<story><title>Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V? (2014)</title><url>https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/115200/why-does-the-usa-use-110v-and-uk-use-230-240v</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mhandley</author><text>As a Brit, the best thing about 230v is being able to run a 3kW kettle to make my tea.  I took this for granted until I moved to the US.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jedberg</author><text>I have a question for you as a Brit.  I live in an Asian household (my wife is Asian).  We have a hot water boiler, as most Asian households do.  It keeps 4L of water at &amp;quot;tea&amp;quot; temperature at all times (after boiling it).&lt;p&gt;When we want tea, we just fill up the cup with the already boiled and ready water.  It&amp;#x27;s super efficient because it&amp;#x27;s super insulated so it barely takes any energy to keep it hot after it&amp;#x27;s been boiled.&lt;p&gt;Why don&amp;#x27;t Brits (and other tea drinking cultures in Europe) do this?</text></comment>
<story><title>Why does the USA use 110V and UK use 230-240V? (2014)</title><url>https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/115200/why-does-the-usa-use-110v-and-uk-use-230-240v</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mhandley</author><text>As a Brit, the best thing about 230v is being able to run a 3kW kettle to make my tea.  I took this for granted until I moved to the US.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wongarsu</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s probably the most remarkable difference. It&amp;#x27;s interesting how houses are wired for 10-20A of current everywhere, regardless of voltage. You&amp;#x27;d assume that since European houses are mostly wired for 16A then US houses would be wired for 32A (or the other way around, if you know US houses wired for 15A, you would assume the European wires for 8A). But curiously that&amp;#x27;s not the case.&lt;p&gt;Ignoring the UK with their 13A&amp;#x2F;30A rings for a moment, since their wiring is unique.</text></comment>