Kilowatt

Now there is a word I never thought would be in my (almost) daily vocabulary! It wasn't until winter hit us that it even entered my mouth! I had to look up the definition just so I could post it and tell you my story about the kilowatt..so straight from Wikipedia-

Kilowatt

The kilowatt (symbol: kW), equal to one thousand watts, is typically used to state the power output of engines and the power consumption of tools and machines. A kilowatt is approximately equivalent to 1.34 horsepower. An electric heater with one heating element might use 1 kilowatt.

Right so apparently houses in the UK are set up for at minimum of 12 kilowatts which means you can run pretty much everything in your house all a the same time if you so desired. Not that anybody would but you can. So in Italy the houses are set up for either 3 or 6 kilowatts which means you can only run one major appliance at a time. Thank goodness we have 6 kilowatts because I think I would have killed someone by now if we only had 3! A little explaining about how our nightly routine usually goes would probably explain why I am writing this. So during the day I have one light on and the TV and probably something of electric origins for our daughter and at the moment a two bar electric heater because we have no heating in the house...but that's another story...so if I decide I want a cuppa I have to turn the heater off so I can boil the kettle or I can only wash a load of clothes but not dry a load at the same time because doing this makes the power trips out. (Laundry takes ages needless to say) Well the evening is so much more fun because at night you are obviously running more things at once. With trying to cook dinner, give the kids a bath, etc we end up having to reset the power at least 5 times EVERY night! It is driving me insane at this point! At least I know it's not like this during the summer.