Could hob ketles make a come back? 12 January at 9:38AM in In my home (includes DIY) MoneySaving 51 replies 1.7K views

TELLIT01

I wonder how long a Quooker tap would have to be used for boiling water before it pays for itself.

DullGreyGuy

waqasahmed said:
 the cheapest induction hob is at least £700, and you can't do temperature control either bless you spend around £1500 on a non integrated venting solution, and double that if you want integrated venting

Think you need to recheck the price of hobs... AO have 63 models under £550 let alone under £700. Not saying the ones for £169 are any good but they do exist.

Not sure how many have temp control kettles or use them. If you are wanting 97C water rather than 100C its not hard to boil and let it reduce 3C

FreeBear

Doozergirl said:

FreeBear said:

Section62 said: Electric kettles are about as close to 100% efficient as you are likely to get, and since they don't use gas, replacement of these with stovetop kettles isn't going to reduce energy consumption by a significant degree.

Have an induction hob here. If I need boiling water (for say potatoes or pasta), I'll use the kettle rather than the hob. Maybe not as quick, but it is a little more energy efficient.

Surely the energy needed to boil the water is the same, regardless?  

There are losses in the electric gubbins inside the hob as well as losses in transferring the energy to the pan via the induction process. You probably get 80-85% efficiency which is a lot higher than gas or a ceramic/halogen hob.

DullGreyGuy said:

waqasahmed said:
 the cheapest induction hob is at least £700, and you can't do temperature control either bless you spend around £1500 on a non integrated venting solution, and double that if you want integrated venting

Think you need to recheck the price of hobs... AO have 63 models under £550 let alone under £700. Not saying the ones for £169 are any good but they do exist.

Got a cheap C&L hob from B&Q for £90 (winter sale). Plenty good enough for me. Bought one for my niece for her new house, and she is loving it.

twopenny

I've got a gas hob and I was thinking about this.
But like everyone convenience of the electric and design so you don't get steam when pouring is making me lazy.
Need to slow down life a bit and not do several things at once.

Coffeekup

Chiming in on this thread... I'm going to renovate my kitchen this year hopefully. Currently have a gas hob and was looking at replacing it with another gas hob.
I then got wind of induction hobs, being as controllable as gas (which is plus for me as I cook most meals from scratch), however boiling kettle with water was quicker and used less energy than an electric kettle, also with prices of gas and electric it costs similar amounts to boil according to some.

I also looked up at getting a quooker tap thing I read somewhere (can't find where now) it uses quite a bit of electric. I'm also concerned about how much it costs to fix if it has a problem.

Anyone who has the above like to guide me which is the way forward.?

Ganga

ThisIsWeird said:

Doozergirl said:

FreeBear said:

Section62 said: Electric kettles are about as close to 100% efficient as you are likely to get, and since they don't use gas, replacement of these with stovetop kettles isn't going to reduce energy consumption by a significant degree.

Have an induction hob here. If I need boiling water (for say potatoes or pasta), I'll use the kettle rather than the hob. Maybe not as quick, but it is a little more energy efficient.

Surely the energy needed to boil the water is the same, regardless?  

Probably a slight difference, as induction hobs won't transfer all their energy to the kettle (small induction gap), and also has to heat the water via the skin of the kettle, rather than by an element which I presume is in closer proximity to the water.

Anyhoo, "I still love my kettle with the dragon whistle..." aren't you impressed that we ignored that bait? :-)

But you did not 

waqasahmed

DullGreyGuy said:

waqasahmed said:
 the cheapest induction hob is at least £700, and you can't do temperature control either bless you spend around £1500 on a non integrated venting solution, and double that if you want integrated venting

Think you need to recheck the price of hobs... AO have 63 models under £550 let alone under £700. Not saying the ones for £169 are any good but they do exist.

Not sure how many have temp control kettles or use them. If you are wanting 97C water rather than 100C its not hard to boil and let it reduce 3C

Didn't realise they were even cheaper. It also looks like the induction hobs on range cookers aren't amazing, in comparison to what you can buy separately for cheaper too

People tend to do temperature control stuff for hot drinks where they might heat to 90C or 85C. That's where the difference matters 

DullGreyGuy

Coffeekup said:

I then got wind of induction hobs, being as controllable as gas (which is plus for me as I cook most meals from scratch), however boiling kettle with water was quicker and used less energy than an electric kettle, also with prices of gas and electric it costs similar amounts to boil according to some.

Ultimately it depends what model you get but the controllable thing for me was all 4 "burners" are equal power so moving a pot from front to back is really easy as you just set it to 6.5 and know it'll be the same. With gas the front and rear burners were different sizes so you had to guesstimate how much higher to set the smaller back burner than the front large burner.

As to kettle -v- hob... for electric usage it's going to be a tight call... nether device is 100% efficient and so it can come down to individual models etc. If you have a hardwired hob however they will be more powerful and so quicker than a kettle (for the same price of boiling). 

waqasahmed said:
People tend to do temperature control stuff for hot drinks where they might heat to 90C or 85C. That's where the difference matters 

I know the theory, the question was in practice how many people actually have and use a variable temp kettle? I can only think of one person that has one and when I asked how much they use it they said its never been off 100C (though they have an integrated bean to cup machine for coffee so it presumably sets its own preferred temp.

rach_k

I would happily replace my gas hob with a good induction one and then get rid of the electric kettle.  Several years ago, we redid the kitchen and I opted for gas just because I'd always heard that it's better, but then I've since used decent induction hobs and they are so clean and efficient that I regret not researching more. 

We do have a coffee machine so the electric kettle is just for tea and boiling water to start off things like pasta as gas can be slow to get things boiling.  I'd happily reclaim the kettle space on the worksurface and there is something nice about having an old fashioned kettle on the hob, even if the hob isn't old fashioned!

FFHillbilly

TELLIT01 said:

I wonder how long a Quooker tap would have to be used for boiling water before it pays for itself.

depends how we are measuring, in terms of money or convenience, or both? 
the energy use is realistically either the same or worse no matter what they say, so a very long time that way, and they will probably break before they get anywhere near payback...
but in terms of convenience, probably pay back in a week.