Really?

bob2302

Ildhund said:

And my last kettle-boiling-energy-saving tip: once the bubbles start rising from the bottom of the kettle, the water is at 100° and any electricity consumed after that point is simply converting water at 100° to vapour, to no advantage that I can see. 

No, the point at which the bulk of the water is at boiling point is when it stops getting louder.

wrf12345

Two and half minutes in 800W microwave, using the mug I am going to drink out of, works perfectly for me, anyone want to buy an electric kettle?

pseudodox

wrf12345 said:

Two and half minutes in 800W microwave, using the mug I am going to drink out of, works perfectly for me, anyone want to buy an electric kettle?

I never drink tea, only coffee which is spoilt if you use boiling water.  For lazy instant I put the milk and water in a mug, bung it in the microwave and 1 minute 45 seconds later stir in the coffee granules.  For filter coffee I pour however many mugs of water into the coffee maker - so not a drop is wasted.  For anything that requires me to use the electric kettle I put in just the amount of water I need - a mugful, half a pint, a litre or whatever.  For very small amounts I use a mug in the microwave.  My parents raised me not to waste money on anything - they certainly did not let me believe it would be a good idea to leave the dog watching TV!

Consensus here seems to be that people ARE stupid enought not to know that most things in life have a price unless it is spelt out to them by Nanny.  I give everyone the benefit of the doubt that they are NOT so stupid as to believe electricity or gas grows on trees.

bob2302

wrf12345 said:

Two and half minutes in 800W microwave, using the mug I am going to drink out of, works perfectly for me, anyone want to buy an electric kettle?

There is a risk of serious burns if some of the water superheats and explodes when disturbed. There's also no guarantee that all the water is raised to the same temperature.

Gerry1

wrf12345 said:

Two and half minutes in 800W microwave, using the mug I am going to drink out of, works perfectly for me, anyone want to buy an electric kettle?

Yuk !  A mouthful of tea leaves at the end... 🤢

kassy64

Gerry1 said:

kassy64 said:

I haven't got a smart meter yet, but I've read they use about £2 of energy per year themselves

Nope.  Its supply is upstream of the metering element so it won't go on your bill.

That can't be right surely? The 'in home' display is plugged in to a socket within the house, so will be billed as per any other item plugged in to a socket (unless you have one that runs on batteries in which case you need to provide cost of batteries). I understand the meter itself will be upstream but cant see how the home display (which costs £2 pa to run) can not be added to bill.

jennifernil

But you were talking about the actual smart meter in your post.

Spoonie_Turtle

kassy64 said:

Gerry1 said:

kassy64 said:

I haven't got a smart meter yet, but I've read they use about £2 of energy per year themselves

Nope.  Its supply is upstream of the metering element so it won't go on your bill.

That can't be right surely? The 'in home' display is plugged in to a socket within the house, so will be billed as per any other item plugged in to a socket (unless you have one that runs on batteries in which case you need to provide cost of batteries). I understand the meter itself will be upstream but cant see how the home display (which costs £2 pa to run) can not be added to bill.

I'd like to see the data that resulted in that conclusion.  When I measured our IHD power draw, it was less than 0.1W.  At current SVT ~25p/kWh (my region, Eastern) 0.1W power draw would cost c.22p in a year.

Netexporter

kassy64 said:

Gerry1 said:

kassy64 said:

I haven't got a smart meter yet, but I've read they use about £2 of energy per year themselves

Nope.  Its supply is upstream of the metering element so it won't go on your bill.

That can't be right surely? The 'in home' display is plugged in to a socket within the house, so will be billed as per any other item plugged in to a socket (unless you have one that runs on batteries in which case you need to provide cost of batteries). I understand the meter itself will be upstream but cant see how the home display (which costs £2 pa to run) can not be added to bill.

I've measured the power consumption on my IHD and it is less than half a watt, momentarily, and then too little to measure. So about 4kWh/annum which would cost me about 60p. As the smart meter is saving me about £600/annum, compared to SVT, I don't begrudge the minuscule "service fee". And you don't have to have the IHD switched on to save money.

FreeBear

pseudodox said: For very small amounts I use a mug in the microwave.  My parents raised me not to waste money on anything

A microwave is only some 50-66% efficient*, so using an electric kettle (at ~98% efficiency) would work out a lot cheaper for the same quantity of water.

*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven - Scroll down to Energy Consumption.