Boiling water, sink supplies

You're talking about Qooker and similar?

Advert in the Sunday Times magazine was getting a close scrutiny at supper:-(

I wonder what impact hard water has.

regards

Waste of effort IMHO.

Too slow flow when you do want lots of boiling water and it hardly takes long to boil a small amount of water in a kettle that is designed to cope with a very small minimum load.

I did some sums when I first heard of them, and I agree, a kettle used carefully (fill cup from tap, empty cup into kettle) will return maximum energy efficiency.

But for instant cuppa tea convenience - and the reality that no-one but me will ever gauge the kettle contents accurately - if they live up to the advertising, I will eventually get one.

My wife insisted on having one of these, it's surprised me by actually being rather good and I'd be disappointed now if it died. Ridiculous from an economic point of view, but that is in the past. (Purchase price, that is, the running cost is not enormously different from an imperfectly used kettle).

Quooker seemed the best to me and what we went for - it's the closest to boiling point for tea, many of them are quite a bit less than boiling. Got mine from a Dutch web supplier, much cheaper.

What do you want to know?

HOW MUCH?

Really - some people must be reallly short of things to waste their money on.

Are they d-i-y able? Worth having? Hard water scale issues? Available for less than the ridiculous published price?

regards

I'll just wash my hands. Sticks hands under tap. Argh!!!!!

WTF do people want to disguise kettles as taps? If it delivers boiling water it shouldn't be disguished as something that is safe to stuck your hands underneath.

JGH

Does anyone really need boiling water that quickly? It's the equivalent of standing over a microwave shouting "hurry up!"

And the idea of making it look like a sink tap seems completely. Ok, the householders know but, given the propensity of those 'drinking water' taps in kitchens or just it's similarity to an ordinary tap, how long till someone shoves their mouth under it wanting a quick sip of water.

Much as I hate signs everywhere ("Warning: Hot water" on hot taps being annoying) I would actually want some H&S bod to impose mandatory signage for such a thing. Boiling is way worse than hot.

Mind you, the sheer volume of self promotion of something people don't need on the web page - 'vital', 'must have', 'trend setters' - will hopefully put people off.

I did some sums when I first heard of them, and I agree, a kettle used carefully (fill cup from tap, empty cup into kettle) will return maximum energy efficiency.

But for instant cuppa tea convenience - and the reality that no-one but me will ever gauge the kettle contents accurately - if they live up to the advertising, I will eventually get one.

Does anyone else remember a Gas Board TV ad back the 60s which included the line:

"And with some gas water heaters, you can even make tea, straight from the tap!"

In several recently re-fitted offices.

Hateful things. They're too cold for decent tea (good for green tea though) and the switches are horribly fiddly. They're also usually set up at cup height, meaning that you can't get a decently sized coffee pot underneath them. The worst of all were those in HP Labs, where they have some sort of safety guard wall around them, so that you can't get anything under there wider or taller than a mug.

Most have a "safety interlock" which is so awkward to use that it soon gets disabled.

Oh, if you think these are expensive, take a look at the hot / chilled combo taps.

Well if you're forced into getting something like that TLC have similar things for a mere £725 . But don't let her scroll down to the bottom of the page - "Hydro Tap Boiling and Chilled Water" for £2101.

You probably need the Anti Scale - Filter System, just another £203.00

Some of these devices claim a safety advantage with "No more dangerous kettles". Apparently the theory is that someone putting their hand underneath the flow gets it out again sharpish before too much serious damage is done but if a kettle is knocked over instantly depositing several pints of boiling water over the victim you're looking at a large area of serious scalding. Sounds like a dubious trade off between a low probability of a serious injury with the kettle against a much higher probability of a somewhat less serious one with the boiling tap.

TBH, I can't see how these things can work properly. They have a long spout, so any water in that could be near room temperature when the tap is first turned on - this would be totally unsatisfactory for making tea unless you first discharge a half-pint or so of water down the sink. Unless there's some way of magically holding the water in the spout at boiling point...

But the boiling taps might be just as wasteful of energy as an overfilled kettle considering that they keep a supply of permanently heated water in a small tank under the worktop.

Usually vented taps, which drain back. All the water in them is reservoir temperature. The "tap" is a pushbutton and solenoid to the cold fill in the base of the reservoir.

Do they work by electricity/coal/gas/oil/horse gin/nuclear energy? ;-)

Now there's an idea. A radiothermal inglenuke under the counter. Sterilises your dishwashing, too (q.v. other thread about dishwasher sand)

I killfiled that one a while ago.