Again and again we, the ordinary people, are being admonished to boil just the amount of water needed to make, say, our cup of tea.
While this is indeed very good advice – who in their right mind would want to waste energy, whether gas or electricity (and water), and to that we could also add to that, and time, to boil more water than needed – this is not always as easy as said, especially with electric kettles that have a “minimum water” level which often is well over one large mug size even.
Someone find me one – that does not cost a small fortune – where the “minimum capacity2 is not well above a large mug size and we don't even want to mention ordinary cup size. Most kettles require about 1.5 mugs of water to be on the minimum capacity level. This must change, and kettles that have a smaller capacity must be made more affordable, before people will be able to boil just the amount of water needed to make the one mug of tea.
In addition to that people must be educated that is costs a lot of money to boil a full kettle. For some strange reason some folks actually believe that they save money when the boil a full kettle. Beats me why but it is so. I have had people actually say that I am wasting energy just boiling a small amount of water. How they come to that conclusion is beyond me but there are many who seem to believe that.
© M V Smith, November 2007