Is it true that American don't use electric kettles?

explain

Edison basically fucked over Westinghouse and made inferior AC electricity the domestic standard.

I have one for making french press coffee. Would recommend

I have an electric kettle at home and these guys are right

Takes fucking ages to boil

Is there ANY benefits 110/120V offers over 220/240?

>Takes fucking ages to boil
My $10 one from Walmart takes 9 minutes to boil 1.7 liters. How the fuck is that ages

I heard in a podcast once that it's better for the environment, not that Edison or anyone else knew that back in the 1800s

Not really, USA got 110 volts due to Eddison's business interests.

It takes only a few minutes for that much here in australia

less dangerous when a retarded baby sticks fork in outlet

That's complete and utter bullshit

Edison wanted everyone to use DC because he had patents on that. Westinghouse won because AC is superior for transmission.

Higher voltages are less safe. Twice as much voltage means twice as much power going through you when you stick a fork in the socket.

>Is there ANY benefits 110/120V offers over 220/240?

Nope.

You're thinking AC vs DC.

Indeed.

I'm American as fuck and I love my electric kettle. Mine doesn't take too long to boil either.

Also, make sure you mongoloids aren't just bringing the water to a rolling boil no matter what tea you're steeping. Many don't require water that hot. Measure the damn temperature.

It's quicker to boil water on the stove, though they are becoming more popular

Here's the podcast episode I heard it from. Decide for yourself what's bullshit because I am only telling you what I heard.

stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/the-future-of-renewable-energy-featuring-bill-gates.htm

Wrong, it's the amps that kill you man, how do you explain tasers being rated up to 1 million volts if volts kills you

Since I moved to England I understood that kettles make your life much easier

>less safe
>twice as much power going through you when you stick a fork in the socket
just don't stick fucking forks into sockets. bam, both are perfectly safe

I studied to be an electrician for a good while before I decided to stop, sustainability and environmental impact was taught in the course, higher volts has no effect on the environment at all.

Then perhaps there's another reason why AC is more sustainable. I don't remember. I listened to the episode months ago but I doubt Bill Gates is making shit up

>AC
DC, rather

AC and DC is how the current flows, nothing to do with voltage, with AC you don't need a substation every few hundred metres like with DC, the power just travels further with AC.

AC is just more efficient

>9 minutes for 1.7L
That's at least twice what it takes over here in yuroop

that's long as fuck

You're not supposed to stare at it while it heats up. You can do other things

It's actually the watts that kill you, which is volts * amps. Doubling either has the same effect, but the voltage is the one the power company has control over.

because coffee is more popular

>American savages not having safety switches installed on their powerboards

Both high voltage as well as high power (volts) can kill you by totally different mechanisms.

High voltage alone (even with tiny current) can stop your heart or cause other neurological problems. (this has happened to people being "tazed")

High power can kill you by literally cooking you.

Think of it this way:
A tiny spark of static electricity can ruin a computer. So can a massive power surge that literally blows it up.

I went ahead and skimmed the podcast to find where they talk about this. They source a guy named Alex MacDonald. So I Googled him and found this. You'll get more out of this than I will because I don't know shit about electricity.

sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/better-power-lines-would-help-us-supercharge-renewable-energy-study-suggests

Electrician here

Wattage increases the overall damage on your body, high wattage doesn't kill you outright

Voltage increases the likelihood of you getting a fatal shock or any kind of shock in general (which is why you dont get a shock when touching a 1,5 AAA battery)

It takes only 30mA to kill a human, but it depends on if you are grounded and what way the current travels

It has to travel through your heart or brain to kill you

Irish here, we drink so much tea

joe.ie/life-style/graphic-irish-people-the-second-biggest-tea-drinkers-in-the-world-beaten-only-by/402657

that we have pic related in my house

I read through it and it's not saying anything about lower voltages being more environmentally friendly, it's saying that an overhaul of the energy grid would possibly help renewables be more viable.

I think you're right. They're specifically mentioning HVDC, which would have a higher voltage than our 110V system. Oh well I was wrong.

As we learn in high school physics, "volts jolt but current kills."

I don't use an electric kettle, I have an old drip coffee maker that I have repurposed to make hot water.

Even then the only hot drinks Americans in general drink with regularity are coffee, which is made in a coffee pot.

I think I have a small kettle like that somewhere but I haven't seen it in years and it was my grandmother's.

It just isn't a very useful device to most americans.

What I'm wondering is why the Brits haven't adopted pic related like the Asians have. Seems even more convenient than an electric kettle.

HVDC is referring to powerlines, it's only for long distance power transfer, for normal residential applications you use low voltage powerlines, if you ran HVDC directly to your house you would fry your house the instant it's switched on

Isn't that what transformers are for? Why do we use 110V domestic to begin with?

You need more than a transformer to make DC to AC

HVDC even more so, you need a power plant to make that suitable for your house

Transformers convert energy from AC to DC from what I remember, it makes sure the power from the power from the power lines don't fry your system.

It's been a while since I took that course so I'm a little rusty on some of the details

Transformers don't work on DC, they only work on AC.

>Transformers convert energy from AC to DC from what I remember

No, that's a rectifier.

A transformer works on AC only. It can either increase or decrease the voltage depending on how it is built.

Transformers do work on DC, but it will only change the output voltage

It wont turn dc to ac, atleast not on it's own

Just looked it up and you're right, it's been a good while since I've done anything relating to electrical shit so I've forgotten quite a bit of what I knew

>Transformers do work on DC

No, they don't. A transformer requires a changing magnetic field in order to function. AC provides that, DC does not.

You can still use an inverter and optionally a rectifier on the two sides of a transformer to get DC back... although this is progressively getting more stupidly complex and expensive.

Russian Master Race.

they work great, but then again so does a pyrex cup full of water in the microwave.

The only advantage to me is the higher end ones have temperature control, which makes a difference if you are a coffee snob who makes his own coffee or making green or white tea.

>almost 2020
>not using a temperature controlled electric kettle

Actual electrician here, higher voltage is more environmentally friendly than lower, because there's less loss.
Why do you think they boost the voltage in long distance wires?
To make sure they kill any climbers?

No they fucking don't you retard
If you tried you would quickly discover that you've made an electromagnet

Takes like 3 minutes in Germany

Because what the fuck is that?

any clue why it is only 110V?
i've always been baffled about some of the US choices

in the uk, two litres here takes about 5 minutes max

Instead of asking an anonymous poster on Veeky Forums who has no idea what he's talking about and will likely parrot some bullshit he himself heard here, why don't you look it up yourself?

I'd rather wait an extra 4 minutes to not live in the UK

I can do it in 2.5 in Canada

>My $10 one from Walmart takes 9 minutes to boil 1.7 liters. How the fuck is that ages
9 minutes? Fucking hell, mine takes about 3.

Electric kettles from Britain were taxed heavily so some Bostonians threw them all into the harbor.

Even considering the low power supply, is it faster to boil water in a kettle than on an electric stovetop? Would like to know since we've been considering getting a kettle anyway.

I have the 5 liters one. It's so nice to be able to make a nice cup of tea right after waking up. I have one within arms reach at my computer to get my refills without any fuss.

Looks like a bitch to clean, tho.

but Americans don't know good coffee

That's wonderful, but no one is answering
>How the fuck is that ages
It's not like you have to sit there and stare at it to make it work.

Who does?

They worked fine with shitty insulation of that time. Think oiled fabric shielded cables laid directly under a damp wall's plaster, really ancient stuff. If anything, with modern plastic insulation and fuse boxes there's a case to be made that we could easily up the voltage to 400V.

the British

lls

Just like they know tea, amirite? Hilarious

Id rather not be obese

You can't even use that meme anymore considering you're as fat as Americans now

I do

I'm not even British, I'm a filthy slav that immigrated here about 8 years ago but I agree

One day they'll be required everywhere, instead of just the kitchen and bathrooms

They're commonly called an "air pot". They're sort of like an electric kettle except they maintain the water constantly at near boiling temp. You don't have to wait for it to heat up, you get boiling hot water instantly on demand.

Most of them have various temperature settings so you can keep the water at the temp you want for your tea, coffee, instant noodles, whatever.

We have circuit breakers, retard. It's law

He's talking about GFCI, not a circuit breaker.

A circuit breaker protects against overloads. It won't do anything to stop someone getting shocked.

He's talking about TRRs
I don't think a circuit breaker will protect a human life before it's gone.
You've got TRRs in the kitchen and bathroom. You may even have one (or a regular switch) that controls your garbage disposal.
Tamper Resistant Receptacles are the outlets with Test and Reset on them.

>Tamper Resistant Receptacles are the outlets with Test and Reset on them.

No, those are two totally seperate things.

The test/reset buttons mean the outlet contains a GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter)

A TRR may or may not have that built in. TRR simply means that the outlet contains a mechanism that makes it harder for a child to jam stuff into it.

Pic related. It's a TRR without a GFCI.

Right. I couldn't remember shit about these and my Google fu mislead me

please respond

If you're going to boil a ton of water and want it all the time just grab whatever is mentioned in these posts:
An "air pot" or whatever. If not go for the kettle, one that you can tune the temperature if you'd like.
Stove's more of a hassle IMO and not necessarily faster

>takes 9 minutes to boil 1.7 liters
Are Americans really okay with this? I'm even meming or OBSESSING I legit want to know cuz this seems so fucking stupid to me

No because no one has electric kettles

The faster the water boils the faster you can enjoy your drink or get on with something else, there are no advantages to waiting 5 more minutes.

Electrician here. Short version is 120v is safer due to the system design.

Long version is Edison's employees had some accidents and Edison and Tesla figured out that anything significantly over 100 volts would burn out lamp filaments faster and had a much higher chance of fucking someone up in the event of an accident. Thus 110 became the standard as a compromise between safety, lamp longevity, and distribution efficiency.

The 60 Hz frequency was because Tesla somehow figured out that it was the optimal generating frequency in terms of power efficiency and generator stability. Brits insisted on 50 Hz because circlejerking about 'muh metric system' was more important than making things work properly so they permanently gimped their power systems by about 20% in order to maintain the metric standard (1,2,5,10).

Modern systems in the US are actually 240v for residential but the system gets split in half to two 120v branches which are then further split into the various circuits that spread out to different parts of the house. This way the small appliances are safer with at a low voltage so your dog doesn't explode when it chews ona cord and your large appliance such as ACs, ovens, and heaters can be more efficient by combining the two opposed 120v lines to create a 240v line.

The masses aren't educated otherwise so yes. Most of us are okay with this because we see no other possibilities. What many see as American ignorance is a carefully crafted system of misinformation and fuckery to keep us docile. We were once a proud people.