Boiling Water

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I know, I know... I'm either bored. Or I'm a geek. Or I'm anal.

Probably all three!

We all know gas is cheaper than electricity.

Using cold water, my full electric kettle will boil and switch off in 4 minutes 39 seconds.

It's rated at 220-240V 2500-3000W.

If I use the hottest water from the tap, it takes 3 minutes dead to boil and switch off.

Bear in mind to get water from the tap at it hottest, the combi has to run for 45 seconds.

Boiling cold water on the gas hob took 11 minutes 25 seconds.

Boiling the hot tap water on the gas hob took 8 minutes 30 seconds.

I realise there are other considerations, like incoming water temperature and convenience (ie easiest option is probably fill the kettle with cold and do something else while it boils), but if you were looking at the cheapest option in terms of fuel use, which would it be?
 
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Efficiency. The same amount of energy is required for the same mass of water to heat to the same change of temp. But the gas is heating the room as well as the water. The kettle does too, but to a much lesser extent. That said, I ran the same experiment ages ago, and eleven minutes? Nowhere near! Are you using a hob kettle with a cap on the spout; or a saucepan for comparison?
 
Using cold water, my full electric kettle will boil and switch off in 4 minutes 39 seconds. ... If I use the hottest water from the tap, it takes 3 minutes dead to boil and switch off. ... Bear in mind to get water from the tap at it hottest, the combi has to run for 45 seconds ... but if you were looking at the cheapest option in terms of fuel use, which would it be?
Without more data, one can but guess - but, although some of the heat generated by the combi will be 'wasted' (heating the room, and heating initial water that goes down the plughole until water gets to full temp), given the big difference in fuel prices, I strongly suspect that using gas (i.e. the combi) to do almost half of the 'desired' water heating would be the cheaper.

Kind Regards, John
 
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Apparently you give a brief blip of the hot tap to start the boiler, wait a few seconds and then turn the hot tap back on to get hot water
That obviously depends upon the length of the pipe run from boiler to tap - since (assuming the hot tap had not been used recently), even when water leaving the boiler is 'up to temperature' it has to fill the entire supply pipe with hot water before any comes out of the tap and, when the tap is turned off, that pipe remains full of hot water (the heat eventually being 'lost' from the pipe to heat up the room etc.). In winter, that probably isn't going to make much difference (since that 'lost' heat merely reduces the amount of energy used for space heating) but, in summer, the 'lost heat' essentially represents 'wasted' heat, thereby reducing the efficiency of the gas+electricity water boiling exercise.

Of course, one should really only contemplate filling a kettle with water from a hot tap if one has a combi boiler - although probably usually 'safe', using stored hot water for drinking purposes is not a very desirable idea. Even worse ('hygiene/safety-wise') would be filling a kettle with stored cold water.

Kind Regards, John
 
With a kettle around 95% of the heat from the element is used to heat the water. The other 5% is lost from the warm surface of the kettle as the wate increases in temperature..

Using a gas boiler to heat water requires the flame to water heat exchanger to be heated before any heat can reach the water.
 
And stored or not, MUI that hot water from a combi is not officially potable.
 
I think the method was to counter the delay in the combi heating the water to minimise loss
I realise that but, as I said, that would only address a small part of the issue (energy being used/'wasted' in ways other than producing a kettle of boiling the water) if the pipe run from boiler to tap was of reasonable length.

Kind Regards, John
 
With a kettle around 95% of the heat from the element is used to heat the water. The other 5% is lost from the warm surface of the kettle as the wate increases in temperature..
That's really a 'secondary loss'. To-all-intents-and-purposes, 100% of the energy is used to heat the water. The 5% to which you refer is loss from the heated water (after it has been heated with near-100% efficiency) through the walls of the kettle.
Using a gas boiler to heat water requires the flame to water heat exchanger to be heated before any heat can reach the water.
True, but the extent (if any) of that obviously 'depends' - if the CH is running, and/or if hot water has been drawn fairly recently, the exchanger will already be pretty hot when the tap is turned on.

As I said, the main point is that the price differential of the two fuels is so large that, even with some additional losses/inefficiencies, using gas to achieve a reasonable proportion of the required heating will probably result in a cost saving.

Kind Regards, John
 
Simple, don’t fill kettle, only put as much in as required, waste of energy to put in more than needed and speeds up scale formation in kettle.
 
True, but the extent (if any) of that obviously 'depends' - if the CH is running, and/or if hot water has been drawn fairly recently, the exchanger will already be pretty hot when the tap is turned on.

Under one set of operating conditions most boiler manufacturers quote efficencies as well above 90%...... but they do not give as much publicity to the efficiencies obtained in different sets of operating conditions. Independent testing has found efficiencies can be as low as 30% for hot water supply
 
Did the experiment after visiting daughter who boiled water in electric kettle than transferred into a pan, and I asked why, she said speed, however gas hob rated 5.5 kW kettle rated 2.8 kW so gas hob nearly twice the size, so she did demo.

No stop watch just filled kettle to mark, poured into pan with lid, refilled kettle and switched both on together, and the electric kettle won by a huge margin.

So I returned home, same experiment however this time 3 kW induction hob and 2.8 kW kettle, kettle actually won but by such a small margin a few seconds so could say they were the same.

Clearly a massive amount of heat produced by gas hob goes into the room, plus of course a load of moisture and combustion gases, hence you really need a cooker hood with gas that takes moisture and gases outside, where with electric a carbon filter is good enough.

To calculate the cost you also have to factor in how much energy is used to heat or cool air in the room, I had a non flue type gas heater in a caravan OK for odd cold day but damp soon became a problem, to heat a space you need the heater to draw any combustion air from outside and also send all combustion products outside, this is exactly what the central heating boiler does, so yes filling the pan with hot water may save energy as the central heating boiler does not draw air from the room. With a hot water tank in the loft you needed special mixer taps where the water is only mixed at the spout, but with a combi boiler these are not required so one would assume the water is potable, other wise it would not be permitted to pre-mix water.

However our simple kettle is long gone, the kettle we have today boils a cup full at a time, so filling a pan with boiling water would take a long time, and we use an induction hob so rather pointless.

But be it the tumble drier or the kettle, when one type pumps air outside and other does not be it the cooker extractor or the tumble drier vent time of year and outside temperature will have a massive effect on calculations. Also how room is cooled, in the other house our velux windows work well, no cooker extractor required, just open rook windows, it may cool kitchen but not rest of house, and kitchen does not catch the sun, this house very different, sun shines in through kitchen windows so normally warm, only real way to vent is open back door, which in summer means flies. For some reason flies do not seem to come in to the Velux window, but they do from other windows, maybe they do come in but also find there way out easy?

So it clearly changes summer/winter, and house to house, so it would be very hard to measure. I am sure a wall mounted boiler gas fired with a flue outside would be cheapest to run, and with Quooker and like the idea of piped boiling water is already here, personally don't think their safe in domestic, OK with a work place where everyone is trained, but not domestic.

I think gas is great for central heating where combustion air is drawn from outside and the flue gases are also taken directly outside, for the caravan I accept the gas oven, hob and fridge, you have not always got electric mains power and generators are too noisy, but not seen a gas fridge in a house for years, and I am sure gas cookers now we have induction will slowly disappear, OK some will still want them, some people still use solid fuel cookers, but it will be a minority.

Must admit as a child my mother used solid fuel, kettle on the corner always simmering, but that was when Shotton was a steel working town and the steel works could not use small coke so sold it off very cheap, when steel works closed so solid fuel fires were ripped out. I can walk into the kitchen when adds start on TV put coffee in two cups place them both under the two one cup boilers and return with two cups of coffee before the adds finish, even if I need to top up boilers with water, it would not matter how cheap, if I can't make coffee during the adds, I don't want it.
 
Simple, don’t fill kettle, only put as much in as required, waste of energy to put in more than needed and speeds up scale formation in kettle.
That's very true, but the question still remains as to whether it would be cost-effective to use 'as much as needed' pre-heated (by gas) water in the electric kettle.

I would assume that, given the nature of the inefficiencies of the gas heating, the cost advantage (of using partially gas-heated water) would decline as the volume of water being heated (in the kettle) reduced.

Kind Regards, John
 

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