Would I save money switching to a whistling kettle for the hob and losing the electric kettle?

[Cristiane]

I have a Tesco Value kettle that i bought about 2 years ago for £5. It still works.

However, I am on a major money revamp and I wondered if I would save money switching to one to put on my gas hob.

Does anyone know? I have tried looking online but haven't found anything conclusive. I am sure gas is cheaper, but might take longer to boil? And with the whistling at least I wouldn't keep reboiling the kettle? I am quite good at only putting as much water as I need in it.

a modern electric kettle will turn off very fast as soon as it has boiled, and by being jug-shaped you are able to put in the correct amount of water.

Energy costs for gas are about half that of electricity, but my guess is that you would wate more energy up the sides of the kettle, or by inaccurate measuring, or not turning it off the moment it has boiled.

Unless you are running a cafe, you will not have the kettle running for many hours a day anyway. A kettle uses between 2 and 3kW so would cost 30p to 45p if you ran it continually for an hour. That's less than a penny a minute.

I very much doubt it, it takes forever to boil water on a gas ring IME... The best money saving thing you can do with an electric kettle is not to fill it; only put in the right amount of water that you need.

I had a hob kettle and it was a pain, it took ages to boil and remember you can't just switch it on and walk away. You have to stand over it to a certain extent.

No.

We just got rid of our gas hob kettle because our gas bills were horrendous (much bigger than our electricity bills). If you have an electric jug kettle it uses less power - it's much quicker.

No. We have both. The water round here is so chalky that electric kettles round here die quite quickly and the boiled water is so scaly its horrible in drinks. I only use it occasionally.

I do love my hob kettle but it can take up to 10 minutes to boil if full, at least the water is clear and pleasant to drink though.

Thanks everyone! That is really helpful. So glad I asked you.

I had a hob kettle in my last house (it went with the esthetics of the kitchen) and it took for ever to boil. Whenever my family came to visit they complained bitterly that getting a cup of tea took forever when visiting and it drove dh mad.

I now have one of those drinks makers (breville I think it is) which boils one cup at a time. It works as well because it means ds (nine) can make me cups of tea.

wannabe does the water come out really hot, does it make good tea?

Been thinking about one of those. Waits for wannabe's answer.

We had one of those hot water dispensers. We liked it at the time, but there were a few reasons we didn't replace it when it broke.
The model we had was the Tefal Quick Cup. It dispensed hot water quickly, but very noisily. It heated the water to that funny temp that gives you that funny 'froth' or whatever it is that you get on the top of a cup of tea made by water heated in the microwave. It was a little too hot to drink immediately, but not hot enough to get stuck into doing something and leave the cuppa for a few minutes.

The biggest reason for not replacing it was the fact that our kitchen has a postage stamped size worksurface. We couldn't replace the kettle with the quick cup and didn't want 2 machines in our tiny kitchen where one would do.

It did very well for energy consumption though, and I think newer models are quieter/heat the water hotter/have better filters and water reservoir designs.

Lots of helpful reviews on amazon.

2kids, do you have hard water? I wonder if it might have been limescale scum?