Could hob ketles make a come back?

waqasahmed

Doozergirl said:

waqasahmed said:

in_my_wellies said:

I've never owned a fast electric kettle.

In the winter I use the top of the wood burner if it's on or the gas hob. I can always find something to do, like empty the washing machine or the dishwasher, whilst it boils so I guess I don't notice the extra time it takes. 

In the summer I use a low powered kettle to make use of the solar. 

I'd never heard of a Quooker 

Tbf despite having a thermomix as an all in one multi cooker device thing, I mostly do use it for the kettle, largely because I boil the kettle about three times a day 

The thermomix is considerably slower at boiling a kettle, which helps when it comes to the solar panels. I won't care when I've got more batteries though 

I use it to make hot chocolate on warm up mode.  I left the butterfly whisk in when attempting to blend on power 8 this morning to give it a bit of froth.   It looks surprisingly good, considering.  🤦🏼‍♀️ 

Decent. I'll absolutely use the higher power ones when I've got more batteries (Though apparently induction cookers aren't great with batteries) 

dashnine

Just bumping this as have just installed an induction hob and heard that boiling water with a hob kettle maybe more efficient than an electric kettle.  I was looking to buy a new kettle anyway, and have the induction hob already (it certainly wasn't installed on cost justification grounds just to boil water, I mean really...).  Some of the figures / statements in the thread appear to be pulled out of thin air, so have been looking for some empirical numbers to prove which is more efficient (cheaper really, if an induction hob is quicker compared to the kettle that's not really that important).

I found some website commonly stating a kettle is approximatey 80% efficient, and the induction hob 85% efficient, but with no evidence of how those figures were achieved.  One page, but from the US in 2016 I did find had some test results, showing 71% for the kettle and 83% for the hob. (https://insideenergy.org/2016/02/23/boiling-water-ieq/#:~:text=Electric%20kettles%20are%20generally%20very,very%20little%20to%20the%20air).

Anyone got anything more related to actual numbers for the comparison rather than theories and guesses?

NeverTooLate

Just boil the same amount of water in both, time it, check energy rating & calculate accordingly?

dashnine

NeverTooLate said:

Just boil the same amount of water in both, time it, check energy rating & calculate accordingly?

Absolutely, I plan to do so and thought I see what the Smart meter display shows as well over and above the standing rate at the time, but someone must have done this before…

flo22

I did this when I got my induction (a single plug in one) with a plug that monitors power usage.  I have an expensive glass walled kettle and a cheap plastic kettle.  The expensive glass walled kettle was the most expensive at 3p for half litre, followed by the cheap plastic kettle 2p with the induction whistle kettle also 2p.  As far a timings then the cheap plastic kettle was the fastest followed by the induction then the expensive kettle.

Based on this I got rid of the glass walled kettle and either use the whistle kettle on the induction of the cheap plastic kettle depending on what I'm boiling water for.

Incidentally my pod coffee machine was 1p for a cuppa

dashnine

flo22 said:

I did this when I got my induction (a single plug in one) with a plug that monitors power usage.  I have an expensive glass walled kettle and a cheap plastic kettle.  The expensive glass walled kettle was the most expensive at 3p for half litre, followed by the cheap plastic kettle 2p with the induction whistle kettle also 2p.  As far a timings then the cheap plastic kettle was the fastest followed by the induction then the expensive kettle.

Based on this I got rid of the glass walled kettle and either use the whistle kettle on the induction of the cheap plastic kettle depending on what I'm boiling water for.

Incidentally my pod coffee machine was 1p for a cuppa

I assume this was when energy prices were lower too?

flo22

It was done 5 months ago with high energy prices

dashnine

flo22 said:

It was done 5 months ago with high energy prices

That is cheap then!

DullGreyGuy

Mistral001 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Mistral001 said:

I wonder if this is a trend that comes from across the Atlantic.  Americans mostly use hob kettles because their 110Volt system means that only appliances up to about 1500Watts can be plugged into the wall.  Our 240Volt system means that wall sockets can cope with twice that and hence  we can use 3000Watt kettles.  The Americans use the hob kettles simply because a kettle plugged into the wall socket will take ages to boil.  The hobs off course are supplied with cables that can cope with much higher power than the puny 1500Watts that their wall sockets can cope with.

Dont know about the US but in South America which is also 110v 60hz they do tend to have 240v 60hz plugs in their kitchen.. mainly designed for washing machines and other high demand devices but know some family have a kettle plugged into one

Thanks that interesting.  Are the plugs used in the kitchen different from the those elsewhere?  I believe the American plugs are fairly small and there all are limited to 1500W.

Yes, in a 120v socket the spades are parallel to each other whereas as 240v socket the spades are angled and are a 2 phase plug. Like most things in the US they are only just really adopting earth pins so you get both 3 and 4 pin versions depending on if it's earthed or not.