4 Ways British and American Houses Are Very Different

and tea drinkers that we are we love our kettles don't we but they're not just any kettles these are ones you plug in and then hit the switch to turn on the plug because I forgot to mention that our plug sockets also house switches hello I'm Lawrence and I'm on a quest to uncover all of the memos that Britain and America lost in the pond and one of those memos pertains to houses the things we live inside if if you're watching this video it's quite likely you're either inside a house right now or you're near one because otherwise you wouldn't probably have internet access quite as easily to anyone that might be new to this channel come on in get yourself a cup of tea this isn't a genuine offer to come into my house and just say join the channel this is good and hello to everybody who's been here a long time today we're going to look at several ways in which British and American houses are very very different having lived in the United States for over eleven years I've lived in my fair share of houses here just as I did in Britain so I think I have a decent grasp of how old houses work even tiny ones like this one which is about four hundred square feet I'm joking this is a professional studio don't question me and so without further ado let's take a look at four ways that British and American houses are very very different neither Britain nor America is devoid of variety when it comes to their housing styles and that's because well with each sort of passing phase of history comes new designs to meet new needs and just new style preferences and because of this variety I'm not gonna cover every single one of them because that would keep us all here until next Wednesday which would be good for my metrics but not good for your sanity so let's take a look at how some of the housing styles do vary from country to country in Britain a lot of the distinctive styles are also tied up with the period in which they were built so you could go all the way back to the Tudor period and you do find Tudor housing dotted around here and there in fact if you go to the City of York for example there's quite a lot of sort of Tudor buildings there they're quite ornate with wood paneling and the sort of place that you might imagine that Shakespeare lived but wood is less indicative of British houses than you would see in America where wood is actually quite a common material for building houses in Britain from about the Georgian period onward you're gonna see quite a lot of brickwork a Georgian period houses absolutely exist people live in them but they tend to be these opulent looking houses that to have notable pops of white rectangle which are just the windows said it's very nice they look like dolls houses that you should live in but then come the Victorian age we started moving toward these sort of like orangey brick buildings right and a lot of them were terraced houses which is what Americans would call row houses and they just looked very industrial right you could imagine a chimney sweep going up and getting his face covered in soot and then we move into the Edwardian period where houses are sort of similar to those of the Victorian age they're just lighter colours with more chimney sweeps if Mary Poppins is anything to go by now during World War two when the Nazis bombed the ever-loving crap out of us a lot of the houses went boom and then after World War Two there was a housing boom and you started to see a buildup of new more simple houses kind of like the one I grew up in now that that's a castle that didn't happen but I did I grew up in something more like this that's not Lawrence's actual house despite more fairytales may suggest most of us have never lived in a chocolate box house but those do exist a chocolate box house is the kind of house you might see in the Cotswolds right it's very quaint looking it's got Thatcher roofing and it looks like this and if like me you're wondering why it's called a chocolate box house yet it doesn't look edible it goes back to the 1950s / 60s when chocolate boxes would have on their facade a kind of depiction of a beautiful English countryside and these types of houses would often feature on set box now again this is by no means an entire repository of British houses and neither is the following an entire repository of American houses it's just that the more common ones that you will see when you are here so Cape Cod houses you know these types of houses rather the ones with the wood paneling down the side and I said a moment ago that you know America makes good use of wood in this country cuz there's just so much of it so many woodlands around the country and it's a huge country from which to pull that resource so they do and it's cheap but funnily enough the Cape cod-style house its history with English settlers who came here in the 17th century and started building Cape cod-style houses in New England now during the post-world War two period partly to provide you know housing to veterans coming back from war there was a revival of Cape cod-style housing and it started to be built not just in New England but all along the East Coast and in the Midwest and even out west anybody that seen the Goonies will know that and it was this style of housing that I first moved into when I moved to the United States and I've gotta say even despite the Midwest winters it was really warm you know you'd think it would be quite drafty because of all of the gaps in the wood you could go to specific streets or neighborhoods or areas of the United States and only find these houses for miles and miles so I lived in one of those but my grandparents in-law lived in what is known as a ranch-style house and these are sort of really low down buildings don't typically have two floors to them and once again these houses became popular after World War Two there was generally a big sort of boom after World War two again in the United States in that regard the 20th century though did see more and more of ival ISM of old styles so you had you know mock judo or shall I say Revival Tudor and which more or less replicated the kind of tudor buildings you would see in England with some differences and I've seen those types of buildings in Boston for example I've also seen them in Indiana as well as that the 20th century saw Colonial Revival ISM though most people won't don't live in those houses maybe one day when I get that grand piano I'll think about it and so that's an extremely basic and rudimentary breakdown of some of the different styles that you'll see in each country but there's one big big difference between all of the houses in both countries and it's this let's face it it's time to face up to some home truths compared to America Britain is microscopic the United States is absolutely massive and needs to be stopped and the same is true of each country's average house size right so in the United States houses just tend to be way more spacious and what we're not just talking about millionaire houses here we're talking about your average house so the average size of an American single-family home is approximately 1,600 square feet in the UK we're looking at an average of about 900 square feet so why the difference well one reason is population density in Britain would just we're all a bit packed together actually that partially accounts for why everything is smaller in Britain not everything not the cops but in America there's just so much land and relative to that land so few people don't you know make them as large as you want and they do they huge but also a large majority of American houses are relatively new meaning that they were able to benefit from you know building methods and materials that other countries like Britain were not and the post-war expansion of American highways meant that this was enhanced even more those materials could be moved around the country more easily and of course this assured in a more grand housing development now all sighs aside try saying that after ten tepid tequilas things become subtly different once you're inside the houses of either country is gadgets the right word I don't know I'll have to fire my graphics team either way we're essentially talking about accessories the things you have in your house that make that house work even when you're doing the house work so for example air flow right America's bigger on its overhead fans and air conditioning units we don't we don't usually use those I mean we'd like to punish ourselves especially in the summer but we can crack a window open and it doesn't get oppressively hot always and so we've mostly been fine with this situation it does mean that insects get in so daddy longlegs will get in the house and mosquitoes but it's a small price to pay for not having air conditioning actually quite like air conditioning now I've lived in the u.s. speaking of insects you also don't see in Britain those insect screens that you put in the windows hence why they're getting in in America they're virtually in every house but then again you know in Britain we don't have black widows or brown recluses all the types of mosquitoes that make your face go like this so I can see why it's justified I mean you still get ants or is that just me not sure how they get in maybe cracks in the wall or maybe through the plug sockets the plug sockets of course aren't different in both countries - in Britain you have the three-pronged outlets and in America you sometimes have three but occasionally - and this smaller in America than they are in Britain that's one of the few things about which you can say that separate taps of course for hot and cold water Americans combine them all into one where's the logic in that I'm joking and while we're on the subject of sinks and most British sinks don't have that sort of food waste disposal thing that you press the button and it does the noise amazing that was one of the best things I discovered after me I didn't discover it somebody else came up with the idea and I just used it but it's amazing it's just so pleasing to know that all of that gunk gets broken down and just don't put your hamster in there that's I've learned that lesson from someone else I didn't do it just read about it on reddit letterboxes firstly Americans don't call them letter boxes but mail boxes and typically don't have them on the door but outside in the garden yard the garden slash yard is different often smaller in Britain but very well kept up depending on the family and just massive yards here with you know mesh fences and things like that or picket fences back inside a lot of properties in the United States will have walk-in closets that are built into the actual walls of the house whereas in Britain you bring your own closet / wardrobe to put your clothes in and that that takes up more space I've just realized so we're shooting ourselves in the foot every step of the way except when it comes to washing machines and dryers how cool is this we combine them both into one giant cube whereas America has two separate cubes and tea drinkers that we are we love our kettles don't we but they're not just any kettles these are ones you plug in and then hit the switch to turn on the plug because I forgot to mention that our plug sockets also how switches and then you know you turn it on don't need a stovetop and it heats up just like that you've got your water Bob's your uncle pour into a mug there's your cup of tea in America you do have the stovetop kettles and parmie likes that because it it does it's really pleasing whistling sound at the end now if you're paying attention during that list you may have noticed that I touched on some of the terminological differences when it comes to housing in either country and that brings us on to our final entry it wouldn't be Britain in America if they weren't two countries separated by a common language and the same is true of the housing world so let's finish with a rapid-fire round looking at those very words so here in Chicago I live in a flat except in America they don't call it flat it's called an apartment something else you'll find in America though are these condominiums or condos if you don't fancy saying a word that has condom in it and we do have those in Britain they're just they're usually called common hold properties and I suppose most British people wouldn't go around using that term whereas you actually hear the term condo quite a lot it's been suggested to me that I move into a condo and it sounds good I mean when I first heard the term I thought I sounded like I might be moving on to a lakeside boat or some like that it is like an apartment but it's one you would buy it's real estate now as a child and young adult I grew up in a house that was known as a semi-detached house that's when you have the house had joined to one other house on one side but not on the other side in the United States this is known quite simply as a duplex which is not a wrestling move if it is a joined on both sides with another house then you are part of a line of houses that are known as terraced houses in Britain in America they're known as row houses because they're all in a row presumably then there's council housing in Britain versus the projects in the United States and that's just another way of saying public housing to control the electricity flow in Britain you have the mains power in America you have the grid power and why he's sick and tired of the place that you're living in and you just want to relocate somewhere else in America you would just simply move in Britain you'd move house and on that note I'm gonna move out to my outro transition because this is the end of the video let me know in the comments below if you're watching this from your house right now or just if you're not leave a comment either way and don't forget to hit the subscribe button so that my videos don't get lost in the pond a big reminder by the way if you want to keep up with me on a day-to-day basis and just see some of the stupid trivia that I come out with follow me on Twitter and lost in the pond us you won't regret it entirely this video just like all of my videos was made possible by my patrons at patreon comm slash lost in the pond if you would like to help this channel grow by broadening its research its lighting equipment all of its technology and everything then go to patreon.com/scishow and the pond it takes five minutes to sign up and to support the costs of running this channel until next time I'm gonna go and get the kettle on and listen out for that whistle bye thank you for watching this episode of lost in the pond don't forget to hit my stupid little face to subscribe and please share this video with the world hit me up on Twitter Instagram and Facebook and if you would like to support this channel please do so at patreon.com slash lost in the pond

Channel: Lost in the Pond

Views: 938,924

Keywords: Finding America, Laurence Brown, Houses, Homes, Britain, America, differences

Id: Myx-jrf9K_E

Length: 12min 57sec (777 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 26 2020