Electric kettle - campervan
Any recommendations for a small(ish) electric kettle for a VW campervan - only for one person, so mainly for making drinks and washing up.
Am I asking too much for it to be small enough to store, low enough wattage AND not too slow to boil??
many thanks in advance
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No recommendations I'm afraid. We no longer use one, now preferring to use gas. However, when we did we found the ones sold in caravan stores, poor quality. All were relatively small by domestic standards and had 900 / 1000 watt elements. We got through two rather quickly, switches failed on both. Then we happened upon a small low wattage (900) version in a French supermarket, very well made and it is still going after 10 years. Unfortunately I have never seen anything like it there or here since.
As to speed. I'm afraid there is not much you can do about that. They do take an age to boil. Gas is much faster.
If you do go for one, make sure it is cordless. Our first was corded and in limited room that was a liability.
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If you do go for one, make sure it is cordless. Our first was corded and in limited room that was a liability.
Not sure that I totally agree Steve. Whether cordless or corded the base has the same footprint and I find corded easier to pack away.
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We just got a very cheap one from Asda which take 900W and works fine and had it for over ten years now.
If you have a low wattage one it will just take longer to heat up a set volume of water and there's no way around that. Can I ask just out of interest why low wattage? Keeping under a certain ampage?
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The actual formula to workout the current (amps) drawn is :
amps = watts / voltage
If you have a 1000 watt kettle, that would therefore draw a current of roughly 4 amps ( 4.3 amps actually given a mains voltage of 230v )
Personally I just assume 4 amps per 1000w ( or 1 Kw)
A standard domestic kettle can be 3Kw or 3000 watts and would therefore draw a current of roughly 12 amps all by itself and your caravan supply is limited to 16 amps so not much to spare before the bollard trips out, hence caravan kettles are low wattage, around 700 to 1000w max.
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We always used a travel kettle, enough for 2 and a bit mugs, boiled whilst prepping things. Would be enough with cold added for dishes too.
We carried a gas one which held more and was used if we had no EHU. A saucepan would do instead to space save.
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We have used camping low wattage kettles for years. They are pretty cheap and do the job. Even used them abroad where ampage can be on the low side. Our first electric kettle in the van was a Haden 750 watt model it lasted for years, we only changed it because we wanted a cordless version!
David
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I would have thought a gas kettle is more useful for a campervan if you're out and about, we don't use an electric kettle in our van. If you want to have electric there are loads of travel kettles available, I've got a cheap low wattage Kingavon cordless one at home, it's works well.
If you're shot on space a "collaps" silicone kettle is useful.
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Thanks all for your responses. I do have one I use on gas but when on EHU I thought I might as well use the electric!
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I have a travel kettle that was a wedding present that's been used all round the Med and in several vans. Still going strong after 25 years.
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No, I'm a proper sailing man and the Solent and South Coast was my territory. The silver was last autumn.
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We use a 1ltr 750w kettle, takes a while to boil but its not really a problem, there are other things to do rather than watching the kettle boil when camping.
I have also seen collapse type kettles for sale with the element in the base, great if you are short of storage space.
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