"Bob" wrote in message
...
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
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.


I had gas, but only for the cooker hob. The bill about was $6 per month,
$5
of which was standing charge! The airconditioner on the other hand added
about $50 per month to the electricity bill in the summer! In fact, I'd
say
electricity prices were about 3 times what I pay in England (and that was
before the California power crisis).

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.

Well I did get one from Canada in the end - it worked just fine.

So Canadians use kettles like us, and the Yanks do not and boil water on the
hob? Well as their hot water is from the mains they can use that and the
heating time in a small pan would,be quite fast to boiling. Most Americans
use coffeepots anyhow.