Boiling water taps, revolutionary or crap?

[BoilingTap]

We’re in the process of having a brand new kitchen done. I’m really keen on a boiling water tap (Quooker) whereas my partner thinks they are a waste of money (it is over £1k) and we can just get a kettle. His argument is we can get a nice looking kettle for a tenth of the price, it’s no faff, if anything goes wrong you just replace.

I quite fancy one as I cook a lot of pasta, rice, potato’s, as well as making teas and coffees. I also like the idea of having more worktop space and reducing the amount of things plugged in. Obviously it’s a big expense and I’ve also read they need regular maintenance, I don’t fancy spending over a grand on a tap and then shelling out hundreds in maintenance. Can anyone who owns one shed any light?

YABU - team DH, they are a gimmick and crap.

YANBU - team BoilingTap, they are revolutionary, go for it!

We have a Qettle, and even that I found quite pricey.

I would say gimmick, but a gimmick I love. I'm really glad we did it, but it was definitely a splurge item rather than a sensible purchase.

Annoyingly Qettle don’t do a colour that will go with our kitchen design choice, so it needs to be one of the pricier Quooker ones!! I would have liked to get a Qettle.

We got one for about £900 can't remember what brand but I love it. My mums also had one fitted as she was struggling to hold a full kettle getting older.

I've had a Quooker for 9 years and it's not needed any maintenance. I am glad we got it, I use it all the time.

I've used them in holiday homes and really didn't like. Spluttery, hot splashes on your hands, rubbish tasting tea/coffee as the temp wasn't quite right and they also take up a whole cupboard. I'll stick with my kettle thanks!

I love ours but it came with the house. We wouldn’t have been able to justify buying it for ourselves. Apparently it’s cheaper to run than a kettle if you don’t count the initial cost.
I now get very impatient when I visit my parents and have to boil a kettle like some kind of medieval peasant 😂

We absolutely love ours. We have the cube, so it does sparkling water also. Ours needs a service about once every 3-4 years as we're in very hard water area.

Have you been to look at any? They take up a lot of under sink cupboard space! And they splutter and spit a bit in use too. Eeek! So for those reasons we opted for a fancy pull-out mixer tap instead when we redid our kitchen and are so happy with it.

We have a Grohe Red Duo. I am pretty sure that my wife thought it was a gimmick initially, however she wouldn't be without it now. I love not waiting for a kettle to boil, it's cheaper than a kettle and filtered water to boot. We use it all the time for cooking, tea, coffee etc.

We paid £500 for it when B&Q had a deal on.

I love the idea but if someone put £1k on the table in front of me, I couldnt spend it on a tap. There are many things I value more highly. But that's just me. It's a luxury item so it's entirely recreational spending from disposable income so no judgement here.

This is my kind of purchase

MN seems to love them but I don't see the attraction.

We have one at work and it's quite hard to hold it in position for the water to come out and its sooo slow. I can't imagine what a pain it would be trying to get a pan full of hot water, a mug full takes long enough.

I just use the time taken for the kettle to boil to do all the endless little jobs you need to do in the kitchen, rather than being tethered to a tap dribbling out a stream of hot water.

Then there's the utterly ridiculous cost. Most people don't spend that money on kettles in a lifetime.

I love ours. No spluttering, no maintenance so far (4 years in), the cylinder under the sink does not take up anywhere near the whole cupboard. It sits in the corner.

I got the own brand one for about half the price, I love it, it has been useful every day since installation.

Spend the money on an induction hob. Boils water from cold in super quick time, like less than a minute.
(That’s for when boiling water needed for cooking). Anything else, kettle.

Yes agree. Kettle would be quicker to serve hot drinks to a number of guests, too, so if you ever have more than 2 or 3 people in for a hot drink at a time, it'll be slower than a kettle.

We have a Quooker and love it - it did come with the kitchen though. I find it perfect for tea, but we control the temperature and set it to proper boiling. I find for things like pasta or vegetables it saves so much time as it is 20 seconds to fill a pan with boiling water rather than 20 minutes of heating it on the gas cooker. I wouldn't be without one now.

I'm on the fence. Ours broke about 8 years in, in the middle of Covid, so I couldn't get anyone to come to the house to fix it. We drifted back to using a kettle, and I haven't been able to justify the faff and cost of getting it fixed. That might partly be because it was installed by the previous owners in a really inaccessible spot that would involve dismantling most of a cupboard to get to it. It was nice, but not life-changing.

Grohe red here - much prefer it to the Quooker as no spluttering and I honestly wouldn't be without it!

Should add that we use a hob kettle on our induction hob and it's very quick.

That really isn't the case. Maybe the one the PP has at work is particularly slow but I have a big family who drink a lot of tea and it takes seconds to fill a tea pot. Probably about 1/4 of the time of the kettle and limitless capacity so it fills even the 12 mug teapot in less than a minute.

I wouldn't get one, or if I bought a house with one I would have a kettle too. Tea made with Quooker water tastes weird and unpleasant!

I'm on the fence. We've had one for over a decade and it's in heavy use but the cost is madness. We're in a very hard water area so we get it serviced every two years, plus £50 for a new drinking water filter every year. We have the bigger tank, and it makes normal hot water to fill the sink as well - fab as it used to take an age to get from the upstairs cylinder to the kitchen sink.

I suspect I'd really miss it if we didn't have it. It is a bit spluttery though, and a couple of people have been scared of it.

I boil water for pasta in the kettle then put on. Same result. Fraction of the cost.

That sounds faulty - ours fills a pan in no time. There's a filter thingy in the spout that might need descaling.