464982 Thu Nov 29 18:55:10 -0800 2007 12 41 Cookware 0 3166818 I got a Kamjove induction tea kettle similar to the one in the link, except it's 800 watt and with a 110 voltage for the US. http://www.hailea.com/kamjove/E-kamjove/kj-09H.htm It heats up quickly, in very differently from the usual stove top, or other electric kettle in the way tiny bubbles form rapidly as it boils. I would use it more often but somehow I need to find out if the 800 watt power is something I have to be concerned about? What does it mean, really? Is it safe to use with other electrical appliances all plugging into a same outlet? Do I have to calculate the total wattage just to be safe? Also, does it use a lot more electricity? Thu Nov 29 18:55:10 -0800 2007 10422 HLing 1 3166996 Watts are a measurement of power. I realize that's not clearing anything up for you ... One simplified-but-not-wrong way of thinking of watts is as heat. A 100 watt light bulb is going to be twice as hot as a 50 watt light bulb (NOT, as people tend to assume, necessarily twice as bright). And an 800 watt kettle is going to heat water twice as fast as a 400 watt kettle (more or less...). Watts are what you pay for when the electric bill comes. Or more accurately, you pay for watts used over time. A killowatt-hour (kWh) is the basic unit of billing. A kWh is a kilowatt of power used for an hour. Currently, this costs me about $0.12 here in California. Calculating kWh is not hard. If you use a 100 watt lightbulb for one hour, that's 100 watt-hours, or 1/10 of a kilowatt (which is 1000 watt-hours). So that costs me 1/10 of twelve cents, or a little over a penny. If you use an 800 watt kettle for five minutes, that's going to be about eight tenths of a cent to heat your water. The thing is, if you had instead used a 400 watt kettle, it would take twice as long to heat the water. And even though the wattage is half, the time is double so you would end up paying the same amount on your bill. Safety-wise, 800 watts isn't all that much. Your microwave is probably about 1200 watts. Your hair drier is maybe 1400 watts. Your house should be equipped with circuit breakers or fuses in case you use the kettle on the same circuit as a microwave and a hairdryer all at the same time. In that case, if more current than expected is being drawn through the wires, the fuse will blow and you'll know not to do all three at the same time again. If nothing has happened yet, in all probability you're good. Thu Nov 29 20:12:13 -0800 2007 3166818 25310 Chuckles the Clone 2 3167059 Wow, thank you for that very clear explanation! Ever since I owned and quickly disowned a small Holm space heater that somehow casued a huge jump in my electric bill I've been living in vague fear of the unknown in this department. So, maybe I could have bought the 1200 watt tea kettle instead! If I had your answers then I would have had a even faster tea kettle, especially since I own neither a microwave nor a hair drier. Thu Nov 29 20:46:31 -0800 2007 3166996 10422 HLing 1 3167282 It would be a good idea to add up the watts you are using if plugging many appliances into the same outlet or circuit. A 15 amp circuit can supply 1800 watts, 20 amp 2400 watts. I had a circuit breaker fail once, fortunately the main breaker was working. http://forum.doityourself.com/forumdisplay.php?s=c2fac0a3d75fb76e80b3c1c4cfc6b766&f=9 This is a great site for electrical questions. I have used it a lot since I rewired my kitchen for the remodel I'm doing. Fri Nov 30 00:26:52 -0800 2007 3166818 77247 Romanmk 2 3169799 Ah yes, that's another answer I was looking for. It seems that most of the power strips I get in the general stores are limited to 1800 watts, but does one assumes the outlets in the house/apartment are usually 15 amp also? I was in a trade show where I helped set up a booth and run many little very bright bulbs on several power strips. That was the sort of circumstance where it would be good to know whether there's enough power to ALSO plug in a tea kettle to boil water without sudden darkness... Thanks for the link! It looks very daunting for me at this point...another world out there. Fri Nov 30 20:10:28 -0800 2007 3167282 10422 HLing 3 3169868 To run several 1500+W items at a time, you really should know something about the rating of your circuit breakers (or fuses), and the arrangement of outlets on these circuits. Using 2 1500W items on one circuit would invite a tripped breaker, but would be ok on separate ones. paulj Fri Nov 30 20:48:24 -0800 2007 3169799 12139 paulj 4 3172808 Thanks everyone for chiming in with good info! Just want to understand more here: Is it right that the usual two outlets on the wall, can EACH handle 1800 -2000 watts? Or are you saying that the pair can be wired to share 1800? I mean it's always taken for granted that things like the refridgerator has to be plugged directly into the wall, but the other outlet right next to it can be used for other appliances, right? Sun Dec 02 11:21:09 -0800 2007 3169868 10422 HLing 5 3172880 Think of the wiring in your house like a tree. The wires coming from outside are trunk. There is a circuit breaker at the base of each major branch. Some branches (circuits) are extra 'strong' to handle high loads like the water heater, and the electric stove. The outlets are twigs. The 15 or 20 amp limit of a circuit breaker applies to the combined load on all the outlets wired to that breaker. Adjacent outlets may be on the circuit, but not necessarily. paulj Sun Dec 02 11:50:50 -0800 2007 3172808 12139 paulj 5 3173442 When you say "the usual two outlets on the wall" I assume you're talking about a pair of outlets sharing the same cover plate? If so, than these are almost *certainly* on the same circuit and you shouldn't plug two high powered appliances into the two outlets. What is not certain is whether one of these pairs is on the same circuit as another pair in a different part of your kitchen. The only convenient way of figuring that out is by switching off the circuit breakers one by one and seeing what loses power. Sun Dec 02 16:19:34 -0800 2007 3172808 25310 Chuckles the Clone 6 3173914 Paulj and Chuckles the Clone, you make a great team in covering this area of information! Yes I meant the "pair of outlets sharing the same cover plate", and that was the answer to something I've always wondered about vaguely in the back of my head. Yes, that would make knowing the way the kitchen is wired rather important, IF I had liked to use lots of heavy appliances. Luckily I'm the backward type who prefers hand whipping cream (builds nice arm muscles), the two-knife pie crust dough making technique (no "pulsing until resembling coarse meal" for me), and the latest in ditching the coffee grinder (too loud, and burns the grounds) in favor of the CNC Aluminum 4 PC Pollen Herb Spice Grinder... Still, thanks to all who replied here, I will make a project out of finding out what's wired where in my little apartment when I have a partner in crime to test them out. Oh, and I will not daisy chain those power strips any more... Sun Dec 02 19:38:15 -0800 2007 3173442 10422 HLing 7 3174005 Those motorized appliances don't use all that much power. For example a hand mixer is on the order of 200-300 w. Generally it's heated ones that use a lot. My toaster is about the same as your hot pot, but the panini grill is more like 1500w. If there is any doubt, the power draw should be marked on the appliance. paulj Sun Dec 02 20:16:51 -0800 2007 3173914 12139 paulj 3 3169877 For those people that work with electricity the saying goes "what you assume can get you killed." That being said 15 amps is a pretty safe guess. The bedroom and living area circuits in my 1987 house are all 15 amps. The kitchen, bathroom, and appliance circuits are 20 amps. A look inside your fuse box/ circuit breaker panel/ load center will give you the answer if it is labeled correctly. Fri Nov 30 20:56:26 -0800 2007 3169799 77247 Romanmk 3 3170099 So in order to figure out how the watts in an appliance and an amp rating for a circuit are related, there's some very simple math: Amps = Watts / Volts In the U.S., Volts are always 110. So you add up the Watts of everything that's connected to a single circuit, divide by 110, and the result is the number of amps that will be needed. See, this is why it might be good that you got a 800W kettle rather than a 1200W. Even though both will cost the same to heat up a load of water, the 1200W one will need 50% more amps. Amps, roughly, are a measure of the number of electrons that are being pulled through the wire. But like water flowing through a pipe, a wire can only carry so many electrons before breaking, or more specifically, melting. To keep that from happening, since it would be a disaster, there is a fuse or a circuit breaker on the wire. These are designed to be easier to melt than your house wiring. So when you have too much current in the wires the circuit breaker snaps off and shuts down the circuit. The amount of current, amps, that a circuit breaker can handle is printed on it somewhere (fuses too). Like romanmk mentioned, it's going to be at least around 15 amps and usually no more. Figuring out whatall's on a given circuit can be a chore. In an old house, half the house could be on a single circuit. In a newer place wired up by a more thorough electrician, you might have three or four in a single room. The easiest way to figure it out is to find your circuit breaker box. The breakers are little black sideways switches, each controlling a single circuit. Many times they will already be labeled. Otherwise, you can switch one off and look around the house for whatever doesn't have power. Then turn it on and turn the next one off and go see what went off in the house. Repeat until you're done; those are your circuits. (And in case you do go ahead and try this, note that the breaker switches are spring-loaded to switch off very easily but you have to press kind of hard to get them back on). If you have fuses it's the same thing just unscrew them one at a time. Still, all this is a bit academic. You're almost certainly not going to run into any trouble with your kettle... :) Sat Dec 01 01:21:59 -0800 2007 3169799 25310 Chuckles the Clone