7 ms·

This seemed like a wild claim (2500 watts for a tea kettle!? As much as a microwave oven in full blast?) so I looked it up. Wow.

maldie 2y ago
Interesting what power do microwaves in US deliver. In EU the regular micros are about 900W range give or take 200W (that is 1500W from wall because microwaves are not efficient machines) but kettles have usually range 2200..3000. So it is obvious why everyone uses kettles. I myselft have 3kW one and it heats 0.35 litres to boiling in 51 seconds. To have similar microwave it would have to be 3000W micro that is 4500W from wall and have not seen that kind of monsters, also regular 1 phase EU socket delivers max 3600W so that limits it also.
- cwillu 2y ago
  Standard wall outlet in the US is 15 amps, so a maximum of 1800 watts. 20 amp outlets (which can supply 2400 watts) are getting common, but I've seen very few home appliances that actually use the extra amperage (as determined by having a plug keyed for such an outlet).
- yencabulator 2y ago
  A typical US microwave draws 900-1100 watts too. I can't even find a 2000-watt microwave listed for sale in the usual consumer places. That'd be like a "pro chef" level luxury item, likely needing beefier electrical wiring and so on. US electric code requires a dedicated 20-amp circuit for microwave, which isn't supposed to serve a 2000-watt load.
- ClumsyPilot 2y ago
  > it is obvious why everyone uses kettles. I myselft have 3kW one and it heats 0.35 litres to boiling in 51 seconds. Wh? It’s definitely less hassle, and maybe faster, to fill a cup/mug and stick that in the microwave Than it is to fill a cup, pour that into the kettle, boil it, then pour it back in the cup. Or you have to put more water into the kettle than you need, because you can’t measure it accurateLet, and then it takes longer to boil
porknubbins 2y ago
Brits don’t mess around with tea I guess. I believe they’re mostly on 240v even for residential there. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think it would even be possible to heat water that fast in the US on 120v.
- edscho 2y ago
  Correct, it takes about twice as long to boil a kettle in the US. But the US is the anomaly here. Most countries use 220-240V mains like Britain [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country#Table_of_mains_voltages,_frequencies,_and_plugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country#T...
  - donw 2y ago
    Technically, the US does as well. You have 240 V at the panel, but you only run half for each common circuit.
    - grundrausch3n 2y ago
      Technically basically all buildings in Germany (residential and commercial) run on 400V 3 phase power. But access to it via sockets is only common in residential homes via sockets in a garage. It gets more common with car charging although they rather use 3 x 230V as far as I am aware of.
      - viernullvier 2y ago
        Fun fact: 400V 3-phase and 3x 230V are the very same thing. You'll get 230V AC between Neutral and each of the three phases, but the AC voltage between two of the phases will actually be 400V.
      - ponector 2y ago
        I'm living in apartment block built in 2016 in eastern EU and here every apartment has a separate 3 phase(5 pin) socket for the stove. It is a 7kw beast, it can easily destroy regular aluminum-steel pan if you put it on max heat. Steel part will fall apart.
ruined 2y ago
british household AC is wild, it's like they've got a full-power american range plug for every outlet
- gambiting 2y ago
  And because nearly every single house in UK is wired for single phase only, your connection to the grid is usually rated at 80-100amps(so a regular British home can draw around ~20kW on a single phase).
- beAbU 2y ago
  Not just UK, the whole world except North America and Japan. South african plugs are rated 16A @240V. Thats a safe 3.5kW at each and every plug socket in the house.
  - cesarb 2y ago
    > Not just UK, the whole world except North America and Japan. Brazil is also an exception. The standard socket is only 10A (with a 20A alternative for things like air conditioners), and the voltages vary depending on the city (and the building, and location within the building); you might have 110V, 115V, 127V, 220V, 230V, and perhaps others I have missed (I went in more detail about it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40385851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40385851). I live in a 127V/220V area, so my single-phase sockets are 10A @ 127V, for a total of only 1.3kW each.
    - beAbU 2y ago
      So it's pretty normal for a "230v" plug to actually be anything between 220v and 240v. Voltages fluctuated pretty wide depending on location. It's all down to the loca transformers. But mixing 100s of volts with 200s of volts sounds mad. I presume you had the special plug for your 200 range outlets? Does Brazil also have split phase AC like the US?
      - cesarb 2y ago
brianpan 2y ago
The back of the envelope comparison isn't difficult. The energy in different forms are doing the same thing. Doesn't your microwave heat a cup of water in about the same amount of time as a tea kettle? And most tea kettles are bigger than one cup. Now, think about concentrating the same amount of energy to heat up your eyeball. Or worse, concentrated into a tiny point on your eyeball.
swiftcoder 2y ago
I recently bought a 3500 watt electric kettle out of the bargain bin in LIDL, for around 20 euros. Europeans do not mess around when it comes to hot beverages
- nottorp 2y ago
  Yeah funny, i was going to say 2.5 kW kettles are a britishism and the ones on continental europe are weaker... ... but then i checked my eastern european kettle and guess what, it's ... 2.4 kW.
sho 2y ago
It's actually only americans who unaccountably make do with these horribly underpowered kettles. The rest of the world wants their tea and they want it now...
- gcanyon 2y ago
  Technology Connections did an excellent video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c tl;dw -- kettles in the U.S. only take about 4+ minutes to boil a liter of water. So when you say "now" you really mean it.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    I just nuke a mug of water for a minute or two when I'm making instant coffee. I never understood the big deal about electric kettles.
    - subpub47 2y ago
      Electric kettles make it easy to pour for pour over.
    - harshreality 2y ago
      A water kettle lets you consistently heat water to the same temperature (not just boiling, high-end kettles have additional temperature options), regardless of: - Amount of water - Initial temperature of water - Position of water container They also prevent superheated water accidents.
      - specialist 2y ago
        Yes and: Kettles are much easier to clean than microwave (interiors).
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        Boiling water in a microwave does not make the microwave dirtier.
OJFord 2y ago
Higher, that would be quite an extraordinary microwave (probably too high) - 800W to 1kW at maximum typically. (I use mine mostly on the 90W or 180W settings, for defrosting.)
eru 2y ago
> This seemed like a wild claim (2500 watts for a tea kettle!? As much as a microwave oven in full blast?) so I looked it up. Wow. Almost all household appliances that heat (and specifically heat food or water) will operate at the limit of what your house can supply. So that's about 1800 Watt in the US and about 3500 Watt in most of the rest of the world. It's only natural that you see almost any (heating) appliance cluster around these numbers. (I'm actually not quite sure where you would see 2500 Watt kettles. Perhaps some are deliberately neutered a bit, so that you don't blow a fuse in case you have anything else on that circuit? Keep in mind that in the UK, but not in eg France or Germany, every plug also has its own fuse.)
- ljf 2y ago
  I found it odd that in the US most home brewers don't use electric, but as you say they are limited by the elements they can use. Here in the UK, my home brew beer set up has a 3000w option - great for boiling 25 litres of water/wort - that said it came with a EU plug with some sort of 'fancy' UK plug convertor. After about 4 years the plug started to get so hot that it melted a socket or two - I found that inside the convertor the connection between the EU plug and the UK was really thin, which was causing it to heat up. I cut off the end of the cable and rewired it to a heavy duty UK plug - it has been perfect since then - and no longer over heats.
  - eru 2y ago
    > I found it odd that in the US most home brewers don't use electric, but as you say they are limited by the elements they can use. Yes, but you still see electric space heaters. And they essentially all also have the same wattage: the limit of what they can get.
  - sgarland 2y ago
    Electric is growing in popularity. It’s not overly expensive (compared to the cost of the gear, anyway) to get a dedicated 30A or 50A 240V circuit installed; or you can brew next to your washer/dryer, since there is nearly always a 240V circuit available there.

maldie 2y ago

Interesting what power do microwaves in US deliver. In EU the regular micros are about 900W range give or take 200W (that is 1500W from wall because microwaves are not efficient machines) but kettles have usually range 2200..3000. So it is obvious why everyone uses kettles. I myselft have 3kW one and it heats 0.35 litres to boiling in 51 seconds. To have similar microwave it would have to be 3000W micro that is 4500W from wall and have not seen that kind of monsters, also regular 1 phase EU socket delivers max 3600W so that limits it also.

cwillu 2y ago
Standard wall outlet in the US is 15 amps, so a maximum of 1800 watts. 20 amp outlets (which can supply 2400 watts) are getting common, but I've seen very few home appliances that actually use the extra amperage (as determined by having a plug keyed for such an outlet).
yencabulator 2y ago
A typical US microwave draws 900-1100 watts too. I can't even find a 2000-watt microwave listed for sale in the usual consumer places. That'd be like a "pro chef" level luxury item, likely needing beefier electrical wiring and so on. US electric code requires a dedicated 20-amp circuit for microwave, which isn't supposed to serve a 2000-watt load.
ClumsyPilot 2y ago
> it is obvious why everyone uses kettles. I myselft have 3kW one and it heats 0.35 litres to boiling in 51 seconds. Wh? It’s definitely less hassle, and maybe faster, to fill a cup/mug and stick that in the microwave Than it is to fill a cup, pour that into the kettle, boil it, then pour it back in the cup. Or you have to put more water into the kettle than you need, because you can’t measure it accurateLet, and then it takes longer to boil

porknubbins 2y ago

Brits don’t mess around with tea I guess. I believe they’re mostly on 240v even for residential there. Correct me if I’m wrong but I don’t think it would even be possible to heat water that fast in the US on 120v.

edscho 2y ago
Correct, it takes about twice as long to boil a kettle in the US. But the US is the anomaly here. Most countries use 220-240V mains like Britain [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country#Table_of_mains_voltages,_frequencies,_and_plugs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country#T...
- donw 2y ago
  Technically, the US does as well. You have 240 V at the panel, but you only run half for each common circuit.
  - grundrausch3n 2y ago
    Technically basically all buildings in Germany (residential and commercial) run on 400V 3 phase power. But access to it via sockets is only common in residential homes via sockets in a garage. It gets more common with car charging although they rather use 3 x 230V as far as I am aware of.
    - viernullvier 2y ago
      Fun fact: 400V 3-phase and 3x 230V are the very same thing. You'll get 230V AC between Neutral and each of the three phases, but the AC voltage between two of the phases will actually be 400V.
    - ponector 2y ago
      I'm living in apartment block built in 2016 in eastern EU and here every apartment has a separate 3 phase(5 pin) socket for the stove. It is a 7kw beast, it can easily destroy regular aluminum-steel pan if you put it on max heat. Steel part will fall apart.

ruined 2y ago

british household AC is wild, it's like they've got a full-power american range plug for every outlet

gambiting 2y ago
And because nearly every single house in UK is wired for single phase only, your connection to the grid is usually rated at 80-100amps(so a regular British home can draw around ~20kW on a single phase).
beAbU 2y ago
Not just UK, the whole world except North America and Japan. South african plugs are rated 16A @240V. Thats a safe 3.5kW at each and every plug socket in the house.
- cesarb 2y ago
  > Not just UK, the whole world except North America and Japan. Brazil is also an exception. The standard socket is only 10A (with a 20A alternative for things like air conditioners), and the voltages vary depending on the city (and the building, and location within the building); you might have 110V, 115V, 127V, 220V, 230V, and perhaps others I have missed (I went in more detail about it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40385851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40385851). I live in a 127V/220V area, so my single-phase sockets are 10A @ 127V, for a total of only 1.3kW each.
  - beAbU 2y ago
    So it's pretty normal for a "230v" plug to actually be anything between 220v and 240v. Voltages fluctuated pretty wide depending on location. It's all down to the loca transformers. But mixing 100s of volts with 200s of volts sounds mad. I presume you had the special plug for your 200 range outlets? Does Brazil also have split phase AC like the US?
    - cesarb 2y ago

brianpan 2y ago

The back of the envelope comparison isn't difficult. The energy in different forms are doing the same thing. Doesn't your microwave heat a cup of water in about the same amount of time as a tea kettle? And most tea kettles are bigger than one cup. Now, think about concentrating the same amount of energy to heat up your eyeball. Or worse, concentrated into a tiny point on your eyeball.

swiftcoder 2y ago

I recently bought a 3500 watt electric kettle out of the bargain bin in LIDL, for around 20 euros. Europeans do not mess around when it comes to hot beverages

nottorp 2y ago
Yeah funny, i was going to say 2.5 kW kettles are a britishism and the ones on continental europe are weaker... ... but then i checked my eastern european kettle and guess what, it's ... 2.4 kW.

sho 2y ago

It's actually only americans who unaccountably make do with these horribly underpowered kettles. The rest of the world wants their tea and they want it now...

gcanyon 2y ago
Technology Connections did an excellent video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yMMTVVJI4c tl;dw -- kettles in the U.S. only take about 4+ minutes to boil a liter of water. So when you say "now" you really mean it.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  I just nuke a mug of water for a minute or two when I'm making instant coffee. I never understood the big deal about electric kettles.
  - subpub47 2y ago
    Electric kettles make it easy to pour for pour over.
  - harshreality 2y ago
    A water kettle lets you consistently heat water to the same temperature (not just boiling, high-end kettles have additional temperature options), regardless of: - Amount of water - Initial temperature of water - Position of water container They also prevent superheated water accidents.
    - specialist 2y ago
      Yes and: Kettles are much easier to clean than microwave (interiors).
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        Boiling water in a microwave does not make the microwave dirtier.

OJFord 2y ago

Higher, that would be quite an extraordinary microwave (probably too high) - 800W to 1kW at maximum typically. (I use mine mostly on the 90W or 180W settings, for defrosting.)

eru 2y ago

> This seemed like a wild claim (2500 watts for a tea kettle!? As much as a microwave oven in full blast?) so I looked it up. Wow. Almost all household appliances that heat (and specifically heat food or water) will operate at the limit of what your house can supply. So that's about 1800 Watt in the US and about 3500 Watt in most of the rest of the world. It's only natural that you see almost any (heating) appliance cluster around these numbers. (I'm actually not quite sure where you would see 2500 Watt kettles. Perhaps some are deliberately neutered a bit, so that you don't blow a fuse in case you have anything else on that circuit? Keep in mind that in the UK, but not in eg France or Germany, every plug also has its own fuse.)

ljf 2y ago
I found it odd that in the US most home brewers don't use electric, but as you say they are limited by the elements they can use. Here in the UK, my home brew beer set up has a 3000w option - great for boiling 25 litres of water/wort - that said it came with a EU plug with some sort of 'fancy' UK plug convertor. After about 4 years the plug started to get so hot that it melted a socket or two - I found that inside the convertor the connection between the EU plug and the UK was really thin, which was causing it to heat up. I cut off the end of the cable and rewired it to a heavy duty UK plug - it has been perfect since then - and no longer over heats.
- eru 2y ago
  > I found it odd that in the US most home brewers don't use electric, but as you say they are limited by the elements they can use. Yes, but you still see electric space heaters. And they essentially all also have the same wattage: the limit of what they can get.
- sgarland 2y ago
  Electric is growing in popularity. It’s not overly expensive (compared to the cost of the gear, anyway) to get a dedicated 30A or 50A 240V circuit installed; or you can brew next to your washer/dryer, since there is nearly always a 240V circuit available there.