Why does the US use 110v and the UK use 220v?
In: Engineering
220 volts is more efficient. If the US started from scratch, we’d use it. And Europe used to use 127 volts, similar to ours.
The diffrence is the US was an earlier adopter of home appliances, things that couldn’t be converted to 220 volts. Europe fewer people had refridgerators and such early on, and the war destroyed a huge amount of buildings and electrical infrastructure, so it was possible to rebuild with the higher voltage, and introduce plugs with safety features. The experience of shocking yourself while trying to plug in a lamp reaching blindly behind the sofa doesn’t happen in Europe due to safety features like shutters, recessed design, and insulated pins.
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