teakettle wars

[linzzay]

Folks at Bread & Roses drink a lot of tea and coffee. Until I showed up, they've been heating the water in a glass coffee carafe (think drip coffee containers) over the gas stove. It takes FOREVER. I have an electric teakettle, purchased promptly after I arrived home from abroad - how could I live without it?? So I presented the teakettle with

Comments

[ravenedgewalker]

!!!! electric kettles are part of everyday life over here! one of the first gifts presented to a student on leaving home and totally indispensible. I was very confused in the US when I realised very few people have them....

I can remember doing sums in physics to show their efficiency, but have no idea as to linkies.

if they are concerned about the plastic - nice stainless steel ones are avaliable!

one of their good points are that the are fairly unbreakable and last for years (mine is 10 yrs plus) - glass carafs break often, and thus they're pretty economical that way. Also they are designed for heating water, and thus have much better insulation than glass - and thus more economical to heat up (less heat escaping out the sides/top etc etc!

[ravenedgewalker]

http://www.nhsdirect.wales.nhs.uk/kwtw/index.aspx?id=51

there are several UK sites that advise using an electric kettle to boil water rather than on a stove.

I belive there is also a rather fancy eco-kettle somewhere that saves even more energy.

[linzzay]

do they ever compare to a gas stove though? I'll believe that electric stoves are inefficient but the calculations I did showed that the gas stove is energy efficient when you compare joules to joules.

But then again it's been awhile since i did calculations of this nature. I may be way off.

[chiashurb]

Here's a simple experiment. Turn on the gas burner. Put the glass decanter on the burner. Now put your hand two inches away from it, off to the side. Hot, eh? That's energy that's heating your house, not the water.

Now do the same with your electric tea kettle. Probably substantially less hot. Ergo, the energy consumed by the electric kettle is going into heating the water, not the air.

Not a whole lot to say about the effects of heating water in plastic besides that it's food-grade, heat-rated plastic and they should consider peaking out from under their tinfoil hats now and again.

[linzzay]

the powers of observation would support the teakettle over the carafe. but apparently there's a significant difference between the energy used with a gas stove vs. electric teakettle, if my calculations and assumptions are right. Help!

[plantedbasharei]

I concur.

[ravenedgewalker]

hmmmm I expect there is also differences in whether you're boiling an entire ketttle of water or enough for a mug, whether the gas and or electricity is from 'green sources' - often we can get electricity from green sources, but obviously not gas. don't know what its like in the US.

[linzzay]

ironically, we're not getting any of our energy from wind yet here... apparently the debate of which wind company to purchase from has delayed the actual purchase of wind power by about 6 months.

The quantity may matter... I'll do a time trial on a cup of water next.