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Comment by porknubbins | Hacker News Reader

Brits don’t mess around with tea I guess. I believe they’re mostly on 240v even for residential there. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think it would even be possible to heat water that fast in the US on 120v.

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Correct, it takes about twice as long to boil a kettle in the US. But the US is the anomaly here. Most countries use 220-240V mains like Britain [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country#T...

British outlets are individually fused so they're typically rated for more current

British outlets are fused for _lower_ current than american outlets, not more: 13 amps instead of the 15 or 20 that's common here. It's the voltage that's higher, which means that the power transferred for a given current is about double.

Fused for 13A running off 32A ring main.

Continental Europe uses 16A radial circuits so the current rating is higher there.

EDIT: Of course, you can't run two kettles on one radial, but you can on one ring.

Technically, the US does as well.

You have 240 V at the panel, but you only run half for each common circuit.

Technically basically all buildings in Germany (residential and commercial) run on 400V 3 phase power. But access to it via sockets is only common in residential homes via sockets in a garage. It gets more common with car charging although they rather use 3 x 230V as far as I am aware of.

Fun fact: 400V 3-phase and 3x 230V are the very same thing. You'll get 230V AC between Neutral and each of the three phases, but the AC voltage between two of the phases will actually be 400V.

I'm living in apartment block built in 2016 in eastern EU and here every apartment has a separate 3 phase(5 pin) socket for the stove. It is a 7kw beast, it can easily destroy regular aluminum-steel pan if you put it on max heat. Steel part will fall apart.

Same in Eastern Germany, at least up to the 2000s. (Probably still, but I left, so can't vouch.)

I seem to remember our electrical stove and oven back in Germany in the 2000s using three-phase power.

Here in Singapore I think our pool pump uses three phase power, too. (Our plugs and outlets here in Singapore follow the British model.)

They have a man watch the telly to hit the button to turn on the power for all the teapots going on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slDAvewWfrA

That poor operator probably gets an adrenaline rush (and finger twitch) every time he hears the Eastenders theme tune.

Assuming perfect energy transfer (fairly reasonable for conductive heating of water) with no losses to ambient, a starting temperature of 20 C, 1 L of water (which I assume to weigh 1 kg) and a 1800W kettle (the max you’ll find in America): no.

t = specific heat capacity of water * mass of water * degC deltaT / power

4.186 J/gC 1000g * 80C / 1800 J/s ~= 186 seconds

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