Today, I washed my hands at the kitchen sink while making lunch, and was unexpectedly chastised by my partner because she had just started the dishwasher. Apparently, she has recently come across something that has convinced her that running the hot water in your sink means the water that enters your dishwasher will be hotter (checks out), and thus the dishes will be cleaner. I tried searching startpage to see if this is real, but I couldn’t make it through even one llm-slop-ticle about it before my eyes rolled back into my head, so here I am asking y’all: chat, is this real? Doesn’t my dishwasher have a heating element? Is there any meaningful difference between heating the water with a hot water heater vs a dishwasher, other than I can’t use my sink while the dishwasher is filling and I have to pour a bunch of cool water down the drain?

  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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    5 days ago

    The US uses many smaller circuits. I have two appliance circuits, a lighting circuit, a dedicated refrigerator circuit, and a 240V range circuit. Five separate electrical circuits, just for my kitchen.

    Rebuilding after WWII, the UK standard was to run a single ring circuit for each floor of the home. They ran as few household circuits as possible, because they needed the copper.

    If you look at the amperage/wattage ratings of UK circuits, they are considerably higher than other 220v/240v countries, because their circuits are intended to be shared among many more devices.

    You know how they warn you not to plug in too many devices into a single circuit? The UK electrical system took the exact opposite approach, because they needed to. This is why they have a fancy plug that nobody else in the world uses: it is an essential safety component that serves the same purpose that the household circuit breaker performs for the rest of the world.