Prehistoric is what I am going for too.

I purchased an Eco-Kettle 18 months ago. It worked fine for a while and then began to leak. They sent me a new seal for the lid so this is a known problem but worse the kettle packed up after 18 months use and I have had no response from either vendor or manufacturer.

I have had to purchase a new kettle for the office – THIS IS NOT WHAT I WOULD CLASS AS AN ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY OBJECT IF IT IS OBSOLETE AFTER ONLY 18 MONTHS OF USE!!!

Buy a fast boil ordinary kettle and only fill it to the minimum for the same “green” savings in energy.

I had been looking for a replacement kettle over the last month and feeling disgruntled as nothing is made in Australia any more – let alone along sustainable lines. Found this in my travels though…wish I’d bought one while they were available: http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=153417

Anyhow I ended up getting a second hand stove top kettle from a Queenslander (Aust) on ebay – a West Bend Trig model of Wisconsin in the USA. Old but in new condition apparently. Still has a US$4.95 price sticker on it! Maybe designers need to look to the past for inspiration when energy was less abundant and things were made to last?

Thanks again Rob, good to see some meaningful dialogue on the reality of being a consumer in 2007.

It’s about having a net positive impact, not obsessing over your negative impacts.

I wondered about doing away with a kettle altogether and using a pan on the stove. Here, that’s an induction ring, which is very efficient, but in tests (timing the boil while measuring the power) the kettle won convincingly. The basic difference is that it’s plastic: it doesn’t have to heat the metal pan as well.

So the most efficient solution in terms of energy-in-use has me buying yet another gadget and it’s made of plastic to boot… Perhaps I should give up tea now, before its status as a far-imported luxury becomes clear to all. No tea, no special gadget to make it.

I suspect this falls into the category of things my grandchildren will be amazed I agonized over.

Reading some of the above comments, I can see both sides – on the one hand, we should applaud and encourage the ‘greening’ of appliances, but on the other, it is really just as easy to put the correct amount of water in a regular kettle. It only took me a few goes to know how much water to put in my regular kettle for one or two cups. I suspect that this particular device is more ‘marketing’ than real use, but who knows.

On the subject of comparing boiling an electric kettle to using a gas hob, there is an interesting comparison here: http://www.deathbike.net/2005.html#dec07

Secondly, why are you boiling water? No one drinks water which is 100C it’s too damn hot. This is the problem with kettles, they are raising water to a much higher temperature than actually needed. Although in the case of your ecokettle it appears to raise the temperature then cools it – insane! Better to heat the water in a small pot on the stove with the lid on on low gas, this will probably take less time than the kettle, get it to the right sorta temperature (dip the finger in) and then use it.

Another way to say energy which i have only adopted in the last couple of days is to fill a large juj with cold water from the tap in the morning. Leave this by the stove. Whenever you need hot water use this water in the jug as your starting point. The reason is obvious, water from the tap is cold, so if you need hot water it will take more energy to raise its temperature. The water in the jug will heat up providing the ambient room temperature is higher than the cold water tap (more than likely). Also by placing it near the hob it is near another potential heat source (cooking) and will gain even more. You could equally put it on a radiator during winter. I’m looking to buy a suitable large containing (5litre) to place outside in the hot summers sun, which should really cut down on the temperature difference and required energy.

A post like this surprises me, considering the excellent approaches taken on transition townes are about rethinking the way we do things, rather than continuing current practices with new technologies or gadgets. But i guess it’s all part of this crazy relearning process and i’m by no means in a position to criticise that much!

Buying stuff is such a large part of why we’re in this mess, and product reviews just seems to feed into that.

If I absolutely need to buy something, I’ll try and pick the greenest option but truely, I prefer not to be reminded of all the products I could possibly want that I’m confortably living without at the moment.