US Expat Describes The Best And Worst Things About England

[davetranter]

'Multi-reply'

"Do the brits really iron everything??" - Yes, it is probably true to say that most of them DID iron everything. My mother ironed everything which came out of the washing machine, and 'pressed' (iron with damp cloth) everything which was hand washed, and I mean EVERYTHING!! Nowadays, I (and most of my contemporaries) iron only what really needs to be ironed - time is precious, and that particular slice of British culture is rapidly (and gladly) sliding into oblivion.

"How much your energy costs" (Arbilab, Reply#18). My own costs (also posted to another thread):-

Electricity - £0.1575 per kW/h plus daily charge of £0.105

Gas - £0.0435 per kW/h plus daily charge of £0.274

Regarding the 'superfluous 'u's... Yes, all taken in good humo(u)r. I am probably a member of a very small minority on this side of the 'pond' in that I actually own a copy of "Webster's" Dictionary, which, I gather, is the standard reference work on your side of the 'pond'... It has been subject to some gentle lampooning here as 'The Dictionary Which Can't Spell'.

Reading the 'original' article cited at the beginning of the thread, it appears that the 'ex-pat' is living in or around the village of Petworth, West Sussex. "A few minutes from Petworth House". On the edge of the 'South Downs', it lies amid the 'rolling' countryside of the British South, green and leafy as opposed to the generally more mountainous, hilly and rocky scenery of the North.

The point I found most interesting was the mention of 'an absence' of neglected/abandoned buildings and poor roads.... She needs to head North to see these... I can assure all readers that there is plenty of neglected infrastructure as soon as you leave the 'Home Counties' of the Southeast. The main reason for this (I assume) is that Real Estate is so expensive in that corner of the country that no-one can afford not to be making maximum use of every square inch.

Regarding High Speed Rail links.... The 'planned' London-Birmingham-Manchester link is already attracting plenty of hostile attention from the 'NIMBY' brigade, which will no doubt double or triple the final cost of the link through pointless court costs. I live quite close to the proposed 'corridor', so see it mentioned altogether too frequently in the local media.

All best

Dave T

 

[arbilab]

Dave, yes you got that I was spoofing the 'u' thing. French is even more susceptible to spoofing written letters which are not pronounced and unwritten letters which are pronounced. But then we Brits at one point fell under the influence of most every eastern European invasive rubble. And considerate louts that we are, accomodated them. Thus breaking the 'i before e except after c' rule. It's said that English has more exceptions than rules. And it takes an Asperger like myself to get beyond 2/3rds of our spelling. Uncle Webster was rather the contrarian, wasn't he? Also rather the slouch, could have rectified a lot of the German influence.

Your electric is rather dear by comparison, as I suspected. Inasmuch as 16c is almost the maximum rate here, without accounting for the 'daily charge' or the difference between L and $. Mercy!

 

[davey7]

I know this is an old thread, but I'm chuckling about the basements. It's also Britain's mild climate which allowed them to be basement free, with frost heave, houses without proper foundations would be destroyed in most of North America, and if you have to go down nearly four feel, why not have a cellar?

I know that Edina Monsoon had a washing machine (not that she knew what it was or how to use it) but no tumble dryer. And she lived in the rich heartland of Holland Park, not the outskirts.

 

[lavamat_jon]

I know that Edina Monsoon had a washing machine

Bear in mind that most people here, if they do have a dryer, have it in a cupboard or garage as there is often no room in kitchens.  Of the people I know, most have a tumble dryer, and the majority don't have them by the washer.  This house is the first house of my own that I've lived in where I've had the washer and dryer together (and even then they're stacked) and I can tell you it's nice to just put washing straight into the dryer!

 

[davey7]

Funny thing is the Monsoon's have a utility room which they could use. I wonder where Margo Leadbetter's washing machine was - not that she ever used it, as Mrs. Pierson came in five days a week....

Everybody (practically) in Sweden has them stacked in the bathroom (if an apartment) or laundry room (if a house).

 

[lavamat_jon]

Although it's a UK tradition, I don't particularly like having the washing machine in a kitchen, never have done.  We moved ours up to the bathroom and, although it is my main passion, it's nice not to have the laundry on view in a "public" part of the house so to say.  That, and I can sort and pile up laundry in loads on the floor without it getting in the way of preparing a meal!

 

Jon

 

[rustyspaatz]

someone may have mentioned this..

With all this flap and goin' on about no bleedin' dryer ...

Washer-Dryers are common place in the U.K.

To some thick American who's used to see'n the likes of two machines, they'd half think ya do without. But they'ds a fool, yeah.

For less than 500 quid, you can 'ave a new machine.

What a smart ide-er. Not many in the States, 'ave ya.

http://www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/c/washers-and-dryers

 

[davey7]

Of course, if you have a combo unit, you can't do two loads at once...

 

[jeffg]

"Although it's a UK tradition, I don't particularly like having the washing machine in a kitchen"

Amen to that imo. The idea of residential laundry rooms didn't become popular until the 1950's and 60's in the U.S., before that the only available plumbing option for a washer was usually in the kitchen. Smelling dirty laundry while trying to cook is bad enough, but dryers do not exhaust 100% of the lint they generate, a certain amount winds up on everything in whatever room they're in. In a kitchen that means your pots, dishes, food etc. Yuck!

 

[optima]

I don't particulary like having a washing machine in

Why on earth would you not want a Washer in the kitchen. This is the way it has been done in the UK for years. Nothing whatsoever wrong about it being unhygienic. Don't understand where your coming from.

 

[rapunzel]

"Don't understand where your coming from."

Why process your dirty laundry in the kitchen when there is a laundry room? Laundry rooms have utility value. There is a big laundry tub and storage etc. - which makes it a very useful space. Dust, dead skin, pubic hairs - all the good stuff that comes out of dirty clothes doesn't belong where food is being prepared. Other than that I'd prefer to have my washer in the bathroom instead of the kitchen.

 

[donprohel]

"Don't understand where your coming from"

From a place where the best place for personal hygiene things, including those involving water, is the bathroom (if a laundry room is not available for personal clothes hygiene) and where kitchen is the place for cooking and eating, but washing only cooking tools (and better do it in a dishwasher).

From a place where bathrooms are designed to be reasonably waterproof and easy to clean, and where carpet in the bathroom would be considered foolishly anti-hygienic, to say the least.

From a place where it is known that a standard washing machine size is 60 cm × 60 cm × 85 cm and houses are designed to have one (taking into account that the space in the kitchen is for the dishwasher).

Frome a place where "ring circuits" do not exisit, plugs do not need a fuse and are not polarized, no one has even been electrocuted while sitting on the loo and hence it is considered safe to have electric sockets in the bathroom, especially since residual current devices have been invented.

From a place where "this is the way it has been done for years" is not always a good reason to keep on doing that (and this might be the reason why today we have cars, trains and aeroplanes rather than horses).

From a place where it is known that the rest of the world have different thoughts and needs, and hence for instance a bidet in the bathroom might not always be considered absolutely necessary although we couldn't live without.

 

[superelectronic]

I would think most people would be better off not having their laundry equipment in the kitchen - for the most part in the UK it's more to do with the kitchen being the only practical place near the necessary plumbing (bathrooms are typically too small) and they're normally handy for the back door to the washing line in the garden (unlike a lot of bathrooms). If you factor those things out, what average person really loves noisy machinery and dirty laundry knocking around the kitchen?

Obviously, if one enjoys keeping an eye on a wash cycle, having the machine in its own room probably isn't so practical, particilarly if one doesn't wish to be seen taking up residence in the utility room or wherever for the sole purpose of washer-watching.

I wholeheartldy endorse NOT having a tumble dryer in the kitchen, if only for the reason of keeping cooking smells out of one's clean laundry. Ditto drying racks. Ideally driers need to be in a room that can be safely shut off from the rest of the house and where nobody minds if the window is open even in the depths of winter.

 

[chestermikeuk]

"Smiles"

And douses oneself and the kitchen with washer and dryer in HibiScrub!!!!

 

[lavamat_jon]

Optima...

It's called personal preference... given a dedicated utility room/laundry area or a kitchen, I know what I'd have anyday!  (And I didn't say anything about it being unhygienic).

 

Jon

 

[anthony]

i live in

an x council house that is 65 years old it has a purpose built utility room [wash house]that is almost as big as the kitchen both my washer and dryer live in there along with the vacuum cleaner .I live in the North of england where the roads are in a mess along with a lot of other things but my worse nightmare would be having to live in london whenever i have to go there i cant wait to get back why anyone would want to live in that filthy dirty sewer is beyond me every big city in the uk can be a bit rough around the edges[Leeds being one of them] but london is in a class of its own and as for those big american washers yes they look great especialy some of the oldr ones but you all seem to have forggoten is how much water they use and what water costs here in the uk then theres the demise of the launderette lets face it would you really want dot cotton or her counterpart rumaging through your smalls god knows what could have been in those machines before you got to use one .i have alarge back garden and would prefere my washing dried outside to dried in the dryer any day oh and just for the record my old Phillips dryer is 45 years old and has been in the family since new we got our first dishwasher in 1968 and have had a microwave since 1974 probably long before most americans

 

[MrX]

The "Utility Room" is quite common in Irish houses.
That's usually where the washing machine hangs out. Or, sometimes in the garage.

It's really only in smaller homes that you would find the washing machine in the kitchen. It's usually banished to the utility room, along with the dryer and often a big freezer for long-term storage of stuff.

 

[optima]

I love my Washer in the kitchen because i enjoy watching it in action.

 

[MrX]

Ireland vs England (or other parts of the UK differences ?

I'm just wondering if any one in England could enlighten me a bit on this.

I've moved around a bit in Ireland and I've lived in a few houses over the years and I am also familiar with most of my friends and relatives houses. I have also read a few architectural journals where this has come up as a rather idiosyncratic feature of Irish house design and I was wondering if it happens in England too.

Your average home here, particularly those build after the 1950s, tends to have a utility room on the back of the house. This is also normally the place where the backdoor is located. The original idea being that it would have easy access to the back garden for washing lines etc but, it also tends to be handy for bringing out trash etc.

Normally what you'd have in your utility room would be a short run of kitchen cabinets (often not quite as high spec as the kitchen itself). So, typically you'd have at least a work top and space for a washer and a dryer and usually a sink (this is where you'd do stuff like fill mop buckets and things that you don't necessarily want to do in your kitchen sink for hygiene reasons)

The room usually has enough space for an ironing board for your iron / steam generator etc (In our case we added an extractor fan because the steam generator produces so much vapour!)

The bit that architects consider a bit idiosyncratic is that the utility room usually contains the backdoor and a lot of the time, that will be used as the primary entrance to the house for the family with the front door being a bit more 'kept for best' so, only if you ring the door bell will you get answered at the front of the house.

The idea being that you can keep coats, muddy / wet shoes, shopping and all that stuff out of the hallway which is usually tidier / kept for a bit of showing off to visitors i.e. your kitchen could be a mess, but if the Irish version of Hyacinth Bucket or anyone else you want to impress calls around, you always have the hallway and one of two reception rooms tidy. (Most homes would tend to have a living room and sitting room at the least).

So, the utility room / backdoor keeps things like kids, shoes, grocery bags and laundry away from the 'nicer parts' of the house.

You'd also usually find that a utility room might contain some aspects of a long-term storage larder. So a lot of houses would have either a large larger freezer (height of a washer-dryer stack) or in the past a 'deep freeze' (chest freezer) was more common.

Sometimes the utility room would also contain the central heating furnace too. Although, in a lot of cases in Ireland it's actually housed in a separate boiler room / boiler house which may not even be directly attached to the house at all. There were a lot of old fire regulations around pressure-jet oil boiler that required them to be in a separate building (shed next to the house) linked by very insulated pipes underground. Oil fired boilers aren't really something you'd want in your home as they are known to get a little whiffy (oily smells, soot etc) if things go wrong. However, it's not unusual to find a gas boiler in the utility room.

The utility room's also usually the place that you'll find things like the electrical distribution panel (consumer unit / fuse board).

In some homes, the garage gets used as a quasi-utility room too instead of an actual garage.

I'm just wondering if this arrangement is common in England, Wales and Scotland too? I know Ireland and the UK are very similar in lots of ways, but when it comes to housing design we can be a little different and a bit fixated on the sprawling bungalow on an acre of land approach as the idealised way of living which hasn't really created a very "European" country in the sense that we have a lot of very scattered homes once you get outside the core of cities.

Anyway, just curious if anyone would like to comment / give a comparison vs the UK or the US/Canada, OZ and NZ etc or elsewhere in Europe.

To me though, going into a house via the backdoor and the utility room always reminds me of 'home'. There's something nice about arriving home after work or arriving home after a few months abroad or something like that and walking into warm, quaint room with a strong wafting scent of some weird combination of persil, ariel, comfort and possibly even bounce followed by stepping into a kitchen with the scent of home baking.
Always reminds me of arriving in my granny's house

She's one of those people who can still whip up a batch of fresh scones to go with a nice cup of tea all in the space of about 20 mins [this post was last edited: 11/30/2013-04:42]

 

[anthony]

you

just described my house down to a tee we use the back door all the time in fact i cant remember when the front door was last opened my drive runs along the side of the house its so easy to get out of the car and straight in through the back door that leads into the [not the utility room ]washhouse [its corect name ]in there you will find the washer and dryer vac dirty laundry box and a sink unit where i can conect a hose pipe at the other end is another door leading to the downstairs toilet .utility room is a name architects have come up with for that odd bit of space thats left after they have tried to design a house .Also in my laundry there is a Hoovermatic twintub that i use when the weather is fine i can have a weeks washing on the line while the automatic is still on its first load .Shoes are also left in there [absolutely on one gets in my house with there shoes on]then your through into the kitchen in there i have a pantry that houses a freezer pots and pans and lots of kitchen paraphenalia oh yes and the microwave is in there as well .Although my house is small [two beds ]its well designed and easy to live in