Does anyone have one of those Quooker boiling water tap things?

[BuzzBuzzBuzzLightyearToTheRescue]

I’ve just seen an advert for one and I’m curious.

are they worthwhile? How much do they cost?

how do they work?? Do they not cost a fortune if they are maintaining boiling water all the time?

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SIL has one. I’m not a fan - tea has a strange scum on the top and doesn’t taste quite right.

I have had one for a good few years (6 plus?) and love it. Total indulgence though, as very expensive to buy. I wanted to keep the worktop uncluttered to maximise space.

Agree as previous poster said you can get a few hot splashes on your hand/wrist in use but not enough to put me off. You get the hang of minimising this quite quickly.

Seems properly boiling to me, avid tea drinker. I looked at other brands but liked the safety features, you can’t accidentally turn on the boiling water and it’s aerated (partly why you get the hot splashes) so that if accidentally stick your hand under the tap, it’s hot but won’t scald you (assuming you pull your hand away sharpish).

Another benefit is that my kitchen tap is miles away from the boiler, so to get hot water to the tap at hand washing temperature takes forever. With a Quooker you can turn the cold water on to maximum and then turn on the boiling water tap at the same time, voilà, perfect hand washing temperature water instantly.

As for filters, mine is an older model that only does ‘standard’ hot and cold (like a normal tap) plus boiling. Had one replacement filter since I have had it and no issues.

We have a Quettle one. I think it was around £800. That was for the tap, the boiler and a fridge. As well as the boiling water we also have cold filtered. You could choose it without the cold though and it would have been a bit cheaper. Id highly recommend it and have not noticed a jump in electricity bills since we installed it in January.

We got a quettle when me moved house , like a prior poster I was sceptical as thought it was a DH thing but I bloody love it , hot drinks , water for cooking and it’s brilliant for cleaning things like oven trays etc

Ours was justified by the fact it feeds the hot water tap as well as boiling tap - our hot water tank is two floors up so we wasted gallons of hot water running it down to the kitchen. (I am also a serial-kettle-boiler).

Absolutely love ours, and would sell one of DHs kidneys to buy one again if necessary.

We have a Hotspot one which we wouldn’t be without, 3 years in, we replace the filter every year, no issues and would I have another one when we move - most definitely, I’m a big tea drinker and makes perfect tea - couldn’t go back to a kettle.

I love love love mine! £1200, but so worth it! Instant proper boiling water ( have a three in one - hot cold and boiling). You fill up the pot for cooking - so much quicker and I don't need the gas stove on heating it up.
I put one in a tenanted flat and after four years no issues at all.

I find that when non-Quooker users see you make a cup of tea from the tap, they immediately say the tea doesn't taste right. If they don't know, there is never any issue.
I love mine, no issues in 5 years.

There was a Quooker tap in my previous workplace- I just don’t get the hype tbh?

I mean it worked fine, but it’s never felt like a massive hardship to wait on the kettle boiling. I just use the time to finish another kitchen task scroll through my phone.

I’d rather invest the cash in a fancier oven/dishwasher/washing machine.

Tea doesnt taste the same- I can honestly tell. I don’t know if it’s because sil has a cheaper version and the water isn’t quite boiling but it’s not the same and has a very slight floating of scuzzy bubbles. I think it has to boiling to brew the tea properly.
We use the speed button on the ceramic hob for heating water quickly - literally takes seconds.

DH had tea from one and didn't like it as the water is not freshly boiled, I have coffee made with water at about 90C so no good for me either, would maybe get one as addition to kettle though as quite handy though no good for our drinks.

Probably because the water is not freshly boiled but stood for a while, DH definitely noticed a difference and not in a good way

Clicked on this thread just to see how many people claim they make tea taste ‘weird’ 😂😂

I have a friend who is a sommelier in a Michelin star restaurant and has an extraordinarily sensitive sense of smell and taste. She can tell the specific vineyard and year wine was made by sniffing it, tell whether wine was decanted or poured straight into a glass etc

The restaurant she works at has an extensive tea menu, partly for customers who don’t drink alcohol, but it’s now quite famous for it. As a result of this, she has done lots of ‘tea training’ and knows a lot about tea and how it’s best made, served etc… and she has a quooker tap at home which she uses to make tea!
In the restaurant, they use something similar - a bit like the steam attachment on a coffee machine

There is no way that people have anything close to as sensitive a palate as she has, but half the replies on these threads are ALWAYS people claiming they can taste the difference
If that was true, none of them would be able to drink tea bought in a supermarket that may have been sat on the shelf for ages, or made in a cold mug
I bet the water temperature varies more when it’s poured from a kettle into a cold mug than it does from a hot water tap!

Avid tea drinker here. It's a luxury item, yes, but one I absolutely wouldn't be without now. Honestly life changing.

We have a Qettle one that gives you 100 degree water.

Probably wise to get a Quooker and a decent variable temperature kettle

We have a cheaper version from Wickes and use it all the time - we aren’t even hot drink drinkers really. It saves so much time when cooking, I wouldn’t be without it now

They are NOT economical.

You can't beat the laws of physics.

When you first use it, you fill it with cold water. This is then heated to 100 C - and is kept boiling using energy and a vacuum system. But you are still supplying energy to keep it boiling.

You then take a cup of water out.

A cup of cold water goes in. You then have to heat the water up to ensure that the water gets up to 100 C again - by supplying EXACTLY the same amount of energy you would have needed to boil 1 cup of cold water.

So basically, you are using energy to keep the water at 100 C (that's the standby energy they quote) and when you take water out, you use more energy to reheat the water back up to 100 C when you replace the cup you have taken out.

I would love to add an energy monitor to one of those to show people this.

I think it costs something like 13p a day to run. The tank is really well insulated so the cupboard doesn’t get hot and it can keep the water hot without much extra heating

@tenbob

That's probably just the cost of keeping it on standby to keep the water warm.

When you take a cup of water out, it will use exactly the same amount of energy to reheat the water that replaces it as a 1 cup kettle would - which would cost the same in KWH.

Because of physics

We have one. It was installed in the house when we moved in.

One of the very first things we did was switch it off.

Our smart meter tells us, it isn't economic. At all.

We manage without it, without thought.

Pointless gadget for people who struggle to boil a kettle (we don't have a kettle either anymore).

Even if they cost very little to run, it's the cost of installing the thing that's the expense/luxury.

At around £1000 you could buy a new £50 kettle (so quite an expensive one) every two years for 40 years for that amount of money, only no-one would need to replace their kettle that often, even 5 years sounds overly frequent and most people probably don't spend £50 a time on kettles.

And that's before you count the cost of the filter and any maintenance/repairs.

I suppose there is a saving on resources/raw materials. If you buy a new kettle every 5 years for 50 years, that's a pile of 10 waste kettles compared with one tap, assuming it lasts that long. Which probably explains why they're so popular on here, it's like an electric car, beyond affordable or financially practical for the majority, but loved by affluent Mumsnetters who don't have to think too hard about how they spend their money.

Its a tap that does the same job as a £20 kettle, slightly quicker (although there's always plenty of useful shit that can be done in the average kitchen while you're waiting) and it costs £1000.

We love ours, my husband can’t use a kettle unless its one of thise naff ones on a rocking pourer. I have no idea how much power it uses, but a kettle isn’t an option, so even if it was £5 a day it would be £5 well spent.

Ours was bought second hand, always workings brilliantly, we find a filter lasts us about 8/9 months.

Sorry, I’ve just checked…

A quooker costs 3p a day to run, compared to 13p a day for a kettle

They actually use a lot less energy than a kettle to heat the water because the tank is a vacuum

Because of physics 😉

I love our Franke boiling water tap, it does boiling, cold filtered, cold and hot. We were lucky enough to get it free from one of DH's clients.
I find it much safer for the children to use than a kettle.
Nobody's ever complained about our tea tasting odd but we make tea properly in a tea pot.
It does splatter a bit but we've all learned how to hold things so as to minimise this.
The filter is about £40 twice a year. You can get non branded ones which are cheaper.

It costs 3p a day to run ON STANBDY

That's the energy you are using just to keep the water boiling.

If you actually use it to take some water out, then you need to add more water to it and that needs energy to boil. Which you pay for

Because of physics.

*the 3p is also based on the old tariffs. So probably 6 - 10p now

One downside is my youngest didn't know what a kettle was. Came back from Cubs to say they'd made drinks with one of those hot jugs you click on!