I was just thinking at how maniacs are getting in the US compared to here in europe.
Believe me, they're getting eco paranoid.
Regarding the last matter of the vacuums though, the US doesn't do that because as noted the "crazy" wattage thing has been a typical european thing....and it was really time to give it a cut....it was one of those "all smoke-no roast" selling strategy things....
Regarding euro front loaders, I would like to point out some facts that may miss...
In many countries of europe they always came with cold fill only, and no...it wasn't because of the stain setting theory (which I never experienced) some members likes to tell, almost like saying it's made on purpose because of this, it isn't.. but that's simply because some countries had not proper hook ups in laundry areas..and that simply wasn't possible.
Infact thats a peculiarity of British machines to be double fill, britsh kept their machines in the kitchen, in the kitchen you always have had hot water..simple..
In other countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain not ...and you do get cold fill only....but it's full of people here who buy devices and or manually fill them hot and as hot as possible to save electric costs, not a case that the toploaders may them be agitator or the asian pulsator such as the LG are considered and sold as the most efficient and eco-saving machines, in this country and I know also elsewhere ....they wish they had all machines came with double fill now that many house have the possibility to have the hook ups and hot water is available nearly everywhere in modern houses made past 70s and 80s...
Built-in heaters in machines became a necessity because of what said before, just like it was even with the semi automatic agitatior machines that came before automatics, twin tub and or wringer washers.
See most of the EU twin tub and wringer washer machines with agitator, pulsator whatever settings....
Storage water heaters;
Actually I think that the fact of the storage water heaters is much more complicated than that..
Let's say Europe generally has never had a huge use of the tanks, not because of efficiency but simply because the living spaces in many countries of europe are much smaller, that means few would have space to fit a large water heater, so they had to switch to an insta one....
Buildings and homes in europe in the past didn't have centralized hot water piping and it was difficult to do so because most houses are brick houses and that meant a very expensive work to do, so that meant having to place a small insta water heater whenever needed, so one in the bathrrom feeding the sink and bathrub/shower and a small one in the kitchen... it's common to see bathrooms in older condos and or houses with a water heater on the top of the bathtub in each bathroom....gas lines ran and still runs now outside of houses and buildings, and they were much cheaper to set up versus a centralized hot water piping.
Add to it that as typical of many countries of europe, perhaps the most of population (at leas here, including Spain, France etc) lives in condos and the indipendent houses are things for "wealthy" folks, this is even more in medium to large towns and cities...
Yes, there were some tank heaters of course, both electric and gas, but they were so small... about 30-40 liters the bigger... bigger units couldn't cope with the small/limited living space and they were too small anyway, so they couldn't and wouldn't give satisfactory amount of hot water needed especially for family with kids, 1-2 quick showers and you already ran out of Hot water, so best option was to use instant ones that were small and made best use of space, and this is since the old days (In Russia is also the same even for buildings made after the 70s and 80s), that configuaration even by giving water less hot, made possible it would never "end"...
Always for the same reasons...
Modern instant gas heaters are small and made as compact as you can, though powerful ones and combi ones furnace+heater according to regulations should be to be kept outside, so there are models that with the same space use do both home heating and sanitary water, they can feed up to 7-8 radiators for home heating and provide sanitary water as hot as 80 degrees celsius...downsides is that they're easy to break and expensive to service.
They're certainly more energy efficient than a tank...though it was mainly because of space, gas in europe is cheap and gas reach virtually any-place, rural or not.
Norway: Norway is lucky, they got tons of cost-zero stuff to make energy with, and they've a government who really care of alternative energy, not just to make money out of eco/enviroinmental policies like others.... they've the stuff to do so and learned to use it...from the geysers to the fjords and tides etc...that means they can produce really cheap electricity, so they have electric tank heaters, and rely much on electrics, norvegians do have wood houses and I suppose the hot water thing in houses developped similarly to what it has been in the US, unlike the rest of europe.
Also in Norway there is not an high population density, most people lives in indipendent homes and decently sized, bigger spaces-larger homes...no problem to fit in a large tank heater....[this post was last edited: 12/18/2014-03:58]
