Gas kettle

Up at the ME club we have two kettles for making tea (we drink a lot). One of them has fins on the underneath and boils much more quickly than the other. Anyone know where I can get one from, I've tried the usual suspects Argos etc. All an attempt to reduce our energy bill at home.

They are out there. Here is one example, but not very efficient on the pocket for purchase!!

PRICEY!
 

Cheaper but secondhand

Another

Wide and shallow with a small flame, and fire-proof insulation above, might be the best attributes you could look for?

Edited By not done it yet on 04/09/2022 17:14:17

This might be it :-

TurboPot FreshAir Kettle

In the winter, the heat that passes the kettle is not wasted, but helps to keep the room warm. I would think that a plastic bodied electric kettle would be most energy efficient, though.

Duncan, not sure where you are in Cheshire, but if you search for Copper Kettle on ebay at the moment, there's a couple for collection only in Manchester somewhere; 7 days to run.

Lots more is you vary the search term a bit.

Bill

Got some copper strip, silver solder and a torch?

Currently a KWh of gas energy is a third the cost of a KWh of electric energy, so from now on a gas kettle gets my vote. Dave W

Dave,

Leccy only three times that of gas? Mine is currently 32.3p versus7.28p. That is almost 4 1/2 times for me. We are on E7, so I suspect the capped unit rate may be cheaper for me when the winter months arrive. I will await the revised unit costings before deciding to change my tariff.

The scoundrels are already trying to increase my monthly debit by a factor of about 2 1/2 - even though I am currently in credit to the tune of a couple hundred quid. That will not wash, for sure.

I think my average unit cost is between 22p and 25p at the moment - depending on the split bewtween day and night units used.

I'm not paying £300 for a kettle, and domestic authority wouldn't accept second hand. All the more reasonably priced ones have aluminium in their construction, so not keen on that.

Thanks for the replies anyway. Normal gas kettles are only about 30% efficient, electric much higher, so in summer when you don't want the waste heat in the room it's not much different cost wise, and electric switch themselves off, so probably cheaper in our chaotic house. Come winter I might think again and get a normal inefficient gas one. As for making one, we'll I've got a vertical boiler I could stand on the stove, but can you imagine SWMBO coping with that?

The concept of the 'kelly kettle' might work without the base unit but I couldn't see just the kettle part being sold as a spare. A more extensive search might find similar rival offerings.

pgk

Duncan

I think you might improve your search results if you include the word stove

… it only took me a few moments to find this: **LINK**

https://picclick.co.uk/Vintage-LW-quick-boil-copper-kettle-gas-253612449096.html

… which, I suspect, may be the type that your club uses.

MichaelG.

.

Edit: __ useful historical notes here:

 https://oldcopper.org/makers/e_v_wilkes.php

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 05/09/2022 06:57:01

Perhaps it's about time someone invented low temperature tea. What about steeping the leaves in ethonol to release the volatiles and then adding water at 70°C that should get you somewhere round a 40% reduction in heating costs.

regards Martin

I bought a camping kettle with fins at the bottom, it’s supposed to use up to 30% less gas. Lots on Amazon with capacities from 1L to 1.6L, there may be larger ones?

Thanks again, but most of these links are to either second hand, which won't get domestic approval, or aluminium, which won't get mine (remember the aluminium in the water supply incident many years ago)

Well you’ve already baulked at price, Duncan … so I suggest you just go to Tesco and buy a nice functional black plastic Electric Jug Kettle for £13 like we did.

MichaelG.

We use a Kellie type kettle ( not kellie, but locally made so not a known name ) - I see there is a Ghillie kettle, made in the UK - it is really efficient! The UK one is Al, while the Kellie seems available in SS as well.

You have to make the fire, so carbon emissions, etc, but I use small twigs, leaves, etc, that are really dry, lying around on the ground in the bush etc.

3 large cups of water boils in 7 minutes from when the match is struck, with a large handful of twigs.. Smoke emits for the first minute or less, and if the fuel is really dry, smoke for 10-15sec only.

Not great in the clubhouse tea room...but it really works well!

To boil 290cm3^ (a small mug, filled to the brim), my smart meter virtually always records 0.07kWh. A 1kW electric kettle takes a few seconds less than 2 minutes to boil the same volume.

You can work out the cost for each. Natural gas is much the cheaper energy source.

I hate this forum. I've just composed a reply to NDIY, during writing the forum logged me out, so when I posted it lost the reply. Grrrrr

Start again, this time in a text editor to keep it out of the evil clutches of the forum software.
NDIY's info is very useful. Assuming the electric kettle takes 110 seconds it uses 0.03 kWhr. To raise 290 cc of water from 20C to boiling takes 0.027 kWhr, so the elec kettle is ~90% efficient, about what you'd expect, you have to heat the kettle itself and it will lose a little to the outside world whilst it heats up. The gas kettle is 39% efficient, higher than I expected. As gas is so much cheaper than elec, I'd save 0.4p on every cup. I can get a stainless kettle for £14, so 3500 cups of tea. In our house that won't take too long, certainly less than 5 years. In winter the 'waste' heat won't be wasted anyway, it will heat the room. Look out Argos, I'm on my way. Just a pity I can't find the more efficient one at a sensible price.

Knowing my luck the latest PM will cut the link twixt gas and elec prices, after all nuclear and renewables shouldn't have gone up at all, so my financial wizardry will come crashing down.

Edited By duncan webster on 05/09/2022 18:48:57