and locality they grew up in. While they are no doubt popular in affluent areas and areas of new build houses, conservatories are still only a thing to be seen in a very small minority of British homes. Air conditioning would be very difficult to fit and make efficient in the vast majority of Victorian terraced houses.
Yes, life experience and age definitely factor in to these types of videos--it would be more helpful if they had several people from both places representing different age groups to give a more well-rounded picture. :)
I have looked at tens of thousands of houses in the UK and conservatories are relatively common. Even smaller, post-war ex-council stock often have a small conservatory. I would say they are more common than garages.
There's definitely a north-south divide, conservatories are more common in the south of England. Conversely though traditional, larger conservatories are more common on older houses in the north of England.
We don't need air conditioning in the UK. We just open a window.
@@alexmckee4683 Conservatories are extremely uncommon in Scotland. In 32 years I've only ever seen one house that had one.
5:01 It's still a garden. Just it now has a vegetable patch
No everyone in the uk has a washing line outside in the garden or if its raining you use your radiator or clothes horse inside
Can't beat putting your washing out in the garden .
@@sharonlock6452but not everyone has a garden, I don't.
@@MoominJude Yeah I currently stay in a flat and so don't have any access to outside washing lines. Hope to move and would love to have one but for now I have to use the dryer or clothes horses. The dryer is really expensive to use so an outside line would be great.
Try a dehumidifier with laundry mode,unbeatable.@@Loulizabeth
@@Loulizabethdehumidifiers are great for drying clothes indoors and much cheaper to use than a dryer
A garden is usually a nature space with lawns, flowers, trees and hedges, an area of the main garden used for growing food is usually called a kitchen garden, a yard is an area usually enclosed with a fence or walled off with a hard surfaces for storing cars and vehicles or other goods.
Yeah but these days it's more often paved or concreted over with at least two cars parked on it and an old mattress rotting away.
At least the front garden is.
The back garden is decked over and has a rusty unused barbecue.
@Paul-yh8km lol, yes there is a lot of "front gardens" like that nowadays, usually they are just called drive ways at that point.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term ‘kitchen garden’ before today, I’ve always known it as a vegetable garden or a veg patch 🤷🏼♂️
In the UK we don't measure our houses by square ft when we buy houses its done by bedrooms and bathrooms etc
@@helenefrench579
The stats in the video aren't derived from information house buyers get, it's research data so that different regions or nations can be compared.
We have a washing machine and a separate dryer, but we tend to only use the dryer when the weather is bad, or to finish off clothes that have been dried on the washing line outside.
The Brits love their flowers and plants and most have them both inside and out in the garden. The cost of electricity is very high in the UK so that generally makes AC cost prohibitive. Also we are much more serious about caring for the environment than the US so many people will avoid things like driers and AC if they can. Even in newer houses we rarely have it. If you need to ventilate you open the window!! In Germany they open all the windows and air the whole house out, often 2 or 3 times a day, regardless of temperature outside.
@artemisfowl66 To a USA person, not having AC or a tumble dryer is completely alien. You are certainly correct in saying that they are not as serious about environmental issues. You only have to look at the size of some of their vehicle engines, to appreciate that.
@@stevepage5813AC would be entirely pointless in the UK (other than maybe 3-5 nights a year in the summer) ...we generally have wind here even when it's warm & our windows are just left open all the time in the summer instead.
@@stevepage5813businesses mostly do though.
@@jennarose4695 Yes I know how things are in UK, I am born and raised in West Yorkshire, for sixty four years. I am more concerned with USA power consumption, as I believe a lot of stores over there apparently, have air con switched on even when customers are bloody cold.🤣
We hang our washing on the radiators when it's cold or wet. we put the washing outside when it's sunny.
A conservatory is a way to extend your house without planning permissions etc... very popular for that reason, and, great views of the garden
Ah, that definitely makes sense!
It's also a relatively cheap way to add extra floor space, compared to a brick built extension.
Planning permission is required in my council area. When the council surveyor was verifying our kitchen extension he told us he was on his way to issue an order to pull down a conservatory which had been erected without planning permission because it was on top of a communal drainage system.
@@lordprefab5534 That's building control, slightly different issue. Planning permission is about streetscape and appearance (like Zoning in the USA) whereas building control checks compliance with building regulations (like code inspection in the USA). Alterations still need Building Control inspection even if they are exempt from planning permission. Most likely in your example the homeowner didn't bother to get it inspected, turns out it's built wrong and they got caught.
@@lordprefab5534 In the UK as long as its below 4m height, the roofline, or 3m if within 2 meters of the property border you dont need council planning permission for a 6m conservatory for terrace/semi detached or 8m for detached (Also as long as its not in a conservation zone). If its over a drain you need the permission of the water company, they can ask the council to have it removed if it blocks access. The builder should have advised them they needed permission.
One thing they failed to mention is that most office buildings do have A/C, which is used regularly to maintain a constant temperature, even in the winter months.
I'm not sure about 'most'. In 34 years of work for multiple organisations I've never had an air conditioned office.
@Garybaldbee Same, our office building is over 100 years old and has many quirks, despite being modernised. It does have an AHU, but that only brings in fresh air from outside and is only on one side of the building...
British housing terminology:
A conservatory: built similar to a greenhouse and attached to your house leading into a garden.
A garden: the space behind your house where you have grass, flowers, etc.
A yard: smaller than a garden and often covered in concrete. Less of a recreational space and more just somewhere to store your wheelie bins and maybe hang a washing line so you can air dry your clothes.
Wheelie bin: where you store your rubbish (trash) and recycling between collections. Most people have three to four of these depending on their houses. One will be for food waste, one for garden waste (this is the one not everyone has), one for mixed recycling (glass, metal, plastic) and one for cardboard/paper. The colour of each vary between council areas (our household rubbish and recycling is collected by the local council rather than a company) although the food waste one is usually black or grey.
Vegetable patch: where you might grow vegetables in your garden. Most people don't have space in their garden for this (land prices are at a premium in the UK so our houses and gardens tend to be smaller on average than in the USA) and would often rent an allotment from the local council for this if they were so inclined.
Allotment: a space separate from your garden/yard that you can rent for the purpose of growing fruits/vegetables. These usually have conditions that you have to meet like not having permanent buildings on them and you have to turn the soil every so often. It is something that is not plentiful enough for everyone to have so if you apply for one you will usually have to be on a waiting list for a while.
Terraced house: I believe you might call these row houses. These are houses that tend to be attached to one another down a town/city street. They often have yards rather than gardens while having a single bathroom, 2 - 3 bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room. Some might also have a dining room but those would be amongst the largest examples. While some people in terraced houses could have garages these are usually separate from the main property and often rented.
Semi-attached houses: Where a house would be attached to a neighbouring house on one side. These usually have gardens some of them share their gardens as a single space (I can only imagine the arguments on whose turn it is to cut the grass) and these gardens are not huge. These tend to be larger than terraced houses and is where you are more likely to see separate dining rooms and downstairs toilets. Theses are usually 2 - 5 bed properties. This is where you will start to see single garages attached to the houses.
Detached houses: Where a house is on its own plot of land separate from any neighbours. These are generally larger than other house types and the amount of land you have with it depends on your budget. This is where dining rooms are more common as well as things like having a larder.
Cellar: A space under your main property that you often find in older homes that have been used as a storage area for things like coal. Since that is a thing of the past many people convert cellars to other uses.
Bathroom: A place where there is a bath or a shower and usually a toilet. While you can often see separate toilet areas in UK houses, we don't call them bathrooms as they only contain a toilet and a wash basin.
Air conditioning: This is rare in the UK but not impossible to find. Shops will usually have air conditioning but it is not something that many people have in their homes and likewise it is not a standard thing in all cars. When people do have air conditioning in their homes it is usually in a single room and tends to be a portable unit.
Heating: Most houses in the UK are heated via combi-boilers (usually gas that take care of both central heating and hot water) or have separate heating boilers and induction heaters for hot water. Since these heating systems are water based you will find most homes in the UK have radiators for the purpose of spreading the heat. We are currently trying to switch over to using heat pumps as a society.
Bonus fact: When we don't have space to hang out clothes outside (like people who live in flats/apartments) people in the UK usually use a line on a balcony or clothes horses somewhere in the house. Many a time I have covered radiators around the houses with my clothes in an effort to dry them faster.
Yes except ….I’ve never seen anyone use ‘semi-attached’ before.
Maybe it’s colloquial but most of the UK, including builders, estate agents, mortgage providers and the government use the term ‘semi-detached’ .
Jameslewis. Well done!!!!! Really👍
I have a yard, which means concrete (no lawn, or soil to plant in), everything is in pots 😁 I’m not complaining, I’m so lucky to have outside space 😁
British guy here. I build conservatory’s for a living. They are super popular in the uk. People tend to use them as an extension of their house. You can have different roof systems on from polycarbonate sheets, glass sheets or warm roofs that are tiled and insulated. Central heating is often installed and some also have air conditioning. Glass roofs look great however, they’re to hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Lots of people are now having their glass replaced with warm roofs. Sometime these have velux window.
Hi Scott, at what point does a conservatory become something you would need planning permission for and turn into an extension? does it come down to the ratio of how much glazing to brick there is? I have seen some manufacturers saying they sell conservatory’s / extensions and wondered where the difference lies.
@@pdashs5810 ok so this is something our surveyor would answer. I’m just the monkey that turns up and installs it 🤣 Obviously weight is a big thing, for a warm roof you would definitely want reinforced frames and a solid and level base and dwarf wall. As for when it would become a planning permission issue, that I can’t give you an answer to. What I do know is anything over 2..5 meters will require PP. lots of people are going down the orangery route now, it’s kinda like the best of both worlds. More of a solid brick structure, just with more glass and a solid roof.
@@scottastbury7335 appreciate the quick response and advice, it was just a query as I would like to change our old conservatory into a room we could use all year round and wondered about the difference - as soon you mention the word extension it's £££££ 🤣
Wow that’s nothing like how we live, very condescending sounds like we live in the dark ages
I have always thought of sun rooms with a proper roof and conservatory with a glass roof. I live in Scotland and we love the velux windows, they suit the Scottish houses.
I used to live on the South coast of England and even our heatwaves aren't that hot, it's never hot for long enough periods to warrant AC, a lot of houses have dryers here, I have a tumble dryer but never use it just for eco reasons, luckily I have a huge garden and two long washing lines, so even in the winter we'll have the odd dry and windy day where laundry dries super fast, then one thing my house has which is probably slightly old fashioned is an airing cupboard, which is a warm cupboard with shelves for drying out clothes completely after they've been dried outside, my hot water tank is in the cupboard which is why it stays warm, it's lovely putting on warm clothes straight from the airing cupboard on a cold winters morning!
A yard, to us, is paved. The whole area is the garden. The places where we grow things are called flowerbeds or vegetable beds or just borders.
Hi guys…..my house was built in 1985 and is part of a small row of attached houses…5 in total…on what we call a housing estate. It’s typically also called a 2 up 2 down, meaning there are 2 rooms downstairs, a lounge and kitchen and 2 bedrooms plus bathroom upstairs. It’s 581 feet of space. I have off road parking right in front of the house and a nice sized back garden. It’s absolutely fine for 1 person, a couple or a single parent plus 1 child….for anymore people it would be far too small. I don’t have any worries re paying my bills etc as it’s manageable for me even in today’s money. I’m lucky to have paid off my mortgage. The only thing that is lacking is storage space but then that makes you live more simply and not hold onto too much. I use a tumble dryer in the winter but as soon as the sun appears my washing is out on the line! Best wishes Julie 😊
In terms of ventilation we open our windows, we don't have screens on windows or doors typically because there's not as many bugs - there's even less than there was when I was a kid too
Not where I am, there's loads of bugs around here in summer and I think it gets worse every year. I keep spotting all sorts of weird looking ones that i've never seen or not noticed before as well.
I live on a dairy farm and believe me, there are flies by the billion. Amazon sell cut-to-fit screens for the windows and magnetic ones for the doors; they are inexpensive and work an absolute treat. Far better than fly paper.
True, I remember when driving around the UK in the 90s your car would be covered in dead bugs. Nowadays I hardly ever splat a bug on my windscreen. I think they're being wiped out by pesticides.
@@PedroConejo1939 I have them and for the door's there brilliant you just have to remember there there when you open the door lol
I live in a Victorian terraced house. I have neighbours on both sides of me.
In many houses like mine, you often step through the front door in either a room or a hallway/passage. Many of the old builds, like mine that don't have a passage used to, the separating wall has just been moved to make the room bigger.
Originally, this Front Room, when the houses were built, was often kept pristine, with no one, except for guests, going in there. The door would have firmly kept shut to children and their grubby little hands! Lol.
These rooms without the passage wall can vary, usually between 8-10 x 10-12, sometimes a little bigger. The stairs usually either run up the middle of the house or up the side, along the neighbours' wall.
Another room on the other side of the stairs, which would have been the living room or the family room, but now is often referred to as the dining room.
Off of this room is a galley kitchen, half the width of the other rooms. With the only bathroom on the end of the kitchen.
The upstairs is often the same as the downstairs. You have the stairs separating the two main bedrooms and a smaller "box" room, coming off of the middle room.
My house is basically ⬇️ shaped.
__ __ ___ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[ FR ] # [ LR ]_________
[_ _ ] # [ __ ]_K__l_B_] _ _
My front door is bottom left corner, and the # are the stairs. FR - front room, LR - living/dining room, K - kitchen, B - bathroom.
‐ - - - = boundary shared wall and fence. Some houses like this also have a cellar/basement. With the entrance to it under the stairs. These were the old coal cellars.
We have a garden/yard at the back, beyond the bathroom, and a really small yard/garden in the front of the house, just four steps to the gate steps, and I'm on the pavement. Other terraced houses have larger front gardens. Some don't have any at all. You go through the front door, and you step straight onto the pavement.
Sorry for the novel! 😉
you also need to remember about the AC thing is we don't use air vents for heating like the US we use radiators which also help drying clothes, which they didn't mention in the video for some reason. Radiators are dual purpose and space efficient. Everything you expect from a UK home.
The reason we use air vents for heat in America is because those same air vents can be used for air conditioning. Virtually everybody has both heat and A/C in their house. To add A/C to a boiler/radiator heat system would be starting from scratch.
Air conditioning isn’t something you would find in a typical UK home but it’s very common on most modern public transport and in public buildings such as shops and offices etc especially if they’re relatively new. I know people from hotter countries tend to laugh at us when we complain about the heat here in the UK but what they don’t realise is that our homes are generally designed to be kept warm, not cool. Most homes have double glazed windows, roof insulation and often cavity wall insulation which all help keep houses warm but also make them very hot and difficult to cool when we get the odd heat wave.
Where I live, just outside Nottingham, our busses, (Trent/Barton), don't have air con. If it's hot, you just open a window. They went though a period a few years ago where they had air con, but if you have air con, you need to keep the windows closed. And no matter how much the drivers asked the passengers to keep the windows closed, and no matter how many notices they put up, people still kept opening the windows when it was sunny and warm, and this in turn put a strain on the engines, (because the busses are electric).. So the next time the busses were upgraded, they did away with the air con.
The UK is at the same latitude as Alaska & Newfoundland. The difference is that we are a small island, surrounded by water, which moderates temperature extremes. Most of the contiguous US, by contrast, is at similar latitudes to the Southern Mediterranean/North Africa.
Also worth remembering we have forty times less land area - but only six times less people to fit in that space. And we still have lots of wide open spaces..
Your house is well insulated, it helps to keep it cool as well as warm.
Standalone air conditioning units are very popular in the UK now. I have two in my house plus one in my office at my business. Can't function when it's too hot..
Back in the dark ages when America was no better off than the UK, Americans would go the theater matinee just to cool off for a few hours.
We have solidly built houses. Foundations are put down to a specific depth, depending on house/extension size. Then brick, stone,concrete and breeze blocks build houses with cavity walls (which can be filled with insulation), and a majority of houses have double glazed windows and doors. We don't tend to have AC, in hot weather I do what they do in the Mediterranean, and that is close the windows and curtains during the heat of the day. I have a conservatory that functions as a dining room. My house is 60 yrs old (my previous houses were 100yrs old or more.) The washing machine is in the kitchen and I air dry the washing on a line in the garden or on clothes horses in one of the bedrooms. We have radiator central heating and our houses have to have ventilation points. So mould is not a great problem. If you don't have land enough ti have a vegetable patch in your garden you can rent plots from your local council called allotments, but you are not allowed to profit from your bounty.❤❤👵🏴🌹🌹🌹
and waiting lists for allotments can run to several years
Appreciate the in-depth response! You can rent plots to have a vegetable garden? That's pretty cool.
In the U.K. a yard is a patch of stone ground outside the back door for a small terraced house. A garden is the entire back and front space for greenery etc in a bigger outside area.
Our conservatory is used for everything, sitting in, some warmer loving plants and drying the laundry, especially in the winter. In the summer it’s rarely used without all the windows and doors open as it’s baking in there.
15:37 we have a washing line in the garden 🪴 I love the smell of outside dried clothes. I have a tumble dryer.
honestly, i think id just call a place we grow vegetables outside as "a vegetable patch" but because its cooler here we tend to grow vegetables in outdoor greenhouses as they thrive better
I grow a wide range of veg and fruit and never used a greenhouse!
@HellCatt0770 well done
Most houses in the UK have tumble dryers in the kitchen or under the stairs in the hall way, but when the weather is good people will often use the washing line in the back garden.
Most houses don't have tumble dryers
@@stevebeever2442 I've yet to meet someone who hasn't got one.
@@robertobrien5709 I don't know anyone that does have them
I tend to go with at least half of homes having one, but I'd be interested in actual statistics.
I'm old, and have never lived in a house with a tumble dryer, mainly because I've never wanted one and don't know anyone who has one?
Where I grow my vegetables in my garden I call my vegetable patch, but most places have an area where people can rent a small plot of land to grow vegetables away from their home, for people who haven't got a garden or their garden is too small, we call this an allotment.
Allotments are great
Hi from Germany. I love your channel. In Germany they are called "winter gardens". We have long cold and dark winters. The winter garden lets you have a bit of sun with out being out in thee cold. Great for plants also. Most are heated.
Water on the floor?
Spin cycle.. no dripping clothes.
Usually you would put the clothes on the radiators or clothes horse.
Having a clothes line in a shelter by a shed or lean-to would be very popular in rural areas.
I'd say half or more people have dryers these days too.
I always use a spin cycle and a 15min wash; less electricity. Plus then I know they fry faster.
Washing on a line in the garden 👕👖🩲🩳
Or one of those indoor rail contraptions that we pop up anywhere we have space. I'm a fan of putting it in the bathroom or conservatory to avoid mold but in Uni I've seen people use it in the living room or bedrooms
The British garden is a multi-purpose space.
Something I have not seen for many years is a pole sticking out from an upstairs window with a washing line attached to a pulley system, so that clothes can be pushed out over the street (or back garden) and pulled back in. They did not look good when in use and may have been forbidden in some places. They would work faster in the warmer countries around the Mediterranean.
In the old days there must have been some risk from smoke and dust, which should be less of a problem now that we don't have coal fires.
The other thing you could do with an upstairs window was to keep milk and butter on the ledge, if you had no refrigerator. Students used to do that.
Conservatories are popular as it's the easiest way to add a room to your house without having to get planning permission
What you need to remember about AC is, we don't use air to heat our homes, we have radiators. So to install AC for the summer is INCREDIBLY EXPENSIVE for what would only be a few weeks use. Also, our homes are generally a lot older and harder to modify, so it's just no feasible. The radiators also answer the question of what we do with wet laundry- they go on top of radiators in the colder months and outside on the line in the better weather!
I have family in Texas, who we visit in the summers, so finding your content super interesting, thanks guys!
The clothes line is in the garden in every house i have ever lived in.
Well most of our washing machines have a spin cycle so it takes most or nearly all of the water out of the clothes, so if you are in a flat or an apartment and you have to use clothes maidens to dry your clothes you don’t get water on the floor.
Normally I spin my clothes twice in my washing machine to get even more water out of my clothes.
Plus also I wash my clothes in the washing machine in the very early hours of the morning, because you get cheaper electricity.
WOW! I used to watch Steve's channel some time ago but I lost touch after spending some considerable time in hospital. I'm so glad to see you and your good lady on your channel. Now I'm subscribed again and I'm looking forward to more of your content. Thank you so much for your efforts! 😀😀😀
All year round we air out house by flinging the windows open for a couple hours ,the freshness of the crisp winter air is invigorating ,even my 90:year old mother still does this every day of year.
Brit here! Im from the North East of England and live in a semi detached 3 bed house, 4 rooms upstairs and 2 down along with a teeny entry way.....its a small house! I do have a reasonably sized garden however due to inclement weather i tend not to hang my washing out in autumn/winter because it would literally take weeks to dry! So, i have my washing machine and tumble dryer in the kitchen but also use clothes horses and rads. I only use the tumble dryer for towels, bedding and school uniforms as its REALLY expensive to run! I have an electricity monitor in the kitchen and when the dryer is on you can see the electrical use climb quickly.
So, its a pain in the arse tl dry laundry in the colder months however nothing gets wet? The spin of the washing machine takes care of excess water residue! 😊
Hi Steve and Lyndsey, conservatories are super common, in the garden we grow some vegetables, that would be our veg patch. We can also have an allotment, it’s a piece of land you can rent that is specifically owned by the council and you can grow vegetables, fruit, flowers.
A lot of councils are selling off allotments for private building land along with farm land nowadays and in my area it up to 10 years waiting list for one, Hundreds of new houses have and are being built here with tiny gardens,
You also need planning permission from local authorities for building a conservatory..
@@sjbict Trouble is with such tiny houses is a lot of the tiny gardens are sacrificed to extend said tiny house. I grew up in an area here in the UK sixty or so years ago, back then there was an allotment nearby which was used to build a lot of houses a few years later. The houses were small and because they were detached, they looked out of proportion, as in they looked too tall because they were narrow. Not only that, but ninety percent of them, within a few years had used the small grassed area to extend the living space. I have also noticed that most new build houses with a garage attached, obviously use the garage as storage or living space. This means the car lives outside. As cars have increased in size, garages are often too small for the car to reside in and also city/town etc... parking spaces are mainly a bit on the short side. Council's are probably trying to dis-courage car use, even though my town entry road sign says "welcome to Halifax, a car friendly town". I sincerely hope that the people who's car is kept outside their garages, don't falsely claim that the car is kept in a locked garage, when filling in the insurance details. Insurance companies try and wriggle out of paying up at the best of times, so if you do this overlooked no-no, you are giving them an incredible excuse not to pay up if you claim. By the way, talking about insurance for cars etc... These days, you must make sure that if you drive to say a railway station, to park your car and journey on to your place of work, as this is classed as commuting to work, you must make sure that your insurance covers you for this. In the past you would have been covered for this scenario, but they moved the goalposts a while back and people have been caught out with this problem on their way to work.
The electric plug and socket is an engineering masterpiece. You can't stick a finger in the socket
In the garden there is an area with big metal poles where your clothes line is set up and you hang your clothes in your backyard during good days and we use air drying frames that collapses for storage .
With regards to washing machines and dryers, most people I know have a washing machine and dryer in their kitchen.
I don't like using my dryer because it tends to shrink my clothes, so I hang my clothes on radiators to dry🤷🏼♀️
If you mean the standard heating radiators that are common in most houses, the worst thing to do is to surround or cover them, possibly not allowing the heat to freely disperse causing damp and the possibility of mould to develop.
@@2eleven48 I only use them when it's raining outside and can't hang clothes on the washing line.
I have loads of radiators in my house and damp has never been an issue.
I live in an apartment so have a combined washer/dryer. I only use my dryer for towels, I prefer them to be fluffy. Otherwise, I use my 2nd bedroom as a laundry room with a couple of airers to hang them out on. I never use my radiators for clothes.
@@stephaniehamilton6217 ... Well, thank you for replying, and I'm gratified to learn how large your domicile is to have 'loads of radiators'.
Many people in the UK use a clothes airer. This is a rack that you can put up then hang your washed clothes on. We put ours up on the upstairs landing.
The clothes don't drip, they're damp when they come out of the washer if your washing machine spins outs your clothes properly.
Half the time I can put freshly washed and spun clothes on the clothes airer and it will be dry just using the temperature within the room within a couple of hours.
If your not in a hurry then why use a tumble drier? It's not just about the environment but also about cost of running the thing.
i call it a maiden not a clothes airer 😂
You can also throw your washing over the banister rail if you have an upstairs landing area.
Dyers are quite common now and the new heat pump dryers are very cost effective. In the summer we put it out in the garden
A yard is typically a concrete space, a Garden has grass and flowers, and people still plant veg in the garden.
As others have said, we grow vegetables in a vegetable patch, but the flower areas are called either borders (around the edge) or just flower beds. We opted not to have a conservatory, as the back of our house is north-facing, so doesn't catch much sun. I put a deck there instead, so we could eat outdoors in the shade in the Summer. For sun when it's cooler, we have a detached summerhouse which does catch the sun all day. It's good to actually get out of the house, even if you're not going anywhere.
Most people dry clothes outside, rotary line's in smaller gardens.
Live in outer London. 3 bed house. Front (driveway) and back garden. Concreted 3/4 back garden with a remaining small patch of grass and have a few potted plants scattered around. We tend to call it a back garden/garden regardless of whether we do or don't grow our own fruit and veg or have/haven't plant beds. It could be completely concreted or paved slabs and we still call it the garden/back garden.
Rotary airer in the back garden. 2 large clothes horses in the house for very late autumn, winter and the beginning of spring as it's still typically 'bad' weather conditions.
For those that remember when they were younger may have noticed that the seasons have moved slightly forward over the last 50 years. Although the met office considers autumn, Sept, Oct and November. Lived experience tells me that November is definitely a part of winter in the UK. It's bitterly cold, wet and windy. We've had on occasion sleet and snow as late Feb and on one occasion as late as March when typically it used to fall between late December and very early January. September also stays warmer for longer than it did all those years ago. Mid to late July still typically hosts the hottest day of the year and that hasn't really changed over 50 years. Of course this is my anecdotal experience but I've stayed in the same place my whole life. Others may have experienced something completely different so who really knows.
A dehumidifier is a must in these old houses as the moisture from drying the clothes indoors plays havoc and we get damp and mould creeping in.
Had many a fun time rushing to bring in the washing if it's a random heavy downpour out of the blue. We also like a bit of a gamble with the weather forecast, hanging out the clothes anyway, knowing its going to rain at whatever o'clock and waiting until you hear the first pitter patter of rain on the windows to alarm you into a mini panic of grabbing the laundry basket and heading for the back garden 😂.
I used to build conservatories for a living but haven't got one myself. They are a great for the colder months but can get extremely hot in the summer because most have a glass or polycarbonate roof which really traps the heat. In recent years many people have replaced the roof with solid lightweight structures for that reason.
3% of UK houses have AC. These are mostly new build, high end homes. Brick construction that is well insulated can usually handle 3-4 days in a row where the temperature is above average without the need for AC. When we do have a 1-2 week heatwave in the summer, then we just moan and put up with it. That’s why we love talking about weather.
When we moved to England (1953) we lived with family, Then one day dad came home happy
He said he hadwon 150poumds on the Pools with that he 90_$of that as a depost on a house
In side we had a castiron fire placewith a back boiler
Ower garden was realy small and we had a lottment
Portable a/c units are brilliant. I bought one last year in the sales.
Most people have clothes dryers. Washing lines are in the garden and used in summer.
We have air con in two rooms which can be used in reverse to heat a room in winter. We live in the Midlands. If we get hot weather it doesn’t last for very long
We call the part of the property where we grow food the kitchen garden. In our case here I Northern Ireland we have a cottage garden around the house which includes our orchard, kitchen garden herb patch lawn flower garden near the house and wooded area trees bushes hedges around the perimeter to the boundary fences. We have a garden room at the back of the house which has more glass than the actual house because it it is often cold and windy or wet weather here. We use clotheslines in the garden to dry our washing. We are lucky to have a covered space with lines where we can dry washing. We gave our nephews the tumble drier when they were furnishing their flat. We only used the drier for soft toys! We live in a more rural area so the air is fresh and clean and we just open windows to ventilate the house. We have oil fired central heating but also a coal fire which we can light when we need it and these heat water as well as the house. We built our own family houses using brick and tile on roof. Hope this helps.
Front and back outside your house are always called gardens even if there's not any flowers, if you can park your car right up infront of your house off the main road we'd call that a front drive. Anywhere you grow vegetables we'd call it a vegtable patch or plot, if you had an allotment I say vegtable plot. Loving the videos
I live in an old terraced house with 2open coal fires, the cold is felt when theyre not being used but they also stop my house being damp and mouldy thankfully, which is common with a lot of newer homes without coal fires, the air circulates round the rooms,I prefer my washing to dry on the line as it always smells lovely and fresh when its dry.. love the video❤🇬🇧🇬🇧
Here in the south eastern uk we have had a few heatwaves over the last few years, it usually lasts a maximum of two weeks but my house takes about a month to cool down after that. Usually hot days will last a day or two at the most. Washing is great to put on my rotary dryer in the summer, it smells lovely when it comes in. I also have a tumble dryer. Our washing machines spins the water out of the clothes so we do not have water all over the place. My washer and dryer are in the utility room and it’s warm in there as we have the heating boiler in there too so it’s usually warm and can easily dry jumpers etc just over night.
I used to live in a double fronted Victorian house in London, it was built in the 1800’s and had servants quarters and stables, that really was cold, only had open fires,no double glazing or insulation as we have now. Washing in those days did take a long time to dry in the winter, if you hung it out when it was cold it just froze, we often brought frozen solid sheets in 😂 they stood up on their own!😂. My bedroom drops down to about 15 or 16 in the winter that’s fine for me. No air con in new homes either, unless they are very high end but we can put it in easily enough. No mould here at all if you dry wet clothes indoors and do not ventilate you will get mould but it’s unusual.
Our houses are generally brick built but will often be timber framed inside nowadays, my current home is 37 years old and is brick on the outside and breeze blocks, plaster board and skimmed walls all pretty well insulated so it’s nice and warm, inside is pretty solid. I also have two garages along with parking for three cars. Also a nice garden front and back.
I live in London, and last year installed two ceiling fans. It’s made a huge difference in the summer!
Main reason that houses are smaller is that cost of land is much higher ( demand versus availability and lots of restrictions on where housing can be developed in UK) so developers are always trying to get as many houses as posible onto plots, so also built v close together.
Yeh the Veg Patch. I think more American Yards are just left to lawn. British gardens are usually somewhat landscaped. We also sometimes use the term backyard but it's usually used for small terraced houses and usually in the north.
There are lots of different kinds hanging options. I've not seen an esmarelda (kitchen hanger) since the 70s.
We have hot radiators. And airing cupboards.
Dry washing outside when possible or inside on drying rails. Near heating, it doesn't drip when coming out of the washing machine
In one house we rented, I had a big conservatory with a sofa bed. I used it as my summer bedroom.
Most houses have dryers but we prefer to put it outside to dry
UK - No Aircon installed unless requested when building your own home.
The only time we have warm weather is July - August. Heat wave around 2-3 weeks.
I dry my washing on an indoor airer and radiators.
Houses mainly brick.
Hi Steve and Lindsay, My wife and I live in a typical semi detached house (I think you call them duplex) with a small front garden mostly lawn with flower borders. The back or rear garden is larger with with both flowers and bushes and an apple tree. Within this garden we have a small vegetable patch. Some filk are lucky enough to have an allotment which, is similar to your community gardens, where vegetables and/or flowers are grown . In the back garden we also have rotary clothes dryer but some people have washing lines strung between washing line posts or a hook in a wall. Props are used in the centre of the line to hold it up when the wet clothes cause the line to sag. We also use an indoor clothes airer or use the radiators to dry clothes . A/C is not typical although a few people are having it installed these days . We have a portable A/C machine which we use occasionally in summer, usually in the bedroom. UK plugs and sockets are the safest in the world. There are a number of videos on TH-cam explaining UK plugs and sockets.
As someone who is always warm and always has a fan on, air con would be an absolutely blessing in my house. I dread the summer months every year 😅
It is super humid here when its hot. We would probably never have night temps in the 80s.
We tend to have a relative humidity of around 50-60% during the summer which to us feels high but If you were used to somewhere like Florida it wouldn't seem humid at all so really A/C is not really seen as a necessity and even in mid summer the night time temperatures don't often get much above 15-16 degrees C. Dryers are very common and nearly every house will have one but we don't tend to use it much in the warmer months using washing lines in the garden and maybe just finishing stuff in the dryer for a couple of minutes to get that fluffy finish. When it comes to retro fitting A/C it could be done for many houses but we do have a large amount lot of older houses that are over 100 years old and many that are much much older where it would be difficult and we also have many "listed" historic buildings and conservation areas where you would not be allowed to fit it.
An area for growing fruit and veg in your garden is called a vegetable patch. You can rent a small plot away from your home called an allotment.
The washing machine spins the clothing quite well so water is not dripping everywhere. Driers can sometimes shrink the clothing.
A dehumidifier deals with any issues with damp.
Drying without a dryer involves either outside washing lines or a rotary line (eBay or Amazon UK have them) or, inside we use clothes horses/airers and/or our radiators (also found on UK websites)
Post WWII most of our building is concrete blocks put together with rebar & steel girders (similar to the huge blocks in NYC & Chicago, but not as pretty/striking). You can see them for yourselves if you use the satellite view on Google Maps & go to street view away from the West End/City areas - you could do a video of you peeking at random areas of various cities/towns etc, no?
Most of our shopping centres (malls), larger businesses, hospitals etc do have a/c, but we don't love it for lots of reasons including it being too cold/hot & an amazing spreader of airborne diseases.
you can get heated drying racks too and there is ac in public spaces stores malls banks etc if you have space you can put utilities in garage we have radiators where you can dry clothes but we have so many different styles of residences-cities are different-dryers are quite common these days but people very conscious of how much energy costs and they do shrink clothes and wear them out-he strikes me that these girls are quite young and maybe don't have experience of different styles-old houses tend to have thicker walls which trap heat in the winter and keep house cold in summer/so much to say!-love you guys-
I've seen a few new builds over the last couple of years, including a massive block of flats/apartments and some shops and offices. For the apartments, they've used breezeblocks for the interior and brick for the exterior, and for a huge block of offices, they've used a steel frame and lots of glass.
Our back garden can only be accessed through the house, or through the garage . The garden is totally enclosed , and very private . We have a conservatory , with the wall between us and our neighbour. Built of brick . Alongside this we have a paved patio , with patio furniture . In the nice weather we can sit or sunbathe . Have a BBQ and eat , The patio is sunk below the level of the surrounding garden . In the garden , we have fruit trees , borders with shrubs and plants , also a pond . In our consrvatory , we have a leather couch . An oak desk , an oak bookcase, and a small oak cupboard. There is a TV on the desk , and a Digital Radio. The desk has doors that can b opened to use it . In the desk , is my printer , spare paper. Resarch folders . On a nice day in the winter , when we can see the sun. It is nice and warm . On cold days with no sun , there is a radiator to provide heat . In good weather. When we go out and need to leave the dogs . We leave the doors of the conservatory open . So that the dogs can sleep on the couch . If we have a party , people can be in the garden . Or on the patio . My wife likes to dry the laundry outside on dry days . On our large rotary clothes line . Which slots in to a hole in the lawn . On wet days she can dry it in the Conservatory. I like to sit on the couch on rainy days . Listening to the rain on the roof .
It's not just the size of the house , it's the amount of land . Most older areas have to rely on street parking as they open onto the pavement or have a small forecourt , and terraced ( joined to the next door houses ) is the most common so gardens are very important as the only private outside space . The plugs are probably safest in the World and worth taking a look at .
The climate in the UK is vastly different to how it was here in my childhood. Every winter we had snow (large amounts) now it's very rare (I live in the far north of England) and summers are now reaching 40C at times - as I child, I can never remember it ever reaching 30C
I remember 2 heatwaves, one in the 60s, and one in 1976 when I was fully pregnant. Phew !!. Nightmare that was 😂
I live in a very old cottage and these cottages were built with rather thick walls that keep the heat out in the summer with the help of opening the windows, and the warmth from our gas central heating via radiator's keep the heat in during the winter, the radiators are also great for hanging clothers on to dry, i have a huge fireplace called a inglenook which will warm the whole house so its not often i have the central heating on. I also have a conservatory which is also great for putting a clothers horse as the heat through the glass will dry the clothers but i much prefer to hang them outside on the washing line, theres nothing like the fresh smell. MY garden which is full of cottages flower's like hollyhocks, poppies, cornflower and roses, plus plum trees, and a small vegetable patch. I also have a yard, a stable yard where my ponies are kept. I love my little cottage which is called Plumtree Cottage and i wouldnt swop it for any new house with modern conveniences. I feel honoured to live here
Dryers are very common in the UK.
I always tell my American friends that I would never know what to do with their huge spaces. Whenever we share the Christmas dinner/tree photos and you can see our spaces, Americans win in having their houses look huge and what I would consider expensive/wealthy. It is funny because some of them are jobless or on assistance living.
When we can't use washing line in back garden due to weather then we use the tumble dryer, usually winter months.
To note on weather from my holidays to Utah up to Alberta/BC in Canada when we have 0°C here in UK is more like your -10>15°C due to water particulates in the air as we have wetter weather it feels colder
With washer/driers. The tumble driers cost a small fortune to use these days. You usually have retractable washing lines in the back garden. Some will have fixed ones, but you attach to the wall of the house and then pull out to the fence. These I prefer to the whirligig (that's the one that spins in the garden that is 3 or 4 sides). I now live in a flat so I have a heated airer (funnily enough doing laundry right now!) and a standard airer. An additional spin pulls out water so it is not very wet on the airers.
The washing line that spin's is called a rotary line, you can't just make up your own words 😂
Everyone I know calls them a whirly, I had a whirly at my last house, I now have a line as my garden is longer, my dryer sits on my porch as I very rarely use it and have no room to put it indoors
@@shithappens1975 Whirlygig is a northern name for them. My Mum is from the North West hence Whirligig. I on the other hand have never heard it referred to as a rotary line.
I grew up in a house where the washing line was fixed between two poles. You could lower the line to peg out the washing and raise it up again. There was also a wooden scissor dryer for rainy days.
Our summer feels much hotter than other countries even if the temperature is lower. This is because of the humidity and how homes retain heat over here. However, there are only a couple of days a year where the heat is unbearable
We havea dryer in our garage. We use it for speed and on wet days, but we also have a washing line at the end of the garden.
I must be the only person on this comment section who absolutely loves my tumble dryer. I do all my washing on a Sunday - wash, tumble dry and then iron. All done for work on Monday - brilliant.
We have often have a "Clothes Horse" inside the house and a line for outside but I live in Ireland so we have a tumble drier also
I picked up an old wooden dryer just like moma used to have. It collapses down and can be stored out of sight.
@@eattherich9215 Sounds like it is exactly what we call a clothes horse - You can get them to hand over a door also VERY handy .... as we get quite a bit of rain here
Air con is normally reserved for expensive properties. London where I am can have weeks of temperatures in the high 80s and 90s during summer. You then get nights where the temperature stays in the high 70s or 80s.
Homes in the UK are generally brick.
We would generally have a vegetable/fruit patch in our garden or if no garden you can get an allotment from local council where you can plant veg etc. My house was built 1908 and can be quite damp this time of year. I have a dehumidifier
Conservatory are probably more common here as it rains a lot more, so can be close to the garden without needing an umbrella!
I think even UK natives don't notice the breeze we have most of the time (the benefit of island living!). Like yes it can get hot and even sometimes humid, but a lot of the time our heat just isn't as muggy as other countries, which is why aircon isn't used so much. Like yes it would be beneficial, but not often! The breeze also means in winter it might not be very cold, but the cold breeze can make it feel much worse- I've stood on top of French mountains with twelve feet of snow without a coat, but I come back to the UK and I feel soooo cold even though the temperature is technically ten degrees warmer.
The European mainland you do get more private homes with like portable aircon units, but they are awful. They make you feel like your mouth is stuffed with cotton balls! External shutters are also a lot more common, which means you can avoid the sun getting through in the first place. The best place I lived was in Italy- it was August which in Italy means you feel like you're walking through a sludge of boiling water every time you leave the house... but our home was always cool (even cold). BUT... there was NO aircon. The house was over 100yrs old, built entirely of stone (including beautiful antique marble floors in every room, no carpets), and the entire apartment block was angled so that none of the properties had windows facing the glare of midsummer sun.
@catbevis1644 I think it is the humidity that makes the difference in how cold you feel. Here in the UK we suffer from high humidity most of the year. Being surrounded by water causes this, however if you go to most coastal areas, you tend to get a fresher feel. A group of skiers from Norway were once visiting highland Scotland, which to them felt a lot colder than where they had come from. This was despite a ten degree Centigrade difference in air temperature. (That's about fifty degrees in Fahrenheit.)
Most homes have a washer/dyer. One machine that does both.
Yeah, but the drum for the washing is simply not adequate for drying clothes - a larger drum is needed for the clothes to tumble. A full drum of washing needs twice or more time for drying, incurring more expenditure in electricity usage.
We would call it a veggie patch or an allotment. We had a small kitchen garden just off our patio as a kid that was for herbs , peppers etc
Most UK homes have conservatories like most US homes have huge yards and pools and air-con.
Electricity is expensive too.
We tend to have radiators for heating, not air heating. So air con is mostly in commercial areas (shops, pubs, hotels etc)
Our washing machines have dryers built it that gets rid of excess water before you hang up your washing. So you don't get big puddles on the kitchen floor etc.
All washing machines spin unless something is broken.
Hello!
Firstly, love the ribbon in your hair Lyndsey.
I live in centre of London and in a listed building built in 1865, so fitting a tumble dryer outlet would not be allowed.
A/C is not necessary most of the year even here in London where it gets very warm in the summer. We just use a couple of good stand up fans and open up windows for the breeze to blow through.
It’s not very humid here either, obviously we have moments.
We don’t have a conservatory but if we had the space and permission we would.
I and generations before me hang washing on a clothes line outside in the garden or clothes horse in the kitchen. With a big family the radiators would be used also. It’s a bit untidy but the washing comes out of the machine damp not sopping wet so it’s not for long.
Our home is made from brick and part of a row of terraces and retains heat very well all year long. Most housing is made from brick here in the UK, I believe. Wood is premium so we don’t use it for house building usually.
There is an interesting video about the Great fire of London that includes info on why we use brick for house building too.
Great video
Take care Suzie