Be Excellent To Each Other

As I was making myself a cup of tea a few minutes back I came up with an idea. We have a kettle in the office, which must get used about 50 times a day. However, between uses huge amounts of energy are pumping out the thin plastic sides of the kettle, and out of the little spout. So, how about, instead of the normal kettle you get a thermos flask style body, really well insulated. Instead of an open nozzle it has a sort of valvey thing that only lets water out when you tip it, and alewts water in when you fill it up. You boil a kettle, make yourself a cup of tea, come back an hour later and the water is still almost boiling! It only takes a fraction of the energy to heat it back up. Now, I know in theory people only should use the amount of water they actually need but that probably doesn't happen most of the time.

What does every one think? Is the Squirt Thermo Kettle the next Dyson vacuum cleaner?

It would be if I hadn't just patented it this second.

One would expect the sealed nature of a thermos, and the subsequent heating and re-boiling of the liquid inside, would mean your invention has already been invented. It's called a bomb.

Re-boiled water in a kettle is never very nice though - freshly boiled water has oxygen left in it, but boiling it over reduces or removes it and the tea is affected - that's why if you ever read the instructions on a packet of tea leaves (or coffee, i assume) it says to boil some freshly drawn water.

Of course, the valve would have to let steam escape when boiling but keep everything in once it has boiled, otherwise, as Dimrill says, it's BOOOOM time.

I find it's nicer if you don't let it boil, just make it really hot. But I'm not a great coffee/tea-drinker, so what do I know!

Lots of people would agree with you - I think in France they never ket water quite get to boiling - they keep it to just under a simmer - it's supposed to keep the water more 'lively'. I don't drink much tea or coffee but I always boil the water when I do as tap water hurts my tummy.

As water temperature increases, the amount of soluble O2 it can contain decreases. When water cools again, teh amount of soluble o2 it can hold increases again.

I've never thought about the oxygen content before. I like to boil the hell out of it, but I have absolutely no idea what effect that has on the taste of the water.

It would be similar in result to the Tefal hot water machine that Stu was pimping. It has a powerful element to boil (or near boil) a small flow of water "on demand". So you're not heating a large mass of water and then losing all the heat through the sides of the kettle every time.

Perhaps a "kettle cosy" would be an acceptable and cheaper compromise, though? Knitted from recycled material?

Fox fur and I might consider it.

OK, maybe boiling liquid in a sealed container is possibly not the best thing, but a sort of thermal insulation would help, I'm sure. Maybe I can bubble air through the water to reoxygenate it. I quite like the idea of a furry kettle though.

I've always found that just boiling about as much water as I'll need to be the best thing to do.

wierd, how?

Me too, but not very practical in a big office with a shared kettle.

I say LAME, sir.

I think it's because I spend part of each month in London and part in Lancaster - the water is so different in these two places that it gives me really bad tummy pains, almost like having cramp. Also, Lancaster water makes my hair look horrible

If you're getting those pains once a month there's a possible other cause...

Hard water is bloody nasty..I'm with you Mimi..makes the hair look horrid.
And the skin...and the kettle...and..well everything imo. It can also smell...am I the only one that can smell tap water?
Tap water = bad. Too many chemicals and other shit.

Tefal ftw..and we had a water softener installed a few years back.

Not this. Tap water in this country is mostly of very high quality and contains much less contaminants of every kind than bottled. Consistently comes out higher that most bottled waters in blind taste tests, too - particularly London water.

I distrust this.

London water is "softer" than Exeter and Ivybridge water. The water down here smells of chlorine!

The best tap water I've tasted is when I visit my Grandad who lives in Greenock (near Glasgow)

Malc

No, seriously.

Mr Hammond did a 'should I worry about...' program on it and all was AOK, and he wouldn't lie to us. Would he?

And in return this. That frankly untrue Shewolf.

And honestly I think bottled water is pretty much the greatest symbol of excess waste and the fucked up nature of our culture in existence. Nothing annoys me more than the process of animal remains being compressed for millions of years before countless people dig it out, more people refine it and turn it into plastic bottles just to take water from one place (typically in a giant boat) to another place that already has safer, cleaner and better water available from the tap. Just because people are too lazy to carry around their own tap water.

Numerous studies always show that bottled water is suprising unsafe and it has far less safety standards than tap water.

Watch Penn and Teller's bullshit episode about it



(Sorry for the rant).

Yes, This.

I think that about coloured toilet paper.

I'd not hesitate to agree with you that the local water of Wirral is acetastic and good if it were proved. However, I refute the assertion that what comes out of the tap at my house is nice.

Tap water is bad.
The majority of tap water here is shite. Some is not.

I've been told by Doctors to not drink said tap water. Now this is because of what it contains and what this stuff does to my medical condition. So it's fine for most people but I wouldn't drink it now even if I didn't have a condition that is easily aggrivated.

Eeek! I guess it must have to do with the floride otherwise that's very, very strange, still he is your doctor after all.

I would replace 'fine' with 'vastly superior' though.

Anything seems to set me off. This is highly irritating.

Viz* top tip: Fill a clean glass bottle with tap water and put it in the fridge. Bingo, your very own bottled water.

* but it actually works, try it.

By a water softener/cleaner that fits in your fridge.
Solution.

Stop being wimpy, everyone who isn't Shewolf. Before such decadent inventions as the Tefal Water De-Gunker, people's bodies just had to get used to the local H2O, right? Even if they did move around the country a lot.

"You think anyone in Rwanda's got a fuckin' lactose intolerance?"

No, silly

Oh no, it's the softer water of Lancaster that disagrees with me - it makes my hair feel unclean and makes my skin feel like it has a film all over it, and it hurts my tummy - the water is soft here, but it does also smell like a swimming pool. I quite like the water in London as far as the taste goes, but it's the swapping between the two that seems to upset me, so I just avoid drinking either now.

How odd, I wonder why that is.
Soft water loves my hair. Water on the Isle of Wight makes it go AFRO SIZE though, which can be amusing as I have a lot of hair.

My girlfriends sister lives in London, and when ever she vists us she always gets a bad stomach. We've put that down to the water, (either that or Pauline is slowly killing her!)

Malc

The biggest problem I have is that the water that comes out of a brita, tefal or other water filter thing tastes HORRIBLE.

Clearner or not, the tap water in both London and Buckinghamshire is massively nicer.

Really? Oddly, I've found the exact opposite - London tapwater is vile (and makes your tea have weird floaty bits), but becomes acceptable when put through a Brita filter. Maybe I'm just used to Teesside water.

At some point, perhaps water preference becomes more a matter of taste than of purity.

I think the water from the taps is probably slightly nicer too, but I do use the filter for making (Hi Juice) orange squash, as otherwise it has a floaty puddle of gunk on the top, which is no fun.

That's exactly what I find with tea - not nice.

They had something on telly about how bottled water is killing the planet, and that we should all drink tap water because it's perfectly fine.

They can come drink the water here, with all the little bits of soil in it from when they keep digging up the pipes.

When I was a nipper, we ended up renting a house for a couple of weeks as there was a delay between moving out of our old one and into our new one. It was a slightly grotty holiday let in the off season, and not only was it freezing cold ( no heating or insulation! ) the water came out of the taps a horrid brown colour. Probably more due to the pipes then the water itself though.

Fair enough but I tend to find the tapwater has no taste as such but the filtered water just tastes of ick.

I've occasionally wondered what is actually in the little plastic cartridges that filter the water. Presumably it's something that is undetectable by some (most?) people, but for others, has the ick flavour.

Active charcoal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ1-kKNZ2HY

is the first part of the documentary I foundthat I mentioned earlier.

Mmm!

You mean charcoal containing "friendly bacteria"?

Brita water tastes nice. Especially ofc if it's out of the fridge too.

Brita, eh?

'spose I should lay down the sponds and get the thing. It's been a year, after all.

I have to admit I don't get that but it's been a long day.