Non-electric Kettle

[TheGoodEarth]

How about a plain old saucepan?

[oldjerry]

Have you thought about the Tefal Quick Cup? It only boils the water you need and is very energy efficient and quick.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tefal-Quick-Cup ... 170&sr=8-3

Someone bought us one of them a couple of years ago,and for some reason, it made bloody awful tea.It was like it hadn't been boiled properly,may of just been a dodgy one.

[Thomzo]

Can't find that many on ebay. There's one currently at £174!

Crikey, I don't even think the co that makes the stupidly heavy colourful saucepans has the cheek to charge that much.

Second hand shops? You know it's going to be boiled clean after all. I bought a fab big black one years ago from Mole Valley Farmers, think they're Countrywide now.

Zoe

[wulf]

Good timing for this thread - we recently spotted that a wire had melted through the base of our electric kettle so have dug out our camping one and deciding what to do next. My inclination is to get another electric kettle but aim for a decent quality one. The comments about relative efficiency strike a chord with me - using the hob is so much slower and I am sure it is much less efficient.

Wulf

[greenorelse]

An electric kettle is not particularly efficient at boiling water in a power cut.

[wulf]

... but then neither is boiling a kettle on an electric oven. Alas, not all of us have gorgeous woodstoves like the one shown in your picture!

Wulf

[Odsox]

Talking of power cuts, that is the reason that we have a gas hob.
Raising a young family during the miner's strike of 1973 and Ted Heath imposed power cuts, some planned but a lot random, when we couldn't even make a cup of tea, or warm a baby's bottle, I vowed never again to be dependant on just one power source.
Ever since we have always had a gas hob ... bottle gas as we never lived within many miles of a gas main, and at the moment a gas oven as well as an small combination electric one.
So getting back on topic, that's the reason I have three kettles, an electric one, one for the gas hob and one for the wood burner.
Whatever happens at least I can make a cup of tea

[greenorelse]

+1 - exactly what I think and do, Odsox.

And when the gas runs out and the power is cut, there's a rocket stove...

[Susie]

The only kettle I've ever had any luck with is a horrible plastic cheapo one from Argos. It would survive a nuclear winter. Whenever I buy one that costs more than £5.99 it breaks and then I have to dig out the white plastic one again. It is against all my other experience with electrical objects but it keeps going and going so who am I to judge.

We did once have one of those chrome ones with a clear body (I was younger. I thought it looked cool). We live in an area with water so hard it just furs everything up, I boiled the clear kettle once and that was the end of it aesthetically. It hung on for a bit longer but it was never the same. At least with the cheap white one all its limescale isn't on view ;-).

[TheGoodEarth]

That is the key Susie - aesthetics! It's why people pay more money than is necessary for a functional product.