Using US appliances in the UK

My husband is indeed the man who came home with the goods! Yes, I have to say that I was a little apprehensive when it comes to my darling husband buying me a coffee pot. My requirements were simple- coffee maker needs to run on 220 voltage, carafe needs to be between 10 and 12 cups and it needs to be programmable. Well he surprised me with the Braun KF590- it even has a Brita water filter-woohoo! Braun (to me) is the Kitchen Aid appliance maker of the European world! It had an entire pot of steaming hot coffee brewed in 10 minutes- no joke! Talk about awesome!

Now for my American friends coming over to England or being stationed in an any other European country. Even if your house has the built in transformer taking 220 and making it 110 your appliances WILL have a hard time with the 50/60 hertz issue. Unless our appliances are 50/60 hertz adaptable they will have a very hard time preforming in the same manner as they did state side and they will die an early death. I highly recommend putting your appliances into storage and buying new ones here. I have not replaced all of my appliances that I had put into storage, I bought the ones I can get by with. I bought a hand mixer in replacement of my stand mixer, I bought a combination Immersion Blender/food processor to replace 3 appliances- my food processor, my stick mixer (immersion blender) and my table top blender.

My poor little Kitchen Aid coffee maker that I had shipped to myself was now taking 1 hour to brew a pot of coffee that used to take 10 to 15 minutes to brew. After 6 months of near daily use I have to be honest with myself and admit that I may have ruined it- I'll find out in the autumn of 2012 when I see it again.