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It's all about space and age of housing stock. Most of our places pre-date mass availability of washing machines.
Bigger houses, or ones with enough dead space somewhere will often have hot water tanks, but even so where space is at a premium people will sacrifice it.
For eg my folks have two medium size ones - one in an airing cupboard under the stairs in the basement next to the kitchen, the other next to it in an adjacent coal cellar. But in their road most people typically have knocked out that airing cupboard to make the room bigger and probably extend a bit combining the coal cellar. When they had their house renovated the builders and PM thought my mum was a bit odd for prioritising an airing cupboard and outside storage over having a bigger kitchen. Would have also cost more, so they weren't the most objective, but still shows the trend.
What do you do in apartments? Is it like the States where nicer blocks have a communal set in the basement and less nice ones you go to a laundrette? Fucking hated having to spend $5 to wash anything regardless of size.
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Also, having a dryer isn’t considered a necessity - i think more people have them these days but still plenty don’t. The climate means you can just about get away with drying clothes outside late spring - autumn. For the winters people without - dry clothes on airers (hanging and standing) near radiators or wherever is least obtrusive).
Larger Victorian housing stock (and older) might have space for what we call a ‘utility room’ for laundry/boilers etc historically might have been the pantry / coal store etc . The 1930s and invention / expansion of the metropolitan train/tube lines out of cities towards countryside gave rise to the ‘suburbs’ as we know them now. Swathes of pattern book- 3 bed houses in pairs or quartets (semi detached ) typically approx 50m2 footprints with small garden front and larger at rear. Separated by alleyways of approx 2m. These were built before boilers / central heating was the norm - so these systems are typically retro fitted with a boiler in the kitchen and tank in the loft. Boiler tech was more widely available come the 60s I think. And later (90s. ? ) combi boilers replaced the old fashioned ‘inefficient’ idea of having a big tank of hot water in the loft that would run out (because at this point people are no longer having one bath shared between the family per day but using power showers.
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What gets me about Canada (and the US) is the size of the things! I assume the logic was that laundry was all done at once so you would have the drier running while the washer was doing the next load.
But the fact they put huge ones in two bed apartments, that are also top loaders so wreck your clothes...it totally baffles me.
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hugo7
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@davidual
Fascinating thread.
UK construction is very different from Canada where I live.
Do you use hot water on demand heaters everywhere? I have a big tank in my basement for the whole house.
Laundry in the kitchen is a good idea. One unit that does both wash and dry? We usually put a separate washer and dryer in the basement or in a passage from garage to house.