To be fair much much easier when you have actual roads and not what America has which is basically just a motorway they put next to residential shit lol. Like why do I have to cross 4-5 lanes to get to the chick fil A hahhahaha na stroads are fucking depressing man.
British plugs are the safest in the world. There's videos describing all the different safety measures and other things. With the taps, the cold is connected to the filtered drinking water while the hot tap USED to be connected to a water tank in the loft, not suitable for drinking, so they had to be separated. Modern houses don't have this issue and usually don't have the two taps.
I think this was a result of the second world war. So many houses got destroyed and it was a quick way of getting things up and running again. Most homeowners have now got the single tap unit.
@@gh8447 Listeria, was an issue, as was water-pressure. Using gravity to power cold water was better than mains pressure, but the loft cold water tanks were not sealed so listeria was an issue if the cold water became stagnant..
My first time on a train last year going to a wedding. I live in a small village in Scotland with a train station and the trains are usually few people on them. I don't drive either. I'm also 52 years old lol.
YES! Thank you. I find it so annoying when Americans (in particular) constantly refer to London as if it is the whole of the UK when there are so many different places here and so many different cultures.
@@CamcorderSteve I am talking symbolically I didn’t realise this concept was too complex for you. I’ll try and reduce future replies to your level of understanding
Precisely. It is strange other places allow their authorities to herd them to a specific place to cross. In the UK older folk are considered adults and thus capable of judging when it is safe for them to cross. Personal responsibility and all that.
Yeah, we had everyone from Tufty to Batman, to Doctor Who to Darth Vader teaching us how to cross the road over the years. When Batman tells you what to do when you're five or six, you pay attention.
@@Sdt526 To the tune of 'King of the Road'. It was the Green Cross Code Man when I was little though, as portrayed by Darth Vader himself, David Prowse.
The reason the tube trains are that size is because it's the oldest subway system in the world & most of it was dug with picks & shovels. obviously the trains have to fit through the tunnels. The newer parts are bigger because they used tunnel boring machines (TBMs) to make those.
Not quite. The key thing that determined the diameter of the tunnel was firstly economics, and then the maximum diameter of the tunneling shield that was used to protect workers from tunnel collapse during excavation. These shields were advanced as digging progressed by screw jacks and their maximum diameter was determined by the need to advance the shield to keep up with the workers, yet minimize the weight of the shield so it could be moved quickly enough.
@@brianparker663 Err.. no, the Met wasn't originally built to Brunel's 7ft gauge, it was constructed using the "cut & cover" method and a wider gauge would have significantly increased the cost of building it. It would also have made it much harder to construct locomotives small enough to fit through the tunnels. However it was, of course, steam-hauled. At least one of the original locomotives still exists and was used on the 150th anniversary of the opening of the line.
We do tip in this country, but it’s reward based. In restaurants the polite minimum is supposed to be 10%, but it’s based on your experience, ie the better the service the more your tip will represent that. Groups of 10 or above it goes straight on the bill, but again additional tips are an option. It’s also optional to tip in pubs and coffee shops, but if you feel you’ve had great service you are perfectly welcome to. Waiting staff aren’t paid a lot, so why wouldn’t you want to reward them for good service, but also I feel perfectly happy not tipping for poor service
Waiting staff are paid the minimum wage (at least) of £11.44 per hour if you are 21yo and over. UK waiting staff are tipped as well, probably about 10-15% average but this is really only in restaurants. Would hardly ever leave a tip anywhere else (that I can think of right now)!
In the UK, sink faucets are called taps. If you have separate taps for hot and cold there should be a plug for the hand basin so you can add different amounts of hot of cold water to adjust it to the temperature for washing your hands. Good tip for travel buy a universal basin plug and carry it with you in case the plug is missing :) In the UK a faucet or tap with both hot and cold water coming out of one spout is called a .... mixer tap :) hope that helps, Good Luck
Spot on, the problem with a lot of Americans is they don’t try to understand how things work they just assume because it’s not like the states it must be wrong. Plus American laws are written with the most stupid person in mind, whereas ours are sensible common sense.
As somebody who lives in London the vast majority of foreign accents in London are not those of tourists. They are mostly the accents of its residents, it really is a very multicultural city.
1:49 "Seattle is pretty multi-cultural as well" But London is the capital city, with literally 2000 years of history, and 30m foreign visitors per year...no comparison really...
TUBE - It’s always pretty amazing to me, with all the thousands of years of habitation in London built on top of each other, not to mention the Thames and oodles of underground waterways that the tube could be built at all. The tube is so fantastic and yes it’s not perfect but it’s SO CONVENIENT. When you’ve got an old city like London whose streets were designed for at the most a horse and cart and definitely not millions of cars it’s the most efficient way to travel around London. Some people dislike the way most people are silent on the tube but after the hustle and bustle of above ground I find it oddly refreshing and relaxing.
I'm in the cardiac ward at a UK hospital. I was brought here by ambulance 5 days ago. In 4 days from now, I will have a procedure - a replacement pacemaker. Soon after, I will be discharged from hospital. I will not have to pay a single penny for any of this. I'm told that is not the case in the US.
@@beverly.alford Thanks. I didn't say it was free - I said it wasn't costing me anything. I retired last year after working and paying taxes for 51 years years and rarely needing any medical treatment as I've had good health. But the facilities are there for when we need them.
Something about your name gives me a sneaking suspicion that you know about such things, I can't quite put my finger on what makes me think this..... 😁
If you look at the tap on the right-hand side, you will see a metal stud to the left of it. That has a hole through it, which should have a chain attached to it that, on the end, there would have been a plug that would have allowed the hot and cold water to be mixed in the basin. The chains have been broken so often by careless users that it becomes an additional expense that the custodian no longer wishes to meet. Hence, there is no plug, so there is no ability to control the water temperature.
@@grahamplatt6237 tbh, most public spaces have the plugs removed to stop potential vandalism. it's why they generally have the uncovered plughole too. harder to block those with loo roll.
I just cup my hands and put small amount of cold and rest hot then put it over my face (assuming your washing face) don’t understand why it’s so difficult.
Traditionally needed two taps as the hot water likely came from a tank that was on the roof heated by the sun and it was non drinkable, the cold tap was drinkable.
Being born in the 50s, we had only one tap. Cold water. Eventually, someone invented an electric boiler that was mounted on the wall over the sink, pipe was over the sink near the cold tap. Eventually, central heating was invented and hot water was then fed to all sinks also, bathroom & kitchen. Only fairly recently did someone invent a tap that hot and cold could be fed into, and mixed with a single handle. Peter Liverpool UK
Jaywalking laws in America were actually pushed for by the car companies. When cars were new, people would often get hit by them, and they would sue the car manufacturers. So, no, Jaywalking rules weren't brought in to make you safe - they were brought in so the car manufacturers didn't have to face payout liability.
We have two taps because our cold water comes direct from the supply system and can be drunk straight from the tap - so you don't want to contaminate it with water from a hot water tank - don't forget most of our houses are over 50 - 100 years old and so often our house has been plumbed like that for years. Some newer houses have mixer taps if their hot water is not supplied by a hot water tank like the older houses are.
@@mojojojo11811 I have an older system in my house ,which was built in 1860. There was no water plumbed in then ,it would be drawn from a communal well and heated in pans on an open fire. Once the water system was taken into houses ,different methods of heating were installed .One ,called a Hot Water Geyser, was a water tank fixed near a bath or kitchen sink ,heated by a gas flame which could be turned on when wanted . I have cold water tanks in my loft and in a room below is a large insulated water tank which can be powered by electricity ,but as I have gas central heating my hot water is done in the same way that my radiators are .Pipes from the tank run under the floorboards to the bath ,shower and basins where the hot water is required.
I don't have two taps. I have mixer taps just like everyone else I know. My house is was built in 1929. It has been updated. I know some people have them, but I don't know why you would choose to have them. I brush my teeth and wash my hands in the sink after using the loo. I don't want to clean the sink EVERY time I want to wash my face lol.
Also, when the cold comes from the mains and the hot from a tank, if you had a mixer tap the cold will “overpower” the hot because it’s under greater pressure. I appreciate that in some homes the hot and cold both come from tanks so it isn’t an issue.
the older houses had a seperate hot water system - it was fed the water from a header tank in the attic and the water was heated by a boiler behind the fire, or other types of boilers - the header tank provided the presure for this system and was also open to the air and was not considered safe for drinking, as the cold mains water was treated and purified to make it safe for drinking it was against the law to connect the two systems together. this only changed with the introduction of boilers that were directly fed of the mains water - so it was safe to mix hot with the cold water without the fear of contaminating the clean mains water.
I used to live in London, and grew up in Northern England. Foreigners have a hard time realising London is not England, England is not London. Imagine a foreigner visiting New York city, and expecting it to be like a small town in Idaho. Yeah. Big, important cities have their own vibe.
I also hate the way Americans use Brits and English interchangeably. Annoying that they don't understand that there are 3 other countries within the UK as well and saying "the British accent" just doesn't mean anything?!?
@@Memme14 UK also has this, it just depends how old the plumbing is, many building still have the old fashioned plumbing so separate taps are still easy to find.
@@Memme14 yeah, maybe, I thought it was more of a joke about the water being unpleasant, because it's also not true that Americans don't drink tap water, they wouldn't have bothered to chlorinate it otherwise.
In U.K. there is a much higher in minimum wage and it is now illegal for companies to hold on to any part of tips and use them to contribute towards that minimum wage - all has to go to the workers no matter what.
Exactly! We didn't have the luxury of planning it in advance. It just sort of happened with one line and then another. It's a wondrous thing....if a little claustrophobic and dirty.
Most UK cold taps are water from the water supply company, hot water is stored in a tank. UK tap water is 100% drinking water across all of the UK. That is why USA people drink more bottled water. UK folks mostly drink tap water unless they are travelling and want a supply with them for the journey.
tap water is gross lol next time you make a cup of tea.. boil bottled mineral water in the kettle instead of tap water and see how much more flavour and fresh tea or coffee tastes
@@pitchdark2024 if you’re making tea with hard water the tea is horrible and filtered water will fix this. Coffee is ok with straight tap water but is stronger flavour than tea. Again filtered tap water is also an improvement on straight hard water.
@@pitchdark2024 when i was a kid water was not as bad and bottled water was not an option, it wasn't heard of , I've not drank tap water for at least 30 years , wouldn't have anything other than bottled water
When I was young we had adverts on TV teaching us the Green Cross Code, ie how to cross a road safely. The Green Cross Code Man was the same guy that played Darth Vader, but he didn't do the voice
A lot of the reasons for these issues are historical. The tube is so cramped, narrow and low ceilinged because it was designed 150 years ago, and while some of the technical specs were altered over the years, the cost of reboring all those tunnels, acquiring new rolling stock and changing the whole system is just prohibitive, especially when it works and nobody really has a problem with it. As for the hot/cold tap business, originally the system was that water used for heating was not potable, would be stored in tanks in the loft space and then brought down to the heating system. I believe that most hot water systems also fed into the household heating, hence not being necessary to be drinkable. This made the need for separate faucets so that what came out of the cold tap could be drunk directly without harm, without mingling with undrinkable water from the heating system. This has changed over the last few decades, but once the system had been established, it was continued of having separate taps for each.
German here. I've been living overseas for a couple of years. I know from previous experience that if there's no tip on the bill, I usually leave about 10% of the bill as a tip, and I'll let them the waiter/waitress know when I pay with a card, to add that amount, or if I pay with cash I'll leave that amount. Having said that, people here in Germany actually get paid a living wage, and the tipping is more a thank you for a good job.
Check out Tom Scott's video about the safety features of British plugs and sockets. Two taps. A partial explanation is that domestically the tradition was to put the plug in the sink, turn the taps on, mix the water in the sink and wash with the water in the sink. This practice seems to have faded but the two taps system hasn't. However, there are some mixer taps in the UK.
hi guys .old school sinks had two taps ,you used a plug to mix the hot & cold together in the sink itself . modern places nowadays you tend to get mixer taps . hope that helps.
I agree that there are some foreigners who have decided to make London their home, but what people also forget , is that London is a" huge " tourist trap, so many of the foreign languages being heard are tourists,and alot of the Brits would be at work . As for why there are 2 taps, this is because many older houses used to have a water tank in the attic , this was used for hot water as it was deemed unfit to drink because as you can imagine being in the attic there was all sorts that could contaminate the water, like rats,bats etc, whereas the water from the cold tap came from the mains and was drinkable. And if you wanted to wash your hands etc you would just put the plug in and fill the sink with the desired temperature. There are some new builds (houses) that would probably have a mixer tap (one tap) but mainly just in the kitchen.
The first point is hilarious: American tourists amazed to find other tourists in popular tourist place. But also: You've NEVER been on a train? And Mike said he's never even SEEN one? 😱💀 Guys that is enough reason to get that European vacation booked NOW lol!
Many of the people speaking other than English in London are not Tourists, they are locals/workers, it all depends on the area. Most will be able to speak English.
@@ThornyLittleFlower Quite wrong ,I live in a Market Town in Suffolk UK and there are other languages spoken here ,particularly (I think) Turkish but very much in the minority . I classed myself very lucky a while ago, visiting a nearby town to hear the ORIGINAL Suffolk accent ,from a couple of youngish women .This was something I heard quite often 60 years ago.
The reason there are 2 taps (faucets) is back in the 60's and 70's water was heated in an immersion heater. Basicaly a giant kettle which would feed the hot tap. as there was no way into the boiler it was a breeding ground for bacteria so they had a seperate cold tap fed direct from the mains which was drinkable hence the 2 taps.. one for drinking one for filling baths and showers. Not sure why we still use them instead of mixer taps but most UK sinks / baths have 2 taps and kitchen sinks seem to have mixers lol. We dont make it easy on ourselves 😛😛
As a child I was always told to run the bath water hot and then add cold to bring it to the right temperature. Saves energy and hot water from the boiler
And also the cold being mains pressure would cause an imbalance of pressures which meant that if mixer taps and were installed one stream of water could force its way across to the other
Not so much the immersion heater, you could just turn that off. When we had coal fires, they had back boilers. You can't turn off a coal fire to stop the water boiling and, without a header tank, you'd have to rely on the water supply to replace the boiled off water with cold.
Fun Fact when it comes to crossing the road. The man who tought my generation was called the Green Cross Code man, and he was a massive fella called David Prowse. He was also the man who was in the Darth Vader suit in all the original star wars films. Clips of him are on youtube in his green corss code outfit.
He came to my primary school in his green cross code uniform to give us all a lecture on road safety, but I swear we'd have listened more carefully if he'd been done up as Darthy V
The reason that we have separate hot and cold taps in the UK in a lot of places (some more modern homes have mixer taps) is that the cold tap is straight from the mains, and is therefore safe drinking water, whereas the hot water would be heated generally by the gas-based central heating (and by "gas-based", we're talking natural gas, not "gasoline"), and as such, would sit in a tank while heating, and remain there until needed. These tanks would often be in the attic, which meant that while the hot water would still be generally clean, it would not necessarily be quite as "clean" as drinking water, so having the separate taps ensured you would not accidentally drink from the hot water tank.
Yes, the hot & cold water pipe systems evolved BEFORE the mixer tap. All of the sinks & baths were ceramic, & built for 2 taps [faucets]. We're getting there, but it takes time.
Brits don't like compulsory tipping. We tip as we leave according to how good the service was. If the server was grumpy they won't get tipped, if they were really good they get more . and tipping only happens at pubs and fancy restaurants
That could be because the UK has a Minimal Wage structure dictated by your Age, unlike the USA were it tends to be more of ONE FIXED RATE regardless of your Age. The First time I visited an internet friend in the USA, her daughters asked if I was rich because I could afford to fly to another Country for 1 Month Holiday/Vacation
My tip is always the same: Unionise and get better working conditions. Or, if that's not possible, get a better paid job that doesn't mean that customers are being forced to subsidise the wages of poorly paid employees.
Correct, in fact us that don't live in London say that it's not part of England, well not anymore anyway. Obviously it's our capital so it is ,but to non londeners it just doesn't feel like it anymore.. I haven't been there in over 20 years so I wouldn't even reconisise it anymore..!!!
@@ianrose56 100% agree , London isn't England anymore. Its expensive, overcrowded and an embarrassment to everybody north of the border . Not been myself for 30 years , would never go again .
The plug socket thing is awesome. It's insane that more countries don't use it. The plug has a fuse built-in to prevent surge fires, the top prong is the only one that gets made live when plugged in, the bottom two holes don't open until the top (longest) prong is partially in, and our plug leads exit the plug at the base, reducing trip hazards. Tipping is only done if at a high-end place, you are in a group of 6 or more (and thus have 1 person waiting 6), or the service was exceptional. That said, you can tip if you want at most places, you'll just be considered a bit odd. You look both ways when crossing the road... Basic road safety drilled into all UK kids. You have to look both ways anyways since traffic flows both ways. Odd that this is an issue. I think the hot and cold thing is a layover from old plumbing conventions. Jay walking? Crossing the road?! Er... Essentially you are taking your life in your own hands (but not really), as there is no legal protection for pedestrians crossing randomly. Crossing at a designated crossing is legally protected (as in, there's are road laws for yielding to pedestrians at that crossing). That said, it's not against the law and it's weird that it would be. Most drivers slow down slightly when someone crossing randomly, but, we have laws against drivers using their phone or anything else that removes the drivers hands form the wheel (and thus more attention is on the road).
Have you seen the 'British plugs and outlets are on another level' video? You'd be amazed at how many safety features there are, very clever and well thought out, it's practically impossible to electrocute yourself. (Well, unless you were very determined!) I see what you are saying about tipping, but from the point of view of a Brit, we would think that it is the employer's responsibility to pay their employees wages, not the customers'. We would prefer the employer to raise the prices of the food/drinks if they want to make more profit, and take responsibility of their employees wages themselves. That would seem more of an honest way to do things. We don't mind paying more for the food, but we resent having to pay the employees wages. It makes us feel like we are being conned. But it is just a different way of thinking. It's similar to how, in the US, often we were given a price for something, and assumed it was the final price, but there were hidden fees that were not revealed to us until it was too late, and we had to pay. This caught us out because it would be illegal in the UK. All fees and charges must be provided from the beginning. But I guess, it comes down to what you are used to. You probably think our system is strange. By the way, PLEASEEEEEE the first time you get fish and chips, get them from a chippy(fish and chip shop), not the pub. From the pub, it is NOT the same. For a start, there is NOTHING like the chips you get from the chippy. No other place can make them the same. And in the chippy, you get all the extras too, which you won't get in the pub. Back me up here Brits. Am I right, or am I right?
Aye, they should definitely check that. 1 thing he doesn't mention is we can push our furniture right to the wall. You cant do that with American plugs ❤ from Northeast England ❤️
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud Yes, very handy, and our plugs also makes it near on impossible to pull the plug out by the cord, which can loosen the wires inside. I have been guilty of doing that when in the US. Did it without thinking.
I do agree about getting fish and chips from a chippy (with plenty of salt and vinegar), it will not be the same from a pub. Does depend on the chippy though. I live in East Yorkshire and most chip shops here are really good - you can’t get better, the fish gets landed not far away at all, but when I lived down south (Kent) the chip shops were shite.
Steam trains only ran on the 'cut and cover lines (District, Metropolitan, and Circle) built to standard gauge. The deep level lines (built to a smaller gauge) were electric from the start (with the exception of the Waterloo and City which I think started out as cable-hauled).
The reason for the 2 taps is that our hot water in most houses used to be fed into a storage tank in the loft, the water would sit there and become "contaminated" as it was effectivly open to the elements, so was not safe to drink, however the cold water is a direct feed from the water companies is was safe. A lot of houses nowdays have changed their heaters/ boilers etc so that the mains water can be heated directly and have therefore have been able to changed to the single faucet system. However some have just left it as dual faucet for the aesthetics so as to be more in keeping with their houses.
To all Americans, and others who drive on the wrong side of the road 😉, as small children we were taught " Look right, look left, look right again. If it's all clear, quick march" (as in look in the direction of the tradfic closest to you twice, then don't run, or you might fall. This rhyme is handy, as I always reverse the right and left in my head when I go to other countries.
No we don't Jay walk because there is no jay walking laws as our government deem us as intelligent enough to know when it's safe to cross the road, people DO NOT walk out on incoming traffic, they wait until there's a big enough gap that they can get across and then do so. The fact that you can own guns but cannot be allowed to cross the road is absolute stupidity to me, crazy!!! Also our plumbing systems and houses some of which are probably older than America was originally plumbed that way, the cold comes from a mains supply which is why you can drink our tap water compared to the US and the hot water comes for a boiler which has contaminates from the boiler system and although it is perfectly safe to bathe in it's not safe to drink.
Yeah, that was a surprise to me that it in a culture shock. Here is South Africa there are on/off switches on all power outlets. I just assumed that it is like that around the world.
@@GrumpyOldGit-zk1kwyes its dammed dangerous just having open holes. I wonder how many children in the US get electrocuted each year by stuffing things into electrical switch holes??
The 2 separate taps (faucets) are a relic from times gone by, you often find them in older properties public or private and the primary reason was that the cold water connected directly to the outside mains and was safe to drink whereas the hot water could have been sitting in a tank in the attic for several days! (interesting fact in old days there used to be a lever you could pull in many fireplaces that allowed the water to be heat straight from the fireplace saving on electricity! HOWEVER that said Modern Properties do have a mixing tap I have a mixing tap in BOTH Kitchen and Bathroom!
There is an excellent youtube video on the uk electrical system and explains the brilliant electrical plugs and sockets as for the hot and cold water taps the sinks will have a plug in the drain of the sink you put in Tipping is rare I don't do it as they are paid minimum wage which same all over the uk
America. Where crossing the road is a crime. Land of the free lol. America is built for the car. Everywhere else the world is built for people. I didn't even know what "jaywalking" was until youtube. American exceptionality isn't always to the benefit of good folks like yourself. In the UK your driving test pushes into you that "pedestrians have right of way". Re: fish and chips. Battered haddock (not cod), chips (steak fries), mushy peas (processed peas purée), tartare sauce, slice of lemon. A pint of Thatchers 'Old Katy' cider (hard cider) with a little ice and you're set. If you ever get to Chester in the UK I'll take you for some local Salmon from the River Dee (my treat). The first song ever written in English was about the jolly Miller whose home was 3km from my house. Keep making these videos, guys. We love you and your laughing drags me out of hard times on occasion x
@StephMcAlea The first song written in England was written in the 13th century and it was called "summer is icumen in" which translates to the summer is here. I've never heard of the miller you're talking about, and I'm actually from a village about 6 miles from Chester so know the history retty well. I'm surprised you didnt mentioned the roman walls or ruins. You can fish for brown trout but you need a license. I love the name of the restaurant that sells them. Because you can't catch them and sell the commercially for consumption.
Taps: Before plumbed water was available, hot water was heated by the fire in the house be it a cooking stove or open fire, typically wood fired, and then poured scalding hot into a basin or tub bath, then cold water was added to the get to right temperture, this is why you put hot water into the basin then add cold water to regulate the temperature, remenber water mostly came from a well, but now we have mixer taps, not faucets 😁😁
For years cold water was stored in a tank separate from the hot. But now our cold water is all from the mains. And tap water in England is safe to drink from the tap. So no need for bottled water.
At school in the UK we’re always taught ‘look right, look left, look right again’, before crossing the road. Obviously those in the US should do the opposite.
But even so, looking everywhere as a precaution is better than saying " I don`t know where to look?" and just dashing out . If you look and it`s clear then it`s safe to cross; if you see traffic coming your way ,then wait .
In Tourist areas the direction to look is printed in bold white text on the road. Also, driving on the left means being seated on the right of a car, right handed persons are in the majority thus one's right hand can always be on the wheel, and the left is used to shift gears and adjust the climate control.
It completely depends on the area of London, which, I'm sure you know, is spectacularly big. In the West End, yes all tourists. Everywhere else, not so much.
Most modern British bathrooms have a single mixer tap (faucet) these days. The ones with 2 separate taps for hot and cold are usually older properties. This was often because hot water systems were added in later (remember these properties may be older than your country) Also, the cold tap was often served from the mains supply, whilst the hot water was heated and stored in a tank. Keeping them separate means that the hot water which may contain contaminants would not affect the cold water which you can drink directly from the tap.
The two taps is historical. If you have a tank of standing water, even today it technically represents an increase in likelihood of an issue getting in and should really be used with two taps (it's a lot less likely, but still possible). And in the past this issue was more likely. You still see two taps today as either the house is old and has a tank, the house is old and now has a combi boiler etc but still has the original taps, or just because some people like the look of separate taps as an aesthetic choice (either keeping them after getting a new boiler, or adding them into a new house). But both modern boilers, and old boilers that heat up a tank, can be set to a temperature. Anyone burning their hands on the hot water tap if they have them separate, is just someone who doesn't know how to use their boiler.
In America, your sinks are mini showers. In Britain, our sinks are mini baths. You put the plug in the plughole and fill it to the required temperature from both taps/faucets.
I'm always very surprised at Anericans not knowing how to or being allowed to cross the road. I visit a place where the reservoir has a road in-between and have seen a line of ducks crossing it many times with drivers waiting patiently for them.
Most buildings have a water storage tank in the roof. This is used for hot water and is not for drinking. The cold water supply is direct so they have separate taps.
Older buildings have separate taps because of the plumbing so they’d have noticed that in places like old London pubs. I have the same as what you described in my kitchen . I also visit ALOT of houses as part of my job I’m a nurse I work with babies and have to wash my hands and honestly , separate taps are rare now
I have an award-winning flat which due to its architecture - only built in 2951 - (and the entire estate) is 'Grade II Listed', and its "bathroom" - as the whole flat was renovated before I moved in and so made into a wet-room with rails and a fold-down arm-chair for my disabilities, (but no bath), just the walk-in shower, a loo and washbasin, _with two taps_ ... The kitchen has a mixer tap in the sink though.
They found 1of 2 options on the light switch. 1. They found a light switch fitted upside down. 2. There are multiple light switches on the same lighting circuit (one either side of the room for example) and that switch is just that way as the other switch was last used to turn on/off. The mains water is drinkable straight from the tap. The hot water used to (still might in some) come from a storage tank in the loft which fed the boiler. This water was not safe to drink so came in a separate line/pipework in the video under the right hand tap/spigot you can see the mounting point for the plug chain where the plug for the sink was connected via a small chain. This plug when present is put in the drain hole so you can block the sink so hot and cold water could mix in the sink when full you turn the taps off , when you finish you pull the plug up to empty the water.
The tap/spigot/faucet thing comes about in the UK for historical reasons. Until the early 20th century the majority of houses had no plumbing. If you had water in the kitchen it would be by operating a hand pump connected to a well. The first public water supply that was rolled out nationally was with the intention of providing a source of safe-to-drink and cook with water to each house. It arrived in the form of a single tap to each house, usually in the kitchen. Later people installed a hot tap in the kitchen which took water from a boiler and delivered it separately to the sink because it was illegal to mix it directly with the government supplied clean water. As the water from the utility companies came to be used for all internal water the cost of ripping out all the plumbing and installing faucets was too much for most people. I live in a house that was completed in 1818. It now has two bathrooms and a toilet plus a sink in the utility room, one in the laundry room and a double one in the kitchen. All of them have faucets other than the one in the laundry room which we have left as the sink is from about 1860 and the taps are beautifully engineered. Technically a valve that delivers a single stream of water, whatever its temperature, is a tap and one that combines two or more streams of water is a faucet.
You guys are the only reactors i've seen actually explain the whole service industries and tipping thing fully, i finally understand better now thank you
It's easy to understand why there's sometimes two taps (faucets) in Britain. British homes get hot tap water and are heated by a boiler that burns natural gas to heat water. This hot water is then either supplied to the taps for washing pots/hands or radiators to heat the house. Today, we have combi boilers that instantly heat cold water from the mains supply into hot water, but the trouble comes with the old back boiler system that was originally installed in our older houses and other buildings. (Don't forget our houses are on average much older than houses in the US). The back boiler system, which was the old way of heating water for either bathing/washing purposes or for supplying hot water to radiators to heat the house, had a fatal flaw. This fatal flaw with the back boiler system was that water is/was heated and stored in a copper water tank. When you use some hot water, that copper tank is, in turn, refilled by cold water from a header tank. These header tanks are/were located in the attics of homes. They didn't have lids to them, so things could get into the stored water. Water could also sit in a header tank for long periods if people were not using hot water regularly. This all means that the water in the header tank could become stagnant and/or contaminated and, in some cases, if drank, could give a human a water born disease such as cholera. So the government back in the day made it law that the two taps had to be separate. One tap supplying cold water straight from the water mains that is deemed fit for drinking. The other tap supplying hot water from the back boiler system, which was fit for bathing/washing in but not for drinking. Having seperate hot water and cold water taps in the past with the old back boiler system was just the easiest way to prevent humans accidentally drinking potentially dangerous water from the hot water system. If you find yourself as an American visiting the UK and are confronted by two taps there's no need to freeze or scold yourself. There is a sink plug which you put in the bottom of the sink. You can then mix water from the two taps together in the sink to get the temperature of water you want.
@@Howling-Mad-Murdock And yet it doesn't explain the installation of separate hot and cold taps in modern buildings! I used to work in a big office block built in the 1980s where the loos had separate hot and cold taps - and no plugs. The hot water was way too hot to keep your hand under.
Missing from this explanation - My house is modern & doesn't have a combi boiler. House is too big for a combi. Dual taps with plugs for sinks solves the problem
On the subject of taps, the hot water should always be on the left, this is a building regulation, it's so blind/partially sighted people don't accidentally burn themselves.
The American version of "switches on power outlets" are Surge Protecters; most of which are corded with 3-6 outlets and an on/off switch for all the outlets.
It is not a crime to cross the road in the UK. I went to Sweden and crossed the road, what Americans call jaywalking, and was arrested immediately. I was put in the back of a Police van. They asked why I did it. I asked, in an English accent, why I did what? I wasn’t aware I had done anything. They asked if jaywalking was not a crime where I come from. I said I didn’t know what jaywalking was. They asked to see my passport, then saw I was British, then let me out of the Police van, and told me to wait for traffic lights to turn green before I could walk across the road. Weird!?
a bit like that here in Germany, I've seen Germans wait for the green man to flash to cross a deserted road in the pouring rain when absolutely nobody was about.
@@pashvonderc381 The first time I went to Germany, I asked about that. The person said that it's fine to cross on red unless there are any children watching.
In Hong Kong, jaywalking is an offense as the foot and road traffic levels are so high, it's dangerous to jaywalk at crossings so the police enforce waiting for the pedestrian lights to turn green.
I lived in Germany for a while, where there are spot fines for jay-walking, but also social pressure: people would go "tut tut tut" if you crossed the road when there was no green light. There was propaganda that said "children need a role model", and I just thought to myself, that is not a good role model: they are being taught to follow instructions from authority (a light!) blindly and trustingly instead of learning to look for traffic themselves (for example there could be a car out of control on the road). I made a joke that I crossed the road once and a policeman fined me 10 Deutschmarks, and I replied "I only have a 20, so let me cross the road again and you can have that".
On British sockets there are little shutters that close of the live holes when the plug is withdrawn. Another safety measure for curious toddlers (rugrats)
The taps are because you are supposed to fill the sink with a mixture. Also helps keep down water usage so it's not just running all the time. Also if you are using soap you actually do not need the hot water [maybe in winter you do]. I lived in Vietnam for 17 years, my kitchen and bathroom just have the one tap [cold] hot water is only in the shower...
The tap (faucet) issue traditionally was that you were not allowed to connect hot and cold water supplies together to avoid contamination of the cold water (drinking water) supply. However since storage of hot water is a thing of the past, and water is heated as and when required via a gas (lpg) boiler there is no standing tank with water to contaminate the cold water supply, so now mixer taps are more common, but those places that have not fitted a mixer or the basin/sink is not designed for a mixer tap (faucet) they retain the tradition separate taps. Water from UK taps is safe and pleasant to drink so that is why they were kept separate preventing ingestion of heavy metals (lead Pb as an example) or other contaminants.
Yeah Britain is very cosmopolitan but outside major cities, especially tourist centers, the vast majority speak English, although some of the dialects sometimes make it hardly recognizable as such to a none native speaker.
Even in the same county. My dad came from the South of Staffordshire and a relative of my wife came from the North of Staffordshire and a could barely understand my wife's relative, a matter of probably forty miles which I believe is a miniscule distance to most Americans.
I'm English and don't really tip unless the waiter/waitress is young and done a good job. I will always also hand it directly to them with a hand shake and say thanks as we leave and it'll roughly 10%.
@@baggie_woodman Not twisting it - being totally direct. Age makes no difference to me - it's the level of service that matters to me, young, middle aged or old.
@paulbessell6154 Yeah I get that I may have sounded a little harsh mate. Not sure where you are but the 99%assumption here in England is you'll be waited on by teenagers. That's what I meant. It's not like France or Italy where the service industry is a career. It's kids at Uni. Point was, help them out. I agree age doesn't matter. But I'll give you 50 quid if you find anywhere here where someone serves you who's over 25.
Hi M&J, Yep seen this couple before👍As others have mentioned 'Jaywalking' isn't a thing you cross where you want as long as it's safe! Not sure why this couple were surprised at London's multi-ethnic population as it's one of the most diverse cities on earth with over 300 languages spoken, Blows my mind that you 2 have never been on a train/tube, when you visit you can explore the underground & laugh at the silly names like all visitors/tourists do! Here's 1or 2, Cockfosters, Elephant & Castle, Swiss Cottage, Maida Vale etc Love your channel 🇺🇸💚🇬🇧✌️👍X
Tipping here in the UK is an interesting process 😅 There's no written rule about it, but generally speaking, if you had a good meal or service, you would probably tip somewhere around 10%+ of your total bill (e.g. if you spent £50 at a restaurant, you might leave somewhere between £5 - £10 tip). In some places, if you're paying by card, the server will hand you the card machine to pay, and it will ask you on the screen if you would like to leave a gratuity, and it's completely optional.
London is the most linguistically diverse city in the world, with over 250 llanguages spoken. The Office of National Statistics lists 53 main languages spoken by at least 0.1% (9000 people) of residents, along with 54 more languages spoken by a small number of people
Hi guys, I’m just letting you know, in the uk , nobody will ever be offended if you don’t tip , it’s not , or never has been a thing, staff here in 99.9 % of jobs in the service sector are on waaay more than the minimum wage, so tipping isn’t necessary, of course you can if you want to, but it’s never expected and certainly not frowned on if you don’t .oh and after the video I had to add that jaywalking ( stupid word) is not even a thing here , as in we never use the word, we call it crossing the road 🤷♂️you can use one of many pedestrian crossings, or look both ways….and … cross the road.. no jays in sight 🧐🤷♂️😂🤣😂oh and we have millions of mixer taps as well ( faucets ) … another stupid word btw !!!!
Most of what you say is correct, but most service workers are definitely NOT on "waaay more than the minimum wage". They're paid fairly here, but most are on minimum wage or slightly above. We have a liveable minimum wage now, that's the difference.
@@Diseased_Mr_T I hear you , I was in my head thinking that I was writing that the uk minimum wage is far higher than the service sector workers standard pay in the USA, thus in effect the starting pay for uk service sector workers is waaay higher therefore they are not reliant on tips , but on reflection I did not make that clear . Thank you for pointing this out, allowing me to correct myself.
If you'll notice the basin with the two taps (or spigots as you call them) there is a drain at the bottom of the basin, a circular overflow hole half way up the side of the basin and a piece of metal just under the right hand side tap. This piece of metal would have been chained to a rubber plug which would fit into the drain at the bottom of the basin. You would fill the basin with the hot and cold taps to the desired depth and temperature. Public toilets tend not to have these any more because people keep pinching them! Separate taps are dying out now. Most people have the one combined tap.
The London Underground aka the Tube started operating in 1863 (Metropolitan Railway) and was the world's first underground railway and as such is the world's oldest underground railway - most of the network was built in the following 50 years from 1863 and that is why it is not as wide/high as its more modern counterparts in other countries. During the 2nd World War a vast number of tube stations were used by the public as air raid shelters and a few were even closed in order to store valuable items from the Bristish Museum - 2007 was the first time that the Tube network was used by 1 billion people within a year.
Some of those "foreign languages" may have been regional dialects - if ya ken wor am an aboot. The tube is very old and the tunnels are narrow, so the trains have to be small to fit. We have worked out that there's typically more room on the platform than inside the carriage so we wait for people to get off - unlike people in Holland and Hungary. Tipping in the UK is about rewarding good service rather than subsidising low wages. Oddly enough the term "tip" means the same in the US and UK. Cheese is a delicacy in the UK, whereas in the US it seems to be more of a condiment. 😛 In the UK we were all taught how to cross the road as children by the "Green Cross Man". Sadly he later turned to the dark side and became the Sith Lord "Darth Vader". The Look left signs are really only ever seen in London, because it's full of "bloody foreigners!" Regarding the hand basin - don't wash your hands under the tap! You simply put the plug in the bowl and then add the water (the plug is usually missing).
London is no longer a British city. We've been invaded by the entire world and speaking as a londoner born and bred, I could not be any more angry about it.
Don’t get fish and chips from a pub go to a proper chippy with proper chips. Be careful in central London they will use frozen chips like from the supermarket and batter on fish will be way too thick. Also don’t use white vinegar which is big thing in London. Chip shop vinegar on chips should be brown coloured but may have been watered down. Malt vinegar is bit too strong on fish and chips.
We had a French friend who came from Paris. Everytime she visited she'd be picked up at the airport and her first demand was always 'take me to the chippy'.
The two different taps are historical and most modern houses now have mixer taps. The reason behind it is that in the past hot water was supplied from a tank of water, either in the attic or a cupboard, which could be standing for some time. The cold water was always fed directly from the mains and therefore always fresh and always perfectly safe to drink in the UK 🙂 The tanks could also be on the roof of larger buildings so was open to the elements and potential contamination. The plumbing was also kept completely seperate so hot and cold water ran into and around the house in seperate pipes, for health and hygene reasons. Now most houses are built with combination boilers that heat water on demand so there is no standing water and therefore no risk to health so mixer taps are commonly installed. Even though older buildings may now have combination boilers the plumbing still exists in a two pipe system so often two seperate taps remain. . . . . . . . oh and always get fish and chips from a fish and chip shop, it is not the same if you get it from a pub or restaurant 🙂
We don't have jay walking in the UK, we call it crossing the road and are taught how to do this safely from childhood!
😂😂👍👍
Used to be called the Green Cross Code.
Yeah, we had Jimmy Saville teaching us the Green Cross Code. Totally safe 🤣
@@El_Smeghead Yea, Great example for the public...
To be fair much much easier when you have actual roads and not what America has which is basically just a motorway they put next to residential shit lol. Like why do I have to cross 4-5 lanes to get to the chick fil A hahhahaha na stroads are fucking depressing man.
British plugs are the safest in the world. There's videos describing all the different safety measures and other things.
With the taps, the cold is connected to the filtered drinking water while the hot tap USED to be connected to a water tank in the loft, not suitable for drinking, so they had to be separated. Modern houses don't have this issue and usually don't have the two taps.
I think this was a result of the second world war.
So many houses got destroyed and it was a quick way of getting things up and running again.
Most homeowners have now got the single tap unit.
Washing your hands in hot water doesn’t kill germs. If it’s hot enough to kill germs it’s also hot enough to warrant a trip to the free hospital
Most shocking thing about US homes?
They don't appear to have sink plugs!
@@elainetilley985 No, it was not because of the war, it was for the reason given above. The hot water was not considered potable.
@@gh8447 Listeria, was an issue, as was water-pressure. Using gravity to power cold water was better than mains pressure, but the loft cold water tanks were not sealed so listeria was an issue if the cold water became stagnant..
As a European, it blows my mind you've never been on a train!
My first time on a train last year going to a wedding. I live in a small village in Scotland with a train station and the trains are usually few people on them. I don't drive either. I'm also 52 years old lol.
Me too....amazing 😊
Same, they need to get out more.
Or a train in the uk and had a slice of tea... back in the day that was but we are heading back to those halycon days that everyone forgot about
I love going on trains, hands down my favourite way to travel.
Also - we do not jaywalk, we’re just trusted to look and cross the road like adults.
London is not England anymore than New York is America.
London has NEVER been England, it is the capital of England.
YES! Thank you. I find it so annoying when Americans (in particular) constantly refer to London as if it is the whole of the UK when there are so many different places here and so many different cultures.
@@CamcorderSteve I am talking symbolically I didn’t realise this concept was too complex for you. I’ll try and reduce future replies to your level of understanding
@@davidmcc8727 I would appreciate that, thank you so much.
@@davidmcc8727 36% are hanging on in mate.
brits dont jay walk, cos jay walking does not exist in britain.
Precisely. It is strange other places allow their authorities to herd them to a specific place to cross. In the UK older folk are considered adults and thus capable of judging when it is safe for them to cross. Personal responsibility and all that.
English don't Jaywalk...it's not a thing here, we just cross when it's safe...
Yeah, we had everyone from Tufty to Batman, to Doctor Who to Darth Vader teaching us how to cross the road over the years. When Batman tells you what to do when you're five or six, you pay attention.
Obviously we English/Australians are endowed with a certain amount of nouse from birth.
@@Me-gy7ykthink we had some random hedgehogs asking us to avoid being roadkill too 😂
Same! I don't remember the words but a song about being king of the road @@Sdt526
@@Sdt526 To the tune of 'King of the Road'.
It was the Green Cross Code Man when I was little though, as portrayed by Darth Vader himself, David Prowse.
The reason the tube trains are that size is because it's the oldest subway system in the world & most of it was dug with picks & shovels. obviously the trains have to fit through the tunnels. The newer parts are bigger because they used tunnel boring machines (TBMs) to make those.
Not quite. The key thing that determined the diameter of the tunnel was firstly economics, and then the maximum diameter of the tunneling shield that was used to protect workers from tunnel collapse during excavation. These shields were advanced as digging progressed by screw jacks and their maximum diameter was determined by the need to advance the shield to keep up with the workers, yet minimize the weight of the shield so it could be moved quickly enough.
Try the line from the City to Waterloo. Dainty!
And additional tunnels have to worm their way between existing tunnels!
The oldest lines are actually full size - indeed the Met was originally built to Brunel's wide gauge.
@@brianparker663 Err.. no, the Met wasn't originally built to Brunel's 7ft gauge, it was constructed using the "cut & cover" method and a wider gauge would have significantly increased the cost of building it. It would also have made it much harder to construct locomotives small enough to fit through the tunnels.
However it was, of course, steam-hauled. At least one of the original locomotives still exists and was used on the 150th anniversary of the opening of the line.
We do tip in this country, but it’s reward based. In restaurants the polite minimum is supposed to be 10%, but it’s based on your experience, ie the better the service the more your tip will represent that. Groups of 10 or above it goes straight on the bill, but again additional tips are an option. It’s also optional to tip in pubs and coffee shops, but if you feel you’ve had great service you are perfectly welcome to. Waiting staff aren’t paid a lot, so why wouldn’t you want to reward them for good service, but also I feel perfectly happy not tipping for poor service
Waiting staff are paid the minimum wage (at least) of £11.44 per hour if you are 21yo and over. UK waiting staff are tipped as well, probably about 10-15% average but this is really only in restaurants. Would hardly ever leave a tip anywhere else (that I can think of right now)!
Because in the UK the staff are paid an actual wage. So we don't need to tip. If you do want to just ask to add a tip or put extra money down.
In the UK, sink faucets are called taps. If you have separate taps for hot and cold there should be a plug for the hand basin so you can add different amounts of hot of cold water to adjust it to the temperature for washing your hands. Good tip for travel buy a universal basin plug and carry it with you in case the plug is missing :) In the UK a faucet or tap with both hot and cold water coming out of one spout is called a .... mixer tap :) hope that helps, Good Luck
These two should not be let out without a responsible adult.
Spot on, the problem with a lot of Americans is they don’t try to understand how things work they just assume because it’s not like the states it must be wrong. Plus American laws are written with the most stupid person in mind, whereas ours are sensible common sense.
Are they really adults? Wow! Naive doesn't begin to describe these two.
They don't know which way to look when crossing the road ? Look both ways dafthead.
It's not called Jay walking here..... its simply walking to get where you're going.
Jaywalking, just a way to rob people of their money.
If you hang out in tourist hot spots it stands to reason you're going to hear a lot of foreign languages.
As somebody who lives in London the vast majority of foreign accents in London are not those of tourists. They are mostly the accents of its residents, it really is a very multicultural city.
1:49 "Seattle is pretty multi-cultural as well"
But London is the capital city, with literally 2000 years of history, and 30m foreign visitors per year...no comparison really...
Not even just tourists you only have to look at the stats to see how many foreigners now live in London.
Or students. I'm from Leicester and if you walk anywhere near DMU or whatever the other uni is called you hear a lot of different languages.
White British are now a minority of London residents. Just over 50% of the City's residents are foreign born
TUBE - It’s always pretty amazing to me, with all the thousands of years of habitation in London built on top of each other, not to mention the Thames and oodles of underground waterways that the tube could be built at all.
The tube is so fantastic and yes it’s not perfect but it’s SO CONVENIENT. When you’ve got an old city like London whose streets were designed for at the most a horse and cart and definitely not millions of cars it’s the most efficient way to travel around London. Some people dislike the way most people are silent on the tube but after the hustle and bustle of above ground I find it oddly refreshing and relaxing.
I'm in the cardiac ward at a UK hospital. I was brought here by ambulance 5 days ago. In 4 days from now, I will have a procedure - a replacement pacemaker. Soon after, I will be discharged from hospital. I will not have to pay a single penny for any of this. I'm told that is not the case in the US.
It isn’t free. *Someone* is paying for it (e.g., taxes). Hope you’re feeling better!
@@beverly.alford Thanks. I didn't say it was free - I said it wasn't costing me anything. I retired last year after working and paying taxes for 51 years years and rarely needing any medical treatment as I've had good health. But the facilities are there for when we need them.
@@DoggleBirdyou have paid for your treatment, it's called NI..national insurance, when Americans hear you say that they think it's free..
Dont get fish and chips from a pub. Get it from a 'Fish and chip shop'. Completely different.
Yes because I think a lot of pubs (not all), air fry their spuds to make chipa & they are dry. Spuds need to be fried in oil to be classed as 'chips'.
Something about your name gives me a sneaking suspicion that you know about such things, I can't quite put my finger on what makes me think this..... 😁
Even better at a port where fish is landed!
Definitely buy it on the coast@alundavies1016
_Dont [sic] get fish and chips from a pub._ Yes, you can. It depends on the pub and it's not all that common, but you can get fish and chips at a pub.
The ultimate guide to taps.
1. Put plug in.
2. Mix to desired temperature.
3. Only then put your hands in the water. 🤦♂️
If you look at the tap on the right-hand side, you will see a metal stud to the left of it. That has a hole through it, which should have a chain attached to it that, on the end, there would have been a plug that would have allowed the hot and cold water to be mixed in the basin. The chains have been broken so often by careless users that it becomes an additional expense that the custodian no longer wishes to meet. Hence, there is no plug, so there is no ability to control the water temperature.
@@grahamplatt6237 Plugs are 50p at our local DIY store!!
What a load of tosh! 🤣
@@grahamplatt6237 tbh, most public spaces have the plugs removed to stop potential vandalism.
it's why they generally have the uncovered plughole too. harder to block those with loo roll.
I just cup my hands and put small amount of cold and rest hot then put it over my face (assuming your washing face) don’t understand why it’s so difficult.
Traditionally needed two taps as the hot water likely came from a tank that was on the roof heated by the sun and it was non drinkable, the cold tap was drinkable.
You mix the hot and cold water in the sink. FFS it's not rocket science.
That sink seemed to be missing a plug, but most should have them.
That's what plugs are there for!
@@beverleyrankin3482push plugs in mine, pop up and press down.
or get a mixer tap... not like we dont them.
😂
Being born in the 50s, we had only one tap. Cold water. Eventually, someone invented an electric boiler that was mounted on the wall over the sink, pipe was over the sink near the cold tap.
Eventually, central heating was invented and hot water was then fed to all sinks also, bathroom & kitchen.
Only fairly recently did someone invent a tap that hot and cold could be fed into, and mixed with a single handle.
Peter
Liverpool UK
Jaywalking laws in America were actually pushed for by the car companies. When cars were new, people would often get hit by them, and they would sue the car manufacturers. So, no, Jaywalking rules weren't brought in to make you safe - they were brought in so the car manufacturers didn't have to face payout liability.
We have two taps because our cold water comes direct from the supply system and can be drunk straight from the tap - so you don't want to contaminate it with water from a hot water tank - don't forget most of our houses are over 50 - 100 years old and so often our house has been plumbed like that for years. Some newer houses have mixer taps if their hot water is not supplied by a hot water tank like the older houses are.
Where do they get hot water from then? Is this only for residences with a combi boiler?
@@mojojojo11811 I have an older system in my house ,which was built in 1860. There was no water plumbed in then ,it would be drawn from a communal well and heated in pans on an open fire.
Once the water system was taken into houses ,different methods of heating were installed .One ,called a Hot Water Geyser, was a water tank fixed near a bath or kitchen sink ,heated by a gas flame which could be turned on when wanted .
I have cold water tanks in my loft and in a room below is a large insulated water tank which can be powered by electricity ,but as I have gas central heating my hot water is done in the same way that my radiators are .Pipes from the tank run under the floorboards to the bath ,shower and basins where the hot water is required.
I don't have two taps. I have mixer taps just like everyone else I know. My house is was built in 1929. It has been updated. I know some people have them, but I don't know why you would choose to have them.
I brush my teeth and wash my hands in the sink after using the loo. I don't want to clean the sink EVERY time I want to wash my face lol.
Also, when the cold comes from the mains and the hot from a tank, if you had a mixer tap the cold will “overpower” the hot because it’s under greater pressure. I appreciate that in some homes the hot and cold both come from tanks so it isn’t an issue.
the older houses had a seperate hot water system - it was fed the water from a header tank in the attic and the water was heated by a boiler behind the fire, or other types of boilers - the header tank provided the presure for this system and was also open to the air and was not considered safe for drinking, as the cold mains water was treated and purified to make it safe for drinking it was against the law to connect the two systems together. this only changed with the introduction of boilers that were directly fed of the mains water - so it was safe to mix hot with the cold water without the fear of contaminating the clean mains water.
I used to live in London, and grew up in Northern England.
Foreigners have a hard time realising London is not England, England is not London.
Imagine a foreigner visiting New York city, and expecting it to be like a small town in Idaho. Yeah. Big, important cities have their own vibe.
I also hate the way Americans use Brits and English interchangeably. Annoying that they don't understand that there are 3 other countries within the UK as well and saying "the British accent" just doesn't mean anything?!?
Northern England's way better than London
You guys have mixer taps because you can't drink your tap water.😊 And Jay walking isn't a thing in the UK, it's called crossing the road.
Plenty of countries have mixer taps and also drinkable water - like Germany and all of Scandinavia. The UK way is very Old fashioned.
@@Memme14 UK also has this, it just depends how old the plumbing is, many building still have the old fashioned plumbing so separate taps are still easy to find.
@@lk-music yes, I know but original poster makes it sound like drinkable water and mixer taps are mutually exclusive.
@@Memme14 yeah, maybe, I thought it was more of a joke about the water being unpleasant, because it's also not true that Americans don't drink tap water, they wouldn't have bothered to chlorinate it otherwise.
I’ve read most of these comments, and I’m amused at how enraged the commenters are with these two. Makes me proud to be British😂😂😂
In U.K. there is a much higher in minimum wage and it is now illegal for companies to hold on to any part of tips and use them to contribute towards that minimum wage - all has to go to the workers no matter what.
Don't forget the Tube is the oldest in the world in London.
Exactly! We didn't have the luxury of planning it in advance. It just sort of happened with one line and then another. It's a wondrous thing....if a little claustrophobic and dirty.
Correct it was first opened in 1863
Most UK cold taps are water from the water supply company, hot water is stored in a tank. UK tap water is 100% drinking water across all of the UK. That is why USA people drink more bottled water. UK folks mostly drink tap water unless they are travelling and want a supply with them for the journey.
@@TSM-908 good old tap water . As kids we used to call it council pop .
@@debramceneaney True, especially when you parents purchased a SodaStream and you could make your own flavour pop 😂😂
tap water is gross lol next time you make a cup of tea.. boil bottled mineral water in the kettle instead of tap water and see how much more flavour and fresh tea or coffee tastes
@@pitchdark2024 if you’re making tea with hard water the tea is horrible and filtered water will fix this. Coffee is ok with straight tap water but is stronger flavour than tea. Again filtered tap water is also an improvement on straight hard water.
@@pitchdark2024 when i was a kid water was not as bad and bottled water was not an option, it wasn't heard of , I've not drank tap water for at least 30 years , wouldn't have anything other than bottled water
Look both directions when crossing the road. It's not complicated.
But they are from America so it's a bit hard for them to understand 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
When I was young we had adverts on TV teaching us the Green Cross Code, ie how to cross a road safely. The Green Cross Code Man was the same guy that played Darth Vader, but he didn't do the voice
Dave Prowse
A lot of the reasons for these issues are historical. The tube is so cramped, narrow and low ceilinged because it was designed 150 years ago, and while some of the technical specs were altered over the years, the cost of reboring all those tunnels, acquiring new rolling stock and changing the whole system is just prohibitive, especially when it works and nobody really has a problem with it.
As for the hot/cold tap business, originally the system was that water used for heating was not potable, would be stored in tanks in the loft space and then brought down to the heating system. I believe that most hot water systems also fed into the household heating, hence not being necessary to be drinkable. This made the need for separate faucets so that what came out of the cold tap could be drunk directly without harm, without mingling with undrinkable water from the heating system. This has changed over the last few decades, but once the system had been established, it was continued of having separate taps for each.
German here. I've been living overseas for a couple of years. I know from previous experience that if there's no tip on the bill, I usually leave about 10% of the bill as a tip, and I'll let them the waiter/waitress know when I pay with a card, to add that amount, or if I pay with cash I'll leave that amount. Having said that, people here in Germany actually get paid a living wage, and the tipping is more a thank you for a good job.
It's exactly the same here brudi.
I’m British and I tip 10% so do everyone I know.
@@christinehoughton8591and me
The UK's electrical power is between 230-240v, whilst in US it's half of that. Our plugs is also great for safety
Similarly “Down Under” where power is 220-240v
Check out Tom Scott's video about the safety features of British plugs and sockets.
Two taps. A partial explanation is that domestically the tradition was to put the plug in the sink, turn the taps on, mix the water in the sink and wash with the water in the sink. This practice seems to have faded but the two taps system hasn't. However, there are some mixer taps in the UK.
Even better one is the American guy
hi guys .old school sinks had two taps ,you used a plug to mix the hot & cold together in the sink itself . modern places nowadays you tend to get mixer taps . hope that helps.
I agree that there are some foreigners who have decided to make London their home, but what people also forget , is that London is a" huge " tourist trap, so many of the foreign languages being heard are tourists,and alot of the Brits would be at work .
As for why there are 2 taps, this is because many older houses used to have a water tank in the attic , this was used for hot water as it was deemed unfit to drink because as you can imagine being in the attic there was all sorts that could contaminate the water, like rats,bats etc, whereas the water from the cold tap came from the mains and was drinkable.
And if you wanted to wash your hands etc you would just put the plug in and fill the sink with the desired temperature. There are some new builds (houses) that would probably have a mixer tap (one tap) but mainly just in the kitchen.
The first point is hilarious: American tourists amazed to find other tourists in popular tourist place.
But also: You've NEVER been on a train? And Mike said he's never even SEEN one? 😱💀
Guys that is enough reason to get that European vacation booked NOW lol!
Many of the people speaking other than English in London are not Tourists, they are locals/workers, it all depends on the area.
Most will be able to speak English.
It's not just London, and it's not just tourists. Walk around any city or town, and you rarely hear English spoken anymore.
@@ThornyLittleFlower Quite wrong ,I live in a Market Town in Suffolk UK and there are other languages spoken here ,particularly (I think) Turkish but very much in the minority .
I classed myself very lucky a while ago, visiting a nearby town to hear the ORIGINAL Suffolk accent ,from a couple of youngish women .This was something I heard quite often 60 years ago.
@@ThornyLittleFlower What utter racist bollocks.
@@ThornyLittleFlower What utter rubbish.
The reason there are 2 taps (faucets) is back in the 60's and 70's water was heated in an immersion heater. Basicaly a giant kettle which would feed the hot tap. as there was no way into the boiler it was a breeding ground for bacteria so they had a seperate cold tap fed direct from the mains which was drinkable hence the 2 taps.. one for drinking one for filling baths and showers.
Not sure why we still use them instead of mixer taps but most UK sinks / baths have 2 taps and kitchen sinks seem to have mixers lol. We dont make it easy on ourselves 😛😛
As a child I was always told to run the bath water hot and then add cold to bring it to the right temperature. Saves energy and hot water from the boiler
And also the cold being mains pressure would cause an imbalance of pressures which meant that if mixer taps and were installed one stream of water could force its way across to the other
@@taylort5672 and also shouts from your mum "Don't use all the f**king hot water theres more than just you lives here" lol
Not so much the immersion heater, you could just turn that off. When we had coal fires, they had back boilers. You can't turn off a coal fire to stop the water boiling and, without a header tank, you'd have to rely on the water supply to replace the boiled off water with cold.
Fun Fact when it comes to crossing the road. The man who tought my generation was called the Green Cross Code man, and he was a massive fella called David Prowse. He was also the man who was in the Darth Vader suit in all the original star wars films. Clips of him are on youtube in his green corss code outfit.
He came to my primary school in his green cross code uniform to give us all a lecture on road safety, but I swear we'd have listened more carefully if he'd been done up as Darthy V
The reason that we have separate hot and cold taps in the UK in a lot of places (some more modern homes have mixer taps) is that the cold tap is straight from the mains, and is therefore safe drinking water, whereas the hot water would be heated generally by the gas-based central heating (and by "gas-based", we're talking natural gas, not "gasoline"), and as such, would sit in a tank while heating, and remain there until needed. These tanks would often be in the attic, which meant that while the hot water would still be generally clean, it would not necessarily be quite as "clean" as drinking water, so having the separate taps ensured you would not accidentally drink from the hot water tank.
Yes, the hot & cold water pipe systems evolved BEFORE the mixer tap. All of the sinks & baths were ceramic, & built for 2 taps [faucets]. We're getting there, but it takes time.
Brits don't like compulsory tipping. We tip as we leave according to how good the service was. If the server was grumpy they won't get tipped, if they were really good they get more . and tipping only happens at pubs and fancy restaurants
And, good service means being left to enjoy your meal in peace without American-style constant badgering by staff!
I'll tip anywhere I get good service. Normally 10%. But I never tip when I get shite service.
That could be because the UK has a Minimal Wage structure dictated by your Age, unlike the USA were it tends to be more of ONE FIXED RATE regardless of your Age. The First time I visited an internet friend in the USA, her daughters asked if I was rich because I could afford to fly to another Country for 1 Month Holiday/Vacation
My tip is always the same: Unionise and get better working conditions. Or, if that's not possible, get a better paid job that doesn't mean that customers are being forced to subsidise the wages of poorly paid employees.
Don't worry about, tip if you want, or don't... and just leaves a few £
Worrying about crossing the road shouldn't be an issue - there are only left and right to choose from.
London is a small percentage of England, they have not seen England just because they went to London
Correct, in fact us that don't live in London say that it's not part of England, well not anymore anyway. Obviously it's our capital so it is ,but to non londeners it just doesn't feel like it anymore.. I haven't been there in over 20 years so I wouldn't even reconisise it anymore..!!!
@@ianrose56 100% agree , London isn't England anymore. Its expensive, overcrowded and an embarrassment to everybody north of the border . Not been myself for 30 years , would never go again .
They did say that they'd travelled to towns and villages. 👍
@@debramceneaney london has allways been that way..also if you not been in 30 years how would you know?
@@simoncox9689 I know because I'm not deaf or blind and I think for myself
That couple are definitely not the sharpest knives in the drawer. They seem very imature considering they travel which is the best education !
The plug socket thing is awesome. It's insane that more countries don't use it. The plug has a fuse built-in to prevent surge fires, the top prong is the only one that gets made live when plugged in, the bottom two holes don't open until the top (longest) prong is partially in, and our plug leads exit the plug at the base, reducing trip hazards.
Tipping is only done if at a high-end place, you are in a group of 6 or more (and thus have 1 person waiting 6), or the service was exceptional. That said, you can tip if you want at most places, you'll just be considered a bit odd.
You look both ways when crossing the road... Basic road safety drilled into all UK kids. You have to look both ways anyways since traffic flows both ways. Odd that this is an issue.
I think the hot and cold thing is a layover from old plumbing conventions.
Jay walking? Crossing the road?! Er... Essentially you are taking your life in your own hands (but not really), as there is no legal protection for pedestrians crossing randomly. Crossing at a designated crossing is legally protected (as in, there's are road laws for yielding to pedestrians at that crossing). That said, it's not against the law and it's weird that it would be. Most drivers slow down slightly when someone crossing randomly, but, we have laws against drivers using their phone or anything else that removes the drivers hands form the wheel (and thus more attention is on the road).
Have you seen the 'British plugs and outlets are on another level' video? You'd be amazed at how many safety features there are, very clever and well thought out, it's practically impossible to electrocute yourself. (Well, unless you were very determined!)
I see what you are saying about tipping, but from the point of view of a Brit, we would think that it is the employer's responsibility to pay their employees wages, not the customers'. We would prefer the employer to raise the prices of the food/drinks if they want to make more profit, and take responsibility of their employees wages themselves. That would seem more of an honest way to do things. We don't mind paying more for the food, but we resent having to pay the employees wages. It makes us feel like we are being conned. But it is just a different way of thinking.
It's similar to how, in the US, often we were given a price for something, and assumed it was the final price, but there were hidden fees that were not revealed to us until it was too late, and we had to pay. This caught us out because it would be illegal in the UK. All fees and charges must be provided from the beginning. But I guess, it comes down to what you are used to. You probably think our system is strange.
By the way, PLEASEEEEEE the first time you get fish and chips, get them from a chippy(fish and chip shop), not the pub. From the pub, it is NOT the same. For a start, there is NOTHING like the chips you get from the chippy. No other place can make them the same. And in the chippy, you get all the extras too, which you won't get in the pub. Back me up here Brits. Am I right, or am I right?
Aye, they should definitely check that.
1 thing he doesn't mention is we can push our furniture right to the wall. You cant do that with American plugs
❤ from Northeast England ❤️
@@oopsdidItypethatoutloud Yes, very handy, and our plugs also makes it near on impossible to pull the plug out by the cord, which can loosen the wires inside. I have been guilty of doing that when in the US. Did it without thinking.
ua-cam.com/video/139Q61ty4C0/v-deo.htmlsi=5_8D4VLFXdXdyoTW
I do agree about getting fish and chips from a chippy (with plenty of salt and vinegar), it will not be the same from a pub. Does depend on the chippy though. I live in East Yorkshire and most chip shops here are really good - you can’t get better, the fish gets landed not far away at all, but when I lived down south (Kent) the chip shops were shite.
@@Howling-Mad-Murdock
Whitby... fresh caught North sea cod...
Many of the subways in London were constructed in the Victorian era. And the original trains were steam trains. The London Infrastructure is very old.
Steam trains only ran on the 'cut and cover lines (District, Metropolitan, and Circle) built to standard gauge. The deep level lines (built to a smaller gauge) were electric from the start (with the exception of the Waterloo and City which I think started out as cable-hauled).
@@keithparker5125 thank you for the clarity.
I think the word "shock" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here...
🤣🤣👍
That’s what you get when you stick a nail file in an American power outlet , or socket in the real world 😂😅😂
“Mild Surprise” isn’t quite as catchy
@@alundavies1016 facts🤣
The reason for the 2 taps is that our hot water in most houses used to be fed into a storage tank in the loft, the water would sit there and become "contaminated" as it was effectivly open to the elements, so was not safe to drink, however the cold water is a direct feed from the water companies is was safe. A lot of houses nowdays have changed their heaters/ boilers etc so that the mains water can be heated directly and have therefore have been able to changed to the single faucet system. However some have just left it as dual faucet for the aesthetics so as to be more in keeping with their houses.
To all Americans, and others who drive on the wrong side of the road 😉, as small children we were taught " Look right, look left, look right again. If it's all clear, quick march" (as in look in the direction of the tradfic closest to you twice, then don't run, or you might fall. This rhyme is handy, as I always reverse the right and left in my head when I go to other countries.
No we don't Jay walk because there is no jay walking laws as our government deem us as intelligent enough to know when it's safe to cross the road, people DO NOT walk out on incoming traffic, they wait until there's a big enough gap that they can get across and then do so. The fact that you can own guns but cannot be allowed to cross the road is absolute stupidity to me, crazy!!!
Also our plumbing systems and houses some of which are probably older than America was originally plumbed that way, the cold comes from a mains supply which is why you can drink our tap water compared to the US and the hot water comes for a boiler which has contaminates from the boiler system and although it is perfectly safe to bathe in it's not safe to drink.
How long before our nanny state new government bring in a jay walking law though bud😂😂after all, he's got our thoughts😉
London underground was built in 1860s thats probably why it is smaller
Exactly I was going to say the same thing
Even now I can't get my head around the fact that in the US all the power outlets have no on/off switch. What a waste of power.
That, and they're basically holes in the wall. There's no shutter system to prevent foreign objects from being inserted into them.
Yeah, that was a surprise to me that it in a culture shock. Here is South Africa there are on/off switches on all power outlets. I just assumed that it is like that around the world.
@@GrumpyOldGit-zk1kwyes its dammed dangerous just having open holes. I wonder how many children in the US get electrocuted each year by stuffing things into electrical switch holes??
Why do you think there would be a loss of power if you do not have an on/off switch?
@@BP-kx2ig It's not like it's a hosepipe. If nothing is plugged in, electricity will not fall out of the wall.
The 2 separate taps (faucets) are a relic from times gone by, you often find them in older properties public or private and the primary reason was that the cold water connected directly to the outside mains and was safe to drink whereas the hot water could have been sitting in a tank in the attic for several days! (interesting fact in old days there used to be a lever you could pull in many fireplaces that allowed the water to be heat straight from the fireplace saving on electricity!
HOWEVER that said Modern Properties do have a mixing tap I have a mixing tap in BOTH Kitchen and Bathroom!
There is an excellent youtube video on the uk electrical system and explains the brilliant electrical plugs and sockets as for the hot and cold water taps the sinks will have a plug in the drain of the sink you put in Tipping is rare I don't do it as they are paid minimum wage which same all over the uk
Regarding hot and cold taps, one reason was it saved water because you're supposed to put the plug in and was your hands in the basin.
There is a video by an American electrician who demonstrates british safety plugs and electrical systems. Check it out Mike and Jess
America. Where crossing the road is a crime. Land of the free lol.
America is built for the car. Everywhere else the world is built for people. I didn't even know what "jaywalking" was until youtube. American exceptionality isn't always to the benefit of good folks like yourself. In the UK your driving test pushes into you that "pedestrians have right of way".
Re: fish and chips. Battered haddock (not cod), chips (steak fries), mushy peas (processed peas purée), tartare sauce, slice of lemon. A pint of Thatchers 'Old Katy' cider (hard cider) with a little ice and you're set.
If you ever get to Chester in the UK I'll take you for some local Salmon from the River Dee (my treat). The first song ever written in English was about the jolly Miller whose home was 3km from my house.
Keep making these videos, guys. We love you and your laughing drags me out of hard times on occasion x
@StephMcAlea
The first song written in England was written in the 13th century and it was called "summer is icumen in" which translates to the summer is here.
I've never heard of the miller you're talking about, and I'm actually from a village about 6 miles from Chester so know the history retty well. I'm surprised you didnt mentioned the roman walls or ruins.
You can fish for brown trout but you need a license. I love the name of the restaurant that sells them. Because you can't catch them and sell the commercially for consumption.
Chester! Worcestershire here! 😊
Taps: Before plumbed water was available, hot water was heated by the fire in the house be it a cooking stove or open fire, typically wood fired, and then poured scalding hot into a basin or tub bath, then cold water was added to the get to right temperture, this is why you put hot water into the basin then add cold water to regulate the temperature, remenber water mostly came from a well, but now we have mixer taps, not faucets 😁😁
For years cold water was stored in a tank separate from the hot. But now our cold water is all from the mains. And tap water in England is safe to drink from the tap. So no need for bottled water.
At school in the UK we’re always taught ‘look right, look left, look right again’, before crossing the road. Obviously those in the US should do the opposite.
Surely you mean those in the rest of the world should do the opposite ? The UK... where left is right, and right is wrong (driving-wise of course 😁)
@@Erulin68 I live in South Africa now and we drive on the left like UK, NZ and Aus. The other ex colonies have all got it wrong, obviously.
But even so, looking everywhere as a precaution is better than saying " I don`t know where to look?" and just dashing out .
If you look and it`s clear then it`s safe to cross; if you see traffic coming your way ,then wait .
In Tourist areas the direction to look is printed in bold white text on the road.
Also, driving on the left means being seated on the right of a car, right handed persons are in the majority thus one's right hand can always be on the wheel, and the left is used to shift gears and adjust the climate control.
No they shouldn’t because in the UK pedestrians have the right of way as cars come second. In the US it’s people last.
It completely depends on the area of London, which, I'm sure you know, is spectacularly big. In the West End, yes all tourists. Everywhere else, not so much.
Go to Hackney and get robbed by melanated people 🤣🤣🤣
Most modern British bathrooms have a single mixer tap (faucet) these days. The ones with 2 separate taps for hot and cold are usually older properties. This was often because hot water systems were added in later (remember these properties may be older than your country) Also, the cold tap was often served from the mains supply, whilst the hot water was heated and stored in a tank. Keeping them separate means that the hot water which may contain contaminants would not affect the cold water which you can drink directly from the tap.
The two taps is historical. If you have a tank of standing water, even today it technically represents an increase in likelihood of an issue getting in and should really be used with two taps (it's a lot less likely, but still possible). And in the past this issue was more likely.
You still see two taps today as either the house is old and has a tank, the house is old and now has a combi boiler etc but still has the original taps, or just because some people like the look of separate taps as an aesthetic choice (either keeping them after getting a new boiler, or adding them into a new house).
But both modern boilers, and old boilers that heat up a tank, can be set to a temperature. Anyone burning their hands on the hot water tap if they have them separate, is just someone who doesn't know how to use their boiler.
In America, your sinks are mini showers. In Britain, our sinks are mini baths. You put the plug in the plughole and fill it to the required temperature from both taps/faucets.
I'm always very surprised at Anericans not knowing how to or being allowed to cross the road. I visit a place where the reservoir has a road in-between and have seen a line of ducks crossing it many times with drivers waiting patiently for them.
Most buildings have a water storage tank in the roof. This is used for hot water and is not for drinking. The cold water supply is direct so they have separate taps.
Older buildings have separate taps because of the plumbing so they’d have noticed that in places like old London pubs. I have the same as what you described in my kitchen . I also visit ALOT of houses as part of my job I’m a nurse I work with babies and have to wash my hands and honestly , separate taps are rare now
I have an award-winning flat which due to its architecture - only built in 2951 - (and the entire estate) is 'Grade II Listed', and its "bathroom" - as the whole flat was renovated before I moved in and so made into a wet-room with rails and a fold-down arm-chair for my disabilities, (but no bath), just the walk-in shower, a loo and washbasin, _with two taps_ ...
The kitchen has a mixer tap in the sink though.
They found 1of 2 options on the light switch.
1. They found a light switch fitted upside down.
2. There are multiple light switches on the same lighting circuit (one either side of the room for example) and that switch is just that way as the other switch was last used to turn on/off.
The mains water is drinkable straight from the tap.
The hot water used to (still might in some) come from a storage tank in the loft which fed the boiler.
This water was not safe to drink so came in a separate line/pipework in the video under the right hand tap/spigot you can see the mounting point for the plug chain where the plug for the sink was connected via a small chain.
This plug when present is put in the drain hole so you can block the sink so hot and cold water could mix in the sink when full you turn the taps off , when you finish you pull the plug up to empty the water.
The tap/spigot/faucet thing comes about in the UK for historical reasons. Until the early 20th century the majority of houses had no plumbing. If you had water in the kitchen it would be by operating a hand pump connected to a well. The first public water supply that was rolled out nationally was with the intention of providing a source of safe-to-drink and cook with water to each house. It arrived in the form of a single tap to each house, usually in the kitchen. Later people installed a hot tap in the kitchen which took water from a boiler and delivered it separately to the sink because it was illegal to mix it directly with the government supplied clean water. As the water from the utility companies came to be used for all internal water the cost of ripping out all the plumbing and installing faucets was too much for most people. I live in a house that was completed in 1818. It now has two bathrooms and a toilet plus a sink in the utility room, one in the laundry room and a double one in the kitchen. All of them have faucets other than the one in the laundry room which we have left as the sink is from about 1860 and the taps are beautifully engineered. Technically a valve that delivers a single stream of water, whatever its temperature, is a tap and one that combines two or more streams of water is a faucet.
Put the plug in the sink and design your own temperature of water!
To be fair, the example shown, did not have a plug, and this is somewhat, the norm, in many public toilets (bathrooms/restrooms).
Dumb stuff......
You guys are the only reactors i've seen actually explain the whole service industries and tipping thing fully, i finally understand better now thank you
It's easy to understand why there's sometimes two taps (faucets) in Britain.
British homes get hot tap water and are heated by a boiler that burns natural gas to heat water. This hot water is then either supplied to the taps for washing pots/hands or radiators to heat the house.
Today, we have combi boilers that instantly heat cold water from the mains supply into hot water, but the trouble comes with the old back boiler system that was originally installed in our older houses and other buildings. (Don't forget our houses are on average much older than houses in the US).
The back boiler system, which was the old way of heating water for either bathing/washing purposes or for supplying hot water to radiators to heat the house, had a fatal flaw.
This fatal flaw with the back boiler system was that water is/was heated and stored in a copper water tank. When you use some hot water, that copper tank is, in turn, refilled by cold water from a header tank. These header tanks are/were located in the attics of homes. They didn't have lids to them, so things could get into the stored water. Water could also sit in a header tank for long periods if people were not using hot water regularly. This all means that the water in the header tank could become stagnant and/or contaminated and, in some cases, if drank, could give a human a water born disease such as cholera.
So the government back in the day made it law that the two taps had to be separate.
One tap supplying cold water straight from the water mains that is deemed fit for drinking.
The other tap supplying hot water from the back boiler system, which was fit for bathing/washing in but not for drinking.
Having seperate hot water and cold water taps in the past with the old back boiler system was just the easiest way to prevent humans accidentally drinking potentially dangerous water from the hot water system.
If you find yourself as an American visiting the UK and are confronted by two taps there's no need to freeze or scold yourself. There is a sink plug which you put in the bottom of the sink. You can then mix water from the two taps together in the sink to get the temperature of water you want.
Perfect explanation.
@@Howling-Mad-Murdock And yet it doesn't explain the installation of separate hot and cold taps in modern buildings! I used to work in a big office block built in the 1980s where the loos had separate hot and cold taps - and no plugs. The hot water was way too hot to keep your hand under.
Missing from this explanation - My house is modern & doesn't have a combi boiler. House is too big for a combi. Dual taps with plugs for sinks solves the problem
@@lindakirk698 My house is modern and doesn't have a combi boiler, but it still has mixer taps. No problem.
On the subject of taps, the hot water should always be on the left, this is a building regulation, it's so blind/partially sighted people don't accidentally burn themselves.
The American version of "switches on power outlets" are Surge Protecters; most of which are corded with 3-6 outlets and an on/off switch for all the outlets.
These two should be supervised full time. Dear God!
you can cross any road in the Uk pretty much anywhere, except for a Motorway
True, but watching people trying to dart across the busy dual carriageway I drive down every day never stops making me nervous
It is not a crime to cross the road in the UK. I went to Sweden and crossed the road, what Americans call jaywalking, and was arrested immediately. I was put in the back of a Police van. They asked why I did it. I asked, in an English accent, why I did what? I wasn’t aware I had done anything. They asked if jaywalking was not a crime where I come from. I said I didn’t know what jaywalking was. They asked to see my passport, then saw I was British, then let me out of the Police van, and told me to wait for traffic lights to turn green before I could walk across the road. Weird!?
The land of the free. My arse 😂😂
a bit like that here in Germany, I've seen Germans wait for the green man to flash to cross a deserted road in the pouring rain when absolutely nobody was about.
@@pashvonderc381
The first time I went to Germany, I asked about that. The person said that it's fine to cross on red unless there are any children watching.
In Hong Kong, jaywalking is an offense as the foot and road traffic levels are so high, it's dangerous to jaywalk at crossings so the police enforce waiting for the pedestrian lights to turn green.
I lived in Germany for a while, where there are spot fines for jay-walking, but also social pressure: people would go "tut tut tut" if you crossed the road when there was no green light. There was propaganda that said "children need a role model", and I just thought to myself, that is not a good role model: they are being taught to follow instructions from authority (a light!) blindly and trustingly instead of learning to look for traffic themselves (for example there could be a car out of control on the road). I made a joke that I crossed the road once and a policeman fined me 10 Deutschmarks, and I replied "I only have a 20, so let me cross the road again and you can have that".
On British sockets there are little shutters that close of the live holes when the plug is withdrawn. Another safety measure for curious toddlers (rugrats)
The taps are because you are supposed to fill the sink with a mixture. Also helps keep down water usage so it's not just running all the time. Also if you are using soap you actually do not need the hot water [maybe in winter you do]. I lived in Vietnam for 17 years, my kitchen and bathroom just have the one tap [cold] hot water is only in the shower...
The tap (faucet) issue traditionally was that you were not allowed to connect hot and cold water supplies together to avoid contamination of the cold water (drinking water) supply.
However since storage of hot water is a thing of the past, and water is heated as and when required via a gas (lpg) boiler there is no standing tank with water to contaminate the cold water supply, so now mixer taps are more common, but those places that have not fitted a mixer or the basin/sink is not designed for a mixer tap (faucet) they retain the tradition separate taps.
Water from UK taps is safe and pleasant to drink so that is why they were kept separate preventing ingestion of heavy metals (lead Pb as an example) or other contaminants.
Yeah Britain is very cosmopolitan but outside major cities, especially tourist centers, the vast majority speak English, although some of the dialects sometimes make it hardly recognizable as such to a none native speaker.
Britain is not cosmopolitan, only the major cities are.
Even in the same county. My dad came from the South of Staffordshire and a relative of my wife came from the North of Staffordshire and a could barely understand my wife's relative, a matter of probably forty miles which I believe is a miniscule distance to most Americans.
The wondering ravens don't upload any more . I liked them too
I'm English and don't really tip unless the waiter/waitress is young and done a good job. I will always also hand it directly to them with a hand shake and say thanks as we leave and it'll roughly 10%.
Young?
@paulbessell6154 yes. As in teenagers working hard as they study. Similar to my son.
Don't try and twist a perfectly innocent comment.
@@baggie_woodman Not twisting it - being totally direct. Age makes no difference to me - it's the level of service that matters to me, young, middle aged or old.
@paulbessell6154 Yeah I get that I may have sounded a little harsh mate. Not sure where you are but the 99%assumption here in England is you'll be waited on by teenagers. That's what I meant.
It's not like France or Italy where the service industry is a career. It's kids at Uni. Point was, help them out.
I agree age doesn't matter. But I'll give you 50 quid if you find anywhere here where someone serves you who's over 25.
@@baggie_woodman For £50 I'll have a good look around! 😀
Central London is a massive tourist area, I think it's common to hear a ton of languages. Probably the same in Venice, Rome, New York etc.
Two faucets because water in the UK is drinkable, separating the pipes ensures cold water for drinking and mix water for washing (Simples!)
Plug. That's the answer to two taps
Two pin or three pin ? 😉
Is call it a bung in the sink they think a plug is to go in the wall them two need a babysitter
Buy your fish and chips from a fishshop not a pub x
Hi M&J, Yep seen this couple before👍As others have mentioned 'Jaywalking' isn't a thing you cross where you want as long as it's safe! Not sure why this couple were surprised at London's multi-ethnic population as it's one of the most diverse cities on earth with over 300 languages spoken, Blows my mind that you 2 have never been on a train/tube, when you visit you can explore the underground & laugh at the silly names like all visitors/tourists do! Here's 1or 2, Cockfosters, Elephant & Castle, Swiss Cottage, Maida Vale etc Love your channel 🇺🇸💚🇬🇧✌️👍X
What about my favourite
“ TOOTING BEC’👍🤣
Tipping here in the UK is an interesting process 😅 There's no written rule about it, but generally speaking, if you had a good meal or service, you would probably tip somewhere around 10%+ of your total bill (e.g. if you spent £50 at a restaurant, you might leave somewhere between £5 - £10 tip). In some places, if you're paying by card, the server will hand you the card machine to pay, and it will ask you on the screen if you would like to leave a gratuity, and it's completely optional.
They are the greatest power outlet’s in the world. Watch a video on them it sounds weird but they’re amazing.
London is the most linguistically diverse city in the world, with over 250 llanguages spoken. The Office of National Statistics lists 53 main languages spoken by at least 0.1% (9000 people) of residents, along with 54 more languages spoken by a small number of people
Hi guys, I’m just letting you know, in the uk , nobody will ever be offended if you don’t tip , it’s not , or never has been a thing, staff here in 99.9 % of jobs in the service sector are on waaay more than the minimum wage, so tipping isn’t necessary, of course you can if you want to, but it’s never expected and certainly not frowned on if you don’t .oh and after the video I had to add that jaywalking ( stupid word) is not even a thing here , as in we never use the word, we call it crossing the road 🤷♂️you can use one of many pedestrian crossings, or look both ways….and … cross the road.. no jays in sight 🧐🤷♂️😂🤣😂oh and we have millions of mixer taps as well ( faucets ) … another stupid word btw !!!!
Most of what you say is correct, but most service workers are definitely NOT on "waaay more than the minimum wage". They're paid fairly here, but most are on minimum wage or slightly above. We have a liveable minimum wage now, that's the difference.
@@Diseased_Mr_T I hear you , I was in my head thinking that I was writing that the uk minimum wage is far higher than the service sector workers standard pay in the USA, thus in effect the starting pay for uk service sector workers is waaay higher therefore they are not reliant on tips , but on reflection I did not make that clear . Thank you for pointing this out, allowing me to correct myself.
Tipping in Australia is not mandatory, only tip when good/excellent service is received
There's a name for people who don't speak English in the UK. They're called 'tourists.' 🧐
No there not. I know people who lived there for 30 years and still can't speak English except Dole office.
They are called illegal immigrants and muslims
There are people who came to the UK decades ago and still don't speak English. There's a name for them too. What was it again? Nope, it's gone😀
@@kernow9324 There’s a name for people like you, definitely. Now what was it? Erm, racist?
@@kernow9324irregular "tourists" according to the Labour party
If you'll notice the basin with the two taps (or spigots as you call them) there is a drain at the bottom of the basin, a circular overflow hole half way up the side of the basin and a piece of metal just under the right hand side tap. This piece of metal would have been chained to a rubber plug which would fit into the drain at the bottom of the basin. You would fill the basin with the hot and cold taps to the desired depth and temperature. Public toilets tend not to have these any more because people keep pinching them! Separate taps are dying out now. Most people have the one combined tap.
The London Underground aka the Tube started operating in 1863 (Metropolitan Railway) and was the world's first underground railway and as such is the world's oldest underground railway - most of the network was built in the following 50 years from 1863 and that is why it is not as wide/high as its more modern counterparts in other countries.
During the 2nd World War a vast number of tube stations were used by the public as air raid shelters and a few were even closed in order to store valuable items from the Bristish Museum - 2007 was the first time that the Tube network was used by 1 billion people within a year.
Some of those "foreign languages" may have been regional dialects - if ya ken wor am an aboot.
The tube is very old and the tunnels are narrow, so the trains have to be small to fit. We have worked out that there's typically more room on the platform than inside the carriage so we wait for people to get off - unlike people in Holland and Hungary.
Tipping in the UK is about rewarding good service rather than subsidising low wages. Oddly enough the term "tip" means the same in the US and UK.
Cheese is a delicacy in the UK, whereas in the US it seems to be more of a condiment. 😛
In the UK we were all taught how to cross the road as children by the "Green Cross Man". Sadly he later turned to the dark side and became the Sith Lord "Darth Vader". The Look left signs are really only ever seen in London, because it's full of "bloody foreigners!"
Regarding the hand basin - don't wash your hands under the tap! You simply put the plug in the bowl and then add the water (the plug is usually missing).
Tissues make a temporary plug, enough for the time it takes to wash hands, and remember to put the soggy tissue in a bin before leaving.
London is no longer a British city. We've been invaded by the entire world and speaking as a londoner born and bred, I could not be any more angry about it.
well said mate
London has always been international. It’s been a world financing and trading centre for centuries
It's almost as iffy it's been an international city since the Romans built the place. 🙄
Don’t get fish and chips from a pub go to a proper chippy with proper chips. Be careful in central London they will use frozen chips like from the supermarket and batter on fish will be way too thick. Also don’t use white vinegar which is big thing in London. Chip shop vinegar on chips should be brown coloured but may have been watered down. Malt vinegar is bit too strong on fish and chips.
Prefer onion vinegar on my chips tbh lol
We had a French friend who came from Paris. Everytime she visited she'd be picked up at the airport and her first demand was always 'take me to the chippy'.
The two different taps are historical and most modern houses now have mixer taps. The reason behind it is that in the past hot water was supplied from a tank of water, either in the attic or a cupboard, which could be standing for some time. The cold water was always fed directly from the mains and therefore always fresh and always perfectly safe to drink in the UK 🙂 The tanks could also be on the roof of larger buildings so was open to the elements and potential contamination. The plumbing was also kept completely seperate so hot and cold water ran into and around the house in seperate pipes, for health and hygene reasons. Now most houses are built with combination boilers that heat water on demand so there is no standing water and therefore no risk to health so mixer taps are commonly installed. Even though older buildings may now have combination boilers the plumbing still exists in a two pipe system so often two seperate taps remain. . . . . . . . oh and always get fish and chips from a fish and chip shop, it is not the same if you get it from a pub or restaurant 🙂