My new electric kettle

Of course, and contrary to some claims on here, the boiling point of water isn’t always 100C.

Depending on your altitude above sea level, your kettle may actually be cheaper to run the higher you go.

But the water there wouldn’t be as hot as you would like it.

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That depends on how hot you like it.

Why do kettles turn off? Steam or temperature?

Good question.

On the top of Mount Everest ?

Yes. Have you never watched the Telegoons?

Fictional characters I imagine.

Who cares?
As long as I get my coffee first thing in the morning, the rest will follow :+1:

Entirely true. I quite like the water in my kettle to be just right in terms of not scolding the instant coffee granules. A friend of ours insists that we use a microwave to heat the milk we’re going to stir into it when she comes round.

I’ve not kept a close eye on how things vary depending on one’s height above sea level, nor indeed how weather related atmospheric pressure affects things.

Perhaps we can find some way to record our personal experiences for the purposes of scientific research?

In these days of trying to save money on energy, it seems pertinent to ask whether plastic electric kettles are more efficient than metal electric kettles.

One would have thought that the heat conductivity of metal would lead to the cooling effect of the ambient surroundings requiring greater heat loss from the water, which means that more fuel would be needed to get things up to temperature.

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You must be one hell of a laugh at a village fete!

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People come from miles around…:grin::rofl::rofl:

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I agree.

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Can one get electric kettles which also have a vacuum flask design incorporated? This would surely make sense in terms of not having to reheat residual water quite so much.

I think it is a bi-metallic strip in kettles but I discovered (by taking a broken one apart) that a rice cooker uses the decay of magnetism with temperature to switch off. However there is bigger, quicker rise in temp when the water boils away in the rice cooker which you don’t get in kettles.

So I would go with the bi-metal strip idea however I did discover that it takes slightly longer to operate if the kettle lid is left open, it still operates but boiled furiously for longer with the lid iopen but I still don’t think pressure is the operating factor.

However I haven’t taken a kettle to pieces to check.

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My Sunbeam kettle is metal but is stainless steel which is actually a poor conductor of heat. It is the first kettle I have bought where the element isn’t surrounded by the water.

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Is the element under a plate at the bottom?

Our cheap stainless steel Tesco kettle has a concealed element.

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Yep,
That’s the type

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I recall being able to purchase and thus replace a kettle’s element fairly easily. Haven’t even bothered looking to see if this is possible anymore. Wonder how the element is attached to that base plate, and whether it would be economically or indeed physically viable to replace it?

Guess I’ll have to wait for my kettle to bust before I get a chance to see.