Being a 1500W kettle, it should take about 4.5 -> 5.0 minutes or so.

We purchased the cheapest UK one we saw (a mere UK 4.95 !!). It is only a 2200W kettle, yet that still makes it 50% faster than the best 1500W models over here.

Now that we've proven the concept etc.. we plan to pick up a 3000W kettle with detached contact base (a nearly-essential feature we were unaware of at the time) on the next trip over.

Cheers

A five quid kettle, hope you bought a spare as well

Heh.. we thought about that, but there's not much to them to go wrong (we hope!).

Besides, we do plan to upgrade to a 3000W unit with separate base next time over, so it doesn't have to survive for very long.

The tricky bit was whether or not the kettle "logic" (if any) would care that our 240V circuits don't have a neutral line -- both sides are equally "hot". Whereas in the UK, only one wire is "hot", and the other is neutral.

With the five-quid kettle, at least, no issue.

Cheers!

When I worked in the electrical department of a supermarket, quite a few of the £5 kettles died within the first couple of weeks (though not nearly as many as the £120 14 inch TVs that we sold every Xmas, a good 60% of those didn't make it until New Year).

When our kettle dies I want to replace it with a Tefal Quick Cup - they can produce a cup of boiling water in 3 seconds! According to the manufacturers, they use 1/3rd the energy of a conventional kettle too.

Given the size of the place could it not still be a problem to get everyone there?

Make sure you check that out properly before buying, the water is not at boiling point when it comes out of that gadget. Also, it doesn't heat a mug of water in 3 seconds, it takes closer to 30 seconds to fill a mug with water at around 80 degrees C.

Wow. They're pricy. Seem to me that if you're going to pay that much you might as well get one that's hooked into your plumbing, like the Insinkerator hot water dispensers. Yeah, it's more expensive still, but you don't have to dick with carting water around.

Yes. Shut up with your logic and shit.

That said, I can fly all the way from Raleigh, NC on the east coast to LA, San Francisco, or Seattle for a sixth the price of flying to London, despite London only being about a third farther away.

I would be up for organizing it if a minimum of 10 people said they would come no matter what. Even with that small of a number, I can't see it happening.

The core European empeg community is so strong now that it's not even about empegs anymore. It's about seeing distant friends every year. The US empeg community doesn't know each other outside of this BBS. That, the declining number of users, and the size of the country spells disaster for a large US meet.

I can't even get more than two people to show up to a meet in the NY area! San Francisco is hardly any different. This meet was only my group of 3 and Hugo and his friend.

You have a solid point, though you have to admit that there is a significant difference between an evening meetup and a months-long planned event.

Honestly, though, it's mostly me grousing about the huge airfare to Europe.

It's hard to get serious about anything larger if the small stuff is so poorly attended.

Of course, we can look back at the Cincinnati meets where every year the turnout was worse and worse. If Laura would do another one, I would definitely go as long as it's not just her and I again.

I love it!

Having put together last years meet with Andy M, I can tell you a lot of the hard work goes unnoticed and that is the way it should be. It is an extremely rewarding experience but it's not an easy one.

I think there has to be a purpose for the event being held in a place. I don't know how many Danish users we have on the BBS here but there is still a strong following in the UK so we were always going to get a turn out that made the event viable (just ) I am not sure the same could be said for Denmark?

We also went to quite a lot of effort not to copy previous meets, we tried something new and that fitted what we could provide. Some people come a very long way and it's important everyone enjoys the event, our meet was very much a social affair with lots of time to mix and with very little in the way of an agenda (and only 1 slide at the event itself!).

Also, it's a little early to be talking about next year right now. The only thing I am sure of is that you need the help of other people it's not something that is going to work doing it on your own.

I for one hope this continues for many years to come, I really like the way our group is evolving and it was great to see a few first timers at this years event.

And Rob, I would try my very best to come to a US meet at some point. It would probably have to turn into some sort of extended holiday but there is no way I'll be coming over without some form of meet-up

Cheers

Cris.

Yeah. Our new five-quid kettle here can do that.

And I really doubt their efficiency claims -- a standard immersed-element electrical kettle is damned near 100% efficient to begin with.

Cheers

Starting with a quart of 74°F water, it took 4:13 until the switch tripped, but it was clearly boiling a good 30 seconds before that.

Sounds ballpark. The water I use here is quite a bit cooler than 74F at the beginning.

Cheers

UK appliance wiring practice never assumes the neutral line is at earth (ground) as far as I've seen. Indeed, if the neutral goes open circuit somewhere, all the neutrals downstream will get pulled to live by the load. So I think you'll find most UK devices are OK with 2-phase 120V.

Discalimer: This is an opinion, not qualified advice. Be safe out there.

A quart in my Brita filter 3KW kettle took just over 2 minutes to boil.

Just tried our reasonably fast boiling flat bottomed kettle. With a single mug of water (which is after all what we should be comparing the Tefal heater to) it boils in about 50 seconds. However with that little water in it takes quite a long time for the boiling sensor to trip so the element is actually on for 65 seconds.

Assuming the element in the Tefal has the same rating as in the kettle, then that would fairly closely match their 65% claim. Though of course with the kettle I actually end up with boiled water.

That was our hope, and subsequent observation (sample of one).

But it does matter, in that most (EDIT: many?) AC switches are only single-pole single-throw. So in the UK one would normally ensure that those are wired to cut off the "hot" wire. Such is the case with the UK outlet we purchased, and quite likely also with the internal switch of the kettle itself.

But here in Canada, that UK switched outlet only switches off one leg, and the other pin still has 120V potential on it (w.r.t. earth ground). Definitely not code over here, but nothing I'll be worrying about either. Ditto for the kettle.

Our initial unknown concern, was whether such "wet" appliances might have built-in GFCI style functionality, which would prevent them from working at all here in Canada.

Cheers

Actually, only 10% of the outlets that I sell are single pole, only the most penny pinching cheapo ones. But this does vary where you go, big bargain sheds like Screwfix will have a much higher ratio.

Our groundwater temperature today appears to be about 63F.

So we brought in the outdoor thermometer, and filled the kettle with exactly 1 quart of 74F water. It took 3:15 for full boil, and shut itself off about 8 seconds later.

EDIT: wait a sec.. SWMBO informs me that the measure scale on the kettle is incorrect: we actually just boiled 5.5 cups of water rather than the indicated quart (4 cups). The experiment will have to be run again now.

Cheers!

Okay, the experiment has now been re-run, using exactly 4-cups (to avoid confusion over differing definitions of a "quart") of 74F water. Note also that we compared our various kitchen cup measures, and used the volume that nearly all of them agreed upon.

It took 2:15 for a peak roaring boil to be achieved, and the kettle again switched off 8 seconds after this.

Cheers

Heh.. the things one never suspected! Okay, our "cup" measures are actually 250ml, so that was exactly one litre of water for the test, which is somewhat more than one USA quart.

I've always been amused over the North American use of "cup" as a "standard" measurement, it seems like a measure guaranteed to cause confusion.

Yeah, well.. we all have you British to thank for that!

Cheers

So Wikipedia suggests (says that it is common in the Commonwealth as well). I'm puzzled as to how though, given that it is pretty much never used as a measure in the UK. The only time I have seen it used in recipe books here is when converting from a US recipe.

Heh.. so next time over I'll try ordering a half-litre of Ale at the pub, then.

Perhaps the term used to be common in British English, at about the time all the colonial dialects were forked, but has since passed out of use here only. Unfortunately for that theory, though, the oldest cookbook I've got (a facsimile of the 1805 Hannah Glasse) doesn't mention cups. It just says "half a pint". Or perhaps it's not really Commonwealth-wide, but only occurs in Commonwealth countries "near" (in a trading sense) to the USA, and influenced by them: Canada, Australia, NZ. Are recipes stated in cups in South Africa? India?

Peter