EHI Quick Tip: Buy a Tea Kettle
By Wesley Joseph • Apr 26th, 2008 • Category: Household, Resource Waste Reduction
Stumble It :: :: 
Subscribe via Email :: 
Subscribe via RSS
Why buy a tea kettle? How often do you put water on the stove to boil for tea or coffee (I use a French press) and you walk out of the room while it gets to boiling point? And how often have you forgotten and had half of the pot of water boil away, wasting gas, and likely leading you to add more water which then needs to be boiled? Repeat. Repeat. Waste. Waste.
If you’re like me, you don’t have time to watch the water boil. And you may have forgotten the water for a while. If it takes about five minutes for a small pot of water to boil, but you have the stove on for ten minutes, you’ve used twice the electricity (or gas) that is needed for the task.
A kettle, on the other hand, will sound a high-pitched whistle when the water boils, automatically reminding you to come turn the stove off and use the boiling hot water.
I bought my stainless steel kettle secondhand for $5, so I’m sure the savings will surpass that amount quickly. But even if you buy one new, you should be able to recoup your investment within a year, provided that leaving the water boiling has been a problem (soon to be a problem of the past) for you, too.
Give us an “EHI”! Tell us what you think!
Stumble It :: :: Subscribe via Email :: Subscribe via RSS
Wesley Joseph is the primary editor for EHI. He comes from a strong political science background and is interested in the effect humans' actions have on the environment, how in turn the environment affects humans, and how environmental policy at large and personal actions can both change into positive envirohuman impacts.
Email this author | All posts by Wesley Joseph
[...] can flush the remaining clog out by pouring boiling water down the drain (a great place to use your tea kettle). Depending on the seriousness of your clog you can also use a small plunger to help pass the [...]
[...] remember to use your tea kettle for boiling water, so as to minimize the amount of time you’re boiling [...]
[...] brewed my coffee using my French press, so it’s extra strong, and I of course employed my tea kettle for boiling the water. Yeah, I’m about to make myself puke for patting myself on the back, [...]
We’ve got a little electric plastic kettle thing at our house that automatically shuts off when it reaches boiling temperature. Sure the plastic probably leeches over time and requires petroleum to run but at least we don’t repeatedly lose water or energy. And if the water cools down I just toss it in a glass decatur and put it in the fridge giving us cheap, cold, clean water.
Now, if only I could find this device in a non-plastic version!