Comment by Maxion
2 days ago
As with most things, I think there's multiple things. US home also tend to be larger, meaning the hot water line is longer from the tank to the shower. Most americans I know tend to leve the shower running before they get in so it "warms up". I've never been in a European shower that's required that.
Not just the bigger homes, from what I can tell in US home construction the length of the hot water pipe isn't a consideration at all, while it is a common consideration in European homes. In Europe (vast overgeneralization incoming) it's not unusual to have a boiler or a tankless water heater directly in the bathroom to keep the line short, and then have the kitchen close by. Having multiple water heaters per home is also completely normal and a common solution if the kitchen is too far from the bathroom or multiple bathrooms are far from each other. In the US the norm seems to be to just stick a big boiler in the basement or somewhere else out of the way, then run hot water lines everywhere. Maybe in part due to the added effort of running 220V lines in a 110V country