SultanOfSwing

You obviously lived in a posher street than we did, then ...

Guindalf

Be careful because some of the points raised are regional or urban/rural and not necessarily US/UK.

I've NEVER seen an outlet controlled by a switch at the door of a room except in hotels.

Urban areas are more likely to have some kind of letter box outside or in the door, although in general, mail boxes exist. It is also acceptable to post a letter in your mailbox for the carrier to pick up without having to go to a postbox/office.

Buried services. In more rural areas at least, it is far cheaper to run phone, power, cable, etc. on a pole than to bury it underground. Hence the outages experienced so often. When these are underground, it is far harder to disrupt the service but a lot more expensive to install.

A 'bedroom' in the US is defined by the room having a closet, usually built in. No closet, it's not a bedroom!

lansbury

I owned three houses in the UK, the two built in the 30s need to have new roofs during the time I owned them.


We have three bedrooms and none have switched sockets, neither does our son and daughter-in-laws house.


About half the houses in Milwaukie have letters boxes slots, not always in the front door but located near to it.

The last two clearly demonstrates once again how different things are between areas of the USA.

SultanOfSwing

Of the three buildings I have lived in out here (1 flat, 2 houses) both houses had wall switches that controlled a socket in at least one room (if it wasn't hooked up to a ceiling fan, that is). Sometimes seemingly arbitrarily assigned, I'll grant, but we still had 'em. We even have a few switches in our current gaff that aren't connected to anything. Either that or I'm always switching off our carbon monoxide detector when I hit the wrong switch for the hallway lights!

They run overhead lines even in the towns round our way, even reasonably close to the city but I think that's because it became built up too quickly to do anything about it. Being that I love pylons and substations and stuff, to me that is one of the very, very, very few positives about where I live ...

MostlyYank

The US Post Office no longer allows mailbox on houses, or even at the street, unless they've changed it very recently. If you see a new development they all have a little hut at or near the entrance. It's like a mini-post office for the development.

My older (and inexpensive then) house had switches for table lamps in the bedrooms, but I have changed them to the standard overhead lights. I can't remember another house that had them.

Agreed about the rats nest wiring, I think it's ugly. Agreed about the big towers though

Pete

SultanOfSwing

I think they do it just to give the switch something to keep itself busy until one decides to throw ceiling fans in there. Our bedroom, for example, has a fan and the second switch by the door turns it on and off. In the kids' rooms, that switch controls one of the wall sockets.

N1cky

Kitchens in the UK don't tend to have garbage disposers (and the ones that do freeze in the winter causing all kinds of mess)

It's the norm to dry your washing in your garden in the UK.

Houses are much more open plan in the US than in the UK.

Our living room in the UK IS the family room, we don't have two different rooms.

Moxie

Closets are a big difference to me. We have two master closets that would almost qualify as bedrooms in the UK.

I notice UK houses aren't generally marketed in sq ft. It seems to be only (for example) 3 BR 2 Bath house without reference to the size overall. One of those advertised bedrooms could be the size of a closet or could be spacious but you don't get the size summary of the total house usually.

Bink

Yes, the way in which the rooms are named is very different. I live in what is called a 4 bedroom house. In the UK it would probably be listed as 5/6 bedrooms (we have a family room, a game room and a media room plus the 4 bedrooms).

Space here is also much larger, you don't really get walk in closets in the UK, whereas some here are almost bedrooms in their own right.

I'd say maintenance is much more important here too due to the construction methods. You need to pay attention that things like the AC have been cared for, filters replaced, roof is in good condition etc etc when looking at houses here. Issues with those types of things are generally more prevalent than in the UK. Also things like termite damage are much more worrisome especially for older houses (termites are very rare in the UK although there have been a couple of cases).

Bink

You normally get to see the floorplan which generally has the room sizes if not the total sq ft. If you go to a site like rightmove.com most of the listings do have floorplans. It's interesting to me that it only appears to be normal for new houses to show the floor plan here. It's actually a really useful tool to decide if a house is worth looking at or not.

Jerseygirl

Realtor fees are not paid by both sides in the US...the seller pays the fees.

Bink

This is what I get for posting when I'm not feeling well and not paying attention to what I'm writing. You're right. What I had meant to say was the process of using a realtor both for buying and selling is strange and the fact that the seller effectively pays for the buyers realtor is strange.

My bad I've deleted that part.

AZ_Alba

UK the wall socket are normally on a different circuit from the lights.
UK normally use a ring arrangement for the electric circuits in the SouthWest at least they just use one long spur.
UK light switches for the bathroom are either outside the room or a pull cord from the ceiling, also only power sockets in the bathroom should be through isolating transformer to lessen the possibility of you, water, and electric getting together.
US GFI power power sockets in bathroom and light switch on the wall.

SultanOfSwing

Also, UK plug sockets have switches (thus eliminating the need for a wall switch to randomly turn on and off a socket )

Steve2.0

For once I feel like and expert, rather then the one looking for advice....

Having various properties, and just sold my last UK property, I can inform you there do indeed appear to me many differences!
I've heard that properties in the US have central heating, we do occasionally have central heating but that's down to me not getting the chimney sweeper in, but on those occasions the house is very warm throughout so can see the appeal.
Agree with another poster we do indeed dry our clothes on the washing line (in our last property we went posh and didn't have to share the line with the neighbours) although I am not sure on the alternative to line drying, perhaps I could get the wife to turn the handle on the mangle faster thus generating heat at the same time, is that what's done in America?
I am not sure about the issue with multiple switches near the entrance of a room, here one switch turns the central room light on/off along with the attached iron, radio and laptop power supply, the dangling wires can be an issue.
There is mention of cavernous fridges in the America, can't imagine what all the space is used for, ours has more than enough room for the pint of gold top delivered by the milkman each morning and the freezer box is the perfect size for the oblong block of Wall's to make ice cream sandwiches.
Oh yes you also have a feeble 110V electrical supply, how on earth do you get the water boiled in time for decent cuppa?

Steve