To those of us who live in the civilized lands where ~230 VAC mains is the norm and we can shove a cool 3.5 kW into an electric kettle without so much as a second thought, the mere idea of trying to boil water with 120 VAC and a tepid 1.5 kW brings back traumatic memories of trying to boil water with a 12 VDC kettle while out camping. Naturally, in a fit of nationalistic pride this leads certain North American people like that bloke over at the [Technology Connections] YouTube to insist that this is fine, as he tries to demonstrate how ridiculous 240 VAC kettles are by abusing a North American Level 2 car charger to power a UK-sourced kettle.
Ignoring for a moment that in Europe a ‘Level 1’ charger is already 230 VAC (±10%) and many of us charge EVs at home with three-phase ~440 VAC, this video is an interesting demonstration, both of how to abuse an EV car charger for other applications and how great having hot water for tea that much faster is.
Friendly tea-related transatlantic jabs aside, the socket adapter required to go from the car charger to the UK-style plug is a sight to behold. All which we starts as we learn that Leviton makes a UK-style outlet for US-style junction boxes, due to Gulf States using this combination. This is subsequently wired to the pins of the EV charger connector, after which the tests can commence.
Unsurprisingly, the two US kettles took nearly five minutes to boil the water, while the UK kettle coasted over the finish line at under two minutes, allowing any tea drinker to savor the delightful smells of the brewing process while their US companion still stares forlornly at their American Ingenuity in action.
Beginning to catch the gist of why more power now is better, the two US kettles were then upgraded to a NEMA 6-20 connector, rated for 250 VAC and 20 A, or basically your standard UK ring circuit outlet depending on what fuse you feel bold enough to stick into the appliance’s power plug. This should reduce boiling time to about one minute and potentially not catch on fire in the process.
Both of the kettles barely got a chance to overheat and boiled the water in 55 seconds. Unfortunately only the exposed element kettle survived multiple runs, and both found themselves on an autopsy table as it would seem that these kettles are not designed to heat up so quickly. Clearly a proper fast cup of tea will remain beyond reach of the average North American citizen beyond sketchy hacks or using an old-school kettle.
Meanwhile if you’d like further international power rivalry, don’t forget to look into the world as seen through its power connectors.
Just order pre-heated water from Amazon, easy.
And if you buy it in bulk just put it into the freezer for later.
Unfortunately not. There aren’t that many kettles marketed as 3 kW available on the EU market, and I haven’t seen any yet that go higher. And the “3 kW” ones I have measured deliver more like 2.8 or 2.9 in reality.
There are a few premium induction cooking fields available that allow you to combine the power of multiple fields into one, sometimes up to 11 kW. This of course requires proper 3 phase wiring in the kitchen, but this is no issue. The issue seems to be finding cookware that is able to take that much power without the glazing melting…
I had no problem finding a ~3kW kettle on Amazon UK. A friend brough it back to the US for me and I intend to add a 240V receptacle to my kitchen
Breville definitely do one :-P
On the German price comparison site I like to use 45 of the 1378 electric kettles have at least 3 kW.
I’m really not sure where you’re looking, but a very quick Google search for 3KW kettle gave me pages of results from different retailers, different makes, models etc. theyay of course only be 2.9KW but meh, it’s still one heck of a lot faster than 1.5KW.
Oh, and 11KW induction hobs?
I haven’t seen one, but I’d recommend using them with proper metal cookware, not fashion statement stuff that’s designed to look pretty and make you feel good about how empty your wallet is.
I have a 3kW kettle… which I can’t use, because I now live in Switzerland, where sockets max out at 10A rather than 13A. I miss it so much…
Also, can you even get glazed induction hob cookware? Doesn’t the entire technology require them to be made from steel or cast iron?
Putting 240v on a 120v 1500 watt kettle will make it draw 6kW. No wonder it failed!
That’s stated in the video.
There was a lot of “No I will not show you how to do this.” and “This is why you might end up with a live casing.” involved in these shenanigans. Everything is do-at-your-own-risk.
If you really wanted to do this, you would just fit a UK kettle with a chonky US 220V plug and then plug it in to the 220V outlet of your stove, dryer, or car charger. If your charger is plugged in to 220V, you save yourself a whole lot of headaches. Unless you have an oddball socket, you’re looking at $20 and 5 minutes to wire it up.
Just be aware that UK mains plugs give you 0V and 230V, and US plugs give you -120V and +120V. This makes a difference because sometimes (rarely) UK devices don’t switch the 0V line. When connected to a US 240V socket, you might end up with bits of the device live while turned off, when they really shouldn’t be.
Kettle is a class 1 device so its case is connected to PE, and there’s a RCD in case earthing fails.
Cut the cord off and put the 14-50 plug on it? Likely cheaper than a J1772 inlet…On a more horrifying note, Amazon sells the 6-50 to 5-15 straight through adapter cord $18.99 delivered.