Are they, though? With modern appliances, power requirements are going up and 110V is struggling to keep up. One example would be an induction hob.
I know that technically US homes can access 230V but they aren't wired for that, probably 99% are wired just for 110V except for maybe a few special lines.
Every US home I've lived in had 240V access in the kitchen for appliances like electric ranges. They absolutely are wired for that. Practically nobody's house only has 120V.
It sounds like you've always lived in relatively new/high end houses then.
Older houses might have a dedicated 240 plug for the dryer and the stove if they're not natural gass, but for everything else there are plenty of homes full of ungrounded 10 amp 120v circuits.
My current house was built in '82. Is that a new house? That's 41 years old at this point. Its a pretty average single family suburban build for the time, not anything especially fancy even for its day. Loads of houses we looked at in the area were built in the 70s and 60s and often had electric 240V appliances in the kitchen. That's about 60 years old, is that a new? A single car garage 1500sqft 3bdr house in a suburb sound like a high end house?
And yeah, my house is full of 120V circuits, but once again the house has 240V at the panel and could run 240V anywhere in the house if needed. As you pointed out, they probably do have a 240V plug for the dryer, ergo they've got 240V service at the property, so they could wire the kitchen if there's no wiring already. Once again, practically nobody has only 120V service at their home.
Yeah the only situation I can think of only 120v being available in a house is if it is a separate unit running off a 120v sub panel from the main building. The other option would be some off grid setups for like a tiny home might only run 120v. That is mostly because anything that would require 240v would be too power hungry to run off of the solar system.
That would be by choice, though. My mom's 110 year old house still has some circuits with cloth wiring. But it has a number of new (40-50 year old) circuits that are normal, grounded 5-15 120V. And the kitchen, basement, and garage have 240V receptacles. This is pretty much the same setup as any modern house.
Laundry, stove, and ovens use 240V outlets (assuming no gas). It’s not very common but I know a few people with wood working tools who have installed 240v outlets. Wood framed houses make it easy to change wiring.
To change my gas stove/oven back to 240v induction would be a 15 foot run of romex, a new outlet, and probably an updated circuit breaker. Possible for a DIYer to do.
Compared to the age of CRTs, modern TVs are much more power efficient.
And compared to the age of the Pentium 4 with its 100W+ TDP, laptops now outsell desktop computers by a long way.
(I would agree that things like high-end gaming GPUs are using more power than ever before - but they're also a much smaller % of sales than ever before)
> Compared to the age of CRTs, modern TVs are much more power efficient.
According to the internet a CRT TV used to use about 100W, while a big LCD TV can use more.
Regarding desktops, don't forget that these days we have many more electronic device in a home. Smart speakers, home media devices, consoles, etc, etc. Electronics probably use, in aggregate 5-10x what the old family PC used to use, I'd imagine.
The CRT TVs back in the 70s and 80s were pigs. Not 150W, more like 300W and sometimes more. It would take some work to make a modern LCD with similar consumption. Even when plasma was all the rage, it wasn't that bad.
Fundamentally the US just wires things differently. If a house has an electric or induction hob(Cooktop) it will be permanently wired for 240v. All your high power devices such as HVAC, ovens, cooktops, and EV chargers have dedicated lines at 240v for them. Every house in the US other than some super niche scenarios has 240V. Yes largely most everything is wired for 120V and only a few special lines at 240v but that is because those are the only things that really require more power.
Largely they have the same power output. While the total power available is actually higher for the US version at 12kW versus 11.1 kW for the UK version. That is because the US version needs to be on a 50 amp 240v circuit versus the max 16 amp circuit for the UK version.
The max output to a single pan/pot typically is going to max out around 3.3-3.7 kW. I don't know the exact reasoning behind that but I assume it might cause issues with cookware if you go much higher than that.
Power = V*A. You can get any given power output out of any voltage by following the formula. The number of wires is not a factor at all. Number of wires and voltage is a factor in cost of install of course, but nothing else.
Interestingly enough, European oven/hob combos mostly run on 400V 3-phase power. Same for many tankless water heaters. That's certainly one advantage of 230V per phase. It's probably also one factor in the decision to power things by gas vs electric.
But are they more powerful? AFAIK it's pretty common for a European range to be in the 7000-10000 watt range. That's also normal in the US on single phase 240V. And I can go buy a 36000 watt tankless water heater from Home Depot. I think it's a wash, either system can deliver however much power you need.
The reason for gas in the US is because people like it. It's been seen as upscale for decades to have a gas cooktop. It also helps that gas water heaters don't require electricity and work in an outage. Our residential natural gas distribution network is extensive and reliable, and it's pretty straightforward to use the same appliances on propane for people out in the sticks.
Depending on the market it can also be cheaper per BTU to heat with gas than with electricity, at least resistive heating. Heat pumps are starting to challenge that math, but with higher upfront costs and more complexity as tradeoffs.
Are they, though? With modern appliances, power requirements are going up and 110V is struggling to keep up. One example would be an induction hob.
I know that technically US homes can access 230V but they aren't wired for that, probably 99% are wired just for 110V except for maybe a few special lines.