In article , Dave Plowman (News)
writes
In article ,
Bob wrote:
You're right for once. The Americans do think we're mad using combis -
they heat their water by electricity.

Then they must be the mad ones. Electricity prices when I lived there
were much higher than here, making electric heating was even less
economic than it is here.

I suspect gas isn't as freely available as here - it's a much larger
country to pipe up.

Americans do seem a bit backward when it comes to appliances, like those
awful top loading washing machines with the clothes-shredding paddle.

We couldn't even buy an electric kettle - "Haven't you got a stove?"
they all said.

All down to the common 110 volts and the maximum current you can take from
an outlet - IIRC means about 1 KW element as opposed to our 3. Would take
forever to boil.


Don't they have some sort of split, like a centre tapped 110-0-110 volt
system in America now, so higher voltages can be used if required?...
--
Tony Sayer