Non-motoring > Kettle not boiling up Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Dave Replies: 45

 Kettle not boiling up - Dave
My kettle switches itself off internally (ie. not at the usual on/off switch) when it's about 3/4 boiled. After a short while it comes back on again and finally boils and switches off properly. The more water in it, the more times it cuts out before boiling.

Whats wrong with it?
 Kettle not boiling up - WillDeBeest
Have you checked that there's no water anywhere it shouldn't be? Mine occasionally behaves erratically, and I usually find a drop or two has got on to the base plate. Once it's dry again, it's fine.
 Kettle not boiling up - Bromptonaut
>> Have you checked that there's no water anywhere it shouldn't be? Mine occasionally behaves erratically,
>> and I usually find a drop or two has got on to the base plate.
>> Once it's dry again, it's fine.

What's Swedish water like for hardness? It might need a descale.

If there's no simple cure just chuck it. We seem to go through one every 18months or so. Either they pack up altogether or fail to switch off and turn the kitchen into a sauna.
 Kettle not boiling up - Roger.
>> My kettle switches itself off internally (ie. not at the usual on/off switch) when it's
>> about 3/4 boiled. After a short while it comes back on again and finally boils
>> and switches off properly. The more water in it, the more times it cuts out
>> before boiling.
>>
>> Whats wrong with it?
It's knackered?
 Kettle not boiling up - Dave
"Whats wrong with it? It's knackered?"

That's one of Zero's lines!

I think you could be right though. Water is pretty soft here, I think. I splashed out £9 for the kettle, and come to think of it, it may still be under guaranty!
 Kettle not boiling up - -
£9 kettle, what do expect a Magimix/Dualit?...:-)
 Kettle not boiling up - Dave
>> £9 kettle, what do expect a Magimix/Dualit?...:-)
>>

Ha, no, but a year or two would be nice.

It' strange how everyone in power is always telling/making us to think about the environment - don't travel anywhere, recycle everything etc, yet they seem quite happy to have everyone buy junk from China (amongst others) that's shipped half way around the world, made in un-environmentally friendly factories, lasts 6 months (if lucky), and then gets thrown away.
 Kettle not boiling up - spamcan61
>>
>> It' strange how everyone in power is always telling/making us to think about the environment
>> - don't travel anywhere, recycle everything etc, yet they seem quite happy to have everyone
>> buy junk from China (amongst others) that's shipped half way around the world, made in
>> un-environmentally friendly factories, lasts 6 months (if lucky), and then gets thrown away.
>>

Yes indeed, unfortunately the economy is propped up by people re-buying short lasting crap, so the doublespeak will continue.

..but it does sound like time to bin the kettle! SWMBO keeps buying ones from Morrissons that barely last a year and have sticky on/off switches. Same junk in Clas Ohlson I guess.
 Kettle not boiling up - Kevin
>Whats wrong with it?

Sounds like the thermal cutout is tripping, cooling and resetting, tripping, etc, etc...

Time to bin it.
 Kettle not boiling up - sherlock47
Before you bin it try descaling it. Best is Hydrochloric Acid, (or white vinegar) if HCl not available off the shelf cheaply in the local DIY store.

But make sure you rinse and boil before use. :)

Scale would account for localised overheating and thermal trip operating.

 Kettle not boiling up - zookeeper
i had a dodgy kettle that kept heating up and cooling by itself , i thought the constant click from the kitchen was the fridge compressor kicking in but it was the kettle...i wondered why my lecky bill was getting abnormally high
 Kettle not boiling up - Mapmaker
>>Before you bin it try descaling it. Best is Hydrochloric Acid, (or white vinegar) if HCl not
>>available off the shelf cheaply in the local DIY store.


But we've already been told that the water is soft. And the kettle was only £9. The HCl would be a good chunk of the cost of a new kettle, surely, and as the water is soft it wouldn't do any good anyway. And HCl is not nice stuff...
 Kettle not boiling up - Dave
I had a browse for a new kettle today. It's National Day here, so nothing else to do anyway. But even the more expensive 'branded' kettles all seemed like cheap (but not in price) junk. With the exception of one, all were made in China. The one that wasn't, says it was made in PRC, so maybe that's better quality??
Last edited by: Dave on Thu 6 Jun 13 at 18:23
 Kettle not boiling up - AnotherJohnH
>> The one that wasn't, says it was made in PRC, so maybe that's better quality??

PRC = People's Republic of China.

So, no better, just "badge engineered".
 Kettle not boiling up - CGNorwich
About the only non Chinese kettle available in the UK

www.amazon.co.uk/Efbe-WK-232-Wasserkocher-Thermostat/dp/B000MWTFG6
 Kettle not boiling up - -
Has it really got to the point that we don't even make an electric kettle here any more.

Laughable if it wasn't so tragic.
 Kettle not boiling up - Dog
www.channel4.com/news/made-in-britain-can-manufacturing-save-the-british-economy

:-((
 Kettle not boiling up - -
Cheers for that D, that article also bemoans the fact.

I'm going to try my damndest not to buy anything else made in China or labelled PRC from now on.

What gets to me is the cynical badging and labelling of many of these products with German sounding brands, and the deliberately vague descriptions with clever misleading words...i hope they get the pox.

The countryside is littered with huge sprawling warehouses stuffed to the rafters with cheap (but not by the time the customer gets it) Chinese tat, those warehouses staffed almost exclusively by east europeans, whilst we sadly watch our own disillusioned young men leading aimless unproductive unskilled lives getting involved in drugs or other criminality instead of having real jobs making stuff.

In other slightly connected news i understand the Met old bill have been water cannon training in Hants, preparing for the next riot instalment of the destruction of Britain?

 Kettle not boiling up - No FM2R
>>Cheers for that D, that article also bemoans the fact.

Which fact? Or does blindly ignoring the existence of real facts work better with your politics?
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 6 Jun 13 at 21:06
 Kettle not boiling up - Dog
>>I'm going to try my damndest not to buy anything else made in China or labelled PRC from now on

I'm the same with anything made in Israel, gb, if the missus comes back from shopping with some Israeli pink grapefruit or avocados, they go straight in the bin.

I'd rather starve than eat any produce grown on land stolen from the Palestinians.
 Kettle not boiling up - rtj70
Dog, then I hope you've not got an Intel processor in your PC - it will have either been mostly designed in Israel - even the latest Haswell processors have had a lot of input from the Haifa based team. Might have been made there as well (Kiryat Gat).

www.zdnet.com/israel-inside-a-history-of-intels-r-and-d-in-israel-7000003122/

Time to bin it if you do have something like an Intel Core2 processor or newer ;-)
 Kettle not boiling up - Dog
>>Dog, then I hope you've not got an Intel processor in your PC

Yes Rob, I realise Israel are big players in the computer industry, and I'm okay with that really, it's just thought of buying fresh Israeli produce grown on land farmed previously by generations of Palestinians that bothers me.

I wouldn't buy an Israeli kettle either ;)
 Kettle not boiling up - Zero
>> >>Dog, then I hope you've not got an Intel processor in your PC
>>
>> Yes Rob, I realise Israel are big players in the computer industry, and I'm okay
>> with that really, it's just thought of buying fresh Israeli produce grown on land farmed
>> previously by generations of Palestinians that bothers me.

Slight problem, the Palestinians grew sod all there it was just desert and infertile.

 Kettle not boiling up - Dog
"Within five years all of the human senses will be in computers, and in 10 years we will have more transistors in one chip than neurons in the human brain," says Mooly Eden, president of Intel Israel".

How amazing is that!
 Kettle not boiling up - Zero

>> What gets to me is the cynical badging and labelling of many of these products
>> with German sounding brands, and the deliberately vague descriptions with clever misleading words...i hope they
>> get the pox.

In what way is THAT new? Dixons have been doing that for 30 years.


>> The countryside is littered with huge sprawling warehouses stuffed to the rafters with cheap (but
>> not by the time the customer gets it) Chinese tat, those warehouses staffed almost exclusively
>> by east europeans, whilst we sadly watch our own disillusioned young men leading aimless unproductive
>> unskilled lives getting involved in drugs or other criminality instead of having real jobs making
>> stuff.

So why are the warehouses not staffed with the disillusioned young men? Oh by the way, the warehouses keep your fellow truckers gainfully employed.


>> In other slightly connected news i understand the Met old bill have been water cannon
>> training in Hants, preparing for the next riot instalment of the destruction of Britain?

Like its exclusively UK thing. The Germans didn't set up the training centre to exclusively train the Brits now did they. It was for home use first.
 Kettle not boiling up - Pat
>> whilst we sadly watch our own disillusioned young men leading aimless unproductive
>> unskilled lives getting involved in drugs or other criminality instead of having real jobs making
>> stuff.
<<

I used to watch sadly......I don't anymore.

I've spent a lot of time working with, and training. Eastern European forkies, warehouse men and lorry drivers this last few years and their work ethic, is second to none.
They turn up on time, are polite, respect a customers wishes, are eager to learn how to do a job properly and proud to be in work.

The equivalent British young man, thinks the boss is doing him a favour employing him, the firm he works for shouldn't make a profit and expects to spend most of his day (driving or not) updating Facebook.

When our own disillusioned young men take a leaf out of the EU's book and accept that getting a wage means you have to do a bit of work for it, they will find jobs.

Pat
Last edited by: pda on Fri 7 Jun 13 at 08:52
 Kettle not boiling up - No FM2R
>>Laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

Why?
 Kettle not boiling up - No FM2R
"Although the manufacturing sector's share of both employment and the UK's GDP has steadily fallen since the 1960s, data from the OECD shows that manufacturing output in terms of both production and value has steadily increased since 1945. A 2009 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, citing data from the UK Office for National Statistics, stated that manufacturing output (gross value added at 2007 prices) has increased in 35 of the 50 years between 1958 and 2007, and output in 2007 was at record levels, approximately double that in 1958"

And I have given you a link to the PWC report before.

But it doesn't sound quite so good, does it?
 Kettle not boiling up - Lygonos
>>But it doesn't sound quite so good, does it?

Great.

But how does it compare with the rest of the world over the same time.
 Kettle not boiling up - No FM2R
>>But how does it compare with the rest of the world over the same time.

I don't know, although from a cursory look the UK's league position is seemingly mostly unchanged for much of the last 20 years. Although that is, at best, a rough comparison.

As I am sure you're aware, a single factor like Manufacturing Output is never really going to present a complete picture of much.

I notice GB is absent now facts have appeared and things have got more complex than a UKIP agenda.
 Kettle not boiling up - Manatee
>> I notice GB is absent now facts have appeared and things have got more complex
>> than a UKIP agenda.

Unnecessary and uncalled for.

In any case, GB is in all probability busy earning, and doesn't work at a desk with a computer on it.

But I do think UK has somehow missed a trick here.

Inevitably the manufacture of low value, easy to make stuff with low/no barriers to entry has migrated to lower cost economies and it is facile to suppose that we could be world leader in the manufacture of cheap consumer goods - it is several years since microwave ovens hit $10 FOB in China, and Europe can't compete with that, or in cheap T-shirts that have a 6p labour content when made in Bangladesh.

Most "Japanese" TVs and VCRs were not in the end made in Japan, and the same has subsequently happened with DVD, cameras, computers etc.

Even Germany doesn't do that stuff. But they have somehow managed to stick on to industrial manufacturing better than we have. There's unlikely to be a simple, single explanation for that but it's probably to do with the structure of companies and labour relations, less pressure for short term results, better investment conditions, financial stability, and the resulting lower unit labour costs which mean they have been more successful at retaining the high added value, proprietary and technical manufacturing areas than other developed European economies.

Historically, takeovers of listed companies in Germany has been much more difficult than in UK. The CEO of a UK plc is always acutely aware of his share price and the attitude of the markets and analysts to the company, which will affect its ability to finance itself and to manage investment for growth and future profits vs. short term benefits for shareholders. The German equivalent CEO has generally been able to take a much longer term view, and successful companies there do not generally think first in terms of takeovers as a way to grow their businesses.
 Kettle not boiling up - No FM2R


news.sky.com/story/1100667/airfix-owner-hornby-battles-for-britain

 Kettle not boiling up - No FM2R
>>Unnecessary and uncalled for.

Yet strangely accurate....
 Kettle not boiling up - Armel Coussine
>> strangely accurate....

Not strictly accurate though FMR. gordonbennett is no stranger to facts or complexity in matters he understands well, although you may feel his politics are simplistic. I would remind you that he isn't the only person here apparently drawn to that right-wing populist discourse. Not everyone has your advantages, or mine, or gb's come to that. Takes all sorts to make a clamour in a pub.
 Kettle not boiling up - Zero
>> Has it really got to the point that we don't even make an electric kettle
>> here any more.
>>
>> Laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

Not really. Cheap kettles are low value items, really not manufacturable at the kind of wages we want to pay ourselves.
 Kettle not boiling up - AnotherJohnH
Getting back on thread briefly, if you would rather buy European than Chinese, and not fork out too much - you can sometimes find a "Silvercrest" branded Wasserkocher which is (probably) made by Kompernaß Handelsgesellschaft mbH, in Lidl and elsewhere.

Quite how long it will last is open to debate.
 Kettle not boiling up - VxFan
>> Quite how long it will last is open to debate.

Who cares with the 3 yr guarantee LIDL gives their non food products.
 Kettle not boiling up - L'escargot
One of my jobs when I was working was to check the quality and durability of products made to our drawings by a Chinese company, with a view to giving them approval to make the products under licence for sale in China. The quality and durability of the samples they submitted was superior to those made at our UK factory! I would have no reservations about buying products made in China.
 Kettle not boiling up - AnotherJohnH
>> I would have no reservations about buying products made in China.


But, China is a very big place, and I'd bet that not everything made there is best quality.

ISTR an article in the Terrorflag:

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/6962490/Come-back-Not-for-all-the-scooters-in-China.html
 Kettle not boiling up - Armel Coussine
There are two kettles here. One is metal, the other plastic. They both still work although their elements are furred up with scale. The plastic one has the odd area where overheating has distorted and discoloured the plastic.

I am amazed that an OP concerning a faulty 9 quid kettle has generated so far 36 replies, many of them earnest in tone and some apparently concerned that cheap electrical goods are no longer mass-produced in this country. What's the matter with people? Capitalism is global and we are supposed to be too grand for that sort of work. You need a Ph D. to get a job flipping burgers where we come from Ali, geddit? Back to the carwash with you.

Tchah! But

:o}

 Kettle not boiling up - -
Funny how what you write can be misinterpreted, or as is is more likely i explained badly.

I'm not in the least surprised that east europeans are staffing those Chinese Tat warehouses, i've said here often enough that much of our own youth lack the work gene, whereas in general the easterners do have a better work ethic.

The trouble is its a decreasing circle, whilst our own youth are guided into ever longer periods of education the reality for so many is little in the way of gainful employment justifying all those extra years in real terms (though it usefully keeps them off the unemployment statistics), and they might be forgiven for thinking they are above manual work with their passes.

Maybe the Labour party will create some virtual jobs for them when they get re-elected, a few hundred thousand more state jobs then.

What i meant is tragic is that those huge warehouses are there at all, they should be manufacturing bases where our own youth could be apprenticed in order to give them a sustainable life of productive satisfying skilled work.

Building more warehouses and more 'affordable' housing to accomodate the increasing number of immigrants to staff them is hardly going to put our country back on its feet, oh wow they pay taxes, well thats marvellous, until you work out that the minimum pay scales involved don't actually make them nett contributors, so who actually pays the increasing costs of NHS etc needed to service the continuing influx....oh sorry elephant in room boob there (time for a racist finger point anyone), i forget the MSM reason the NHS is crumbling is old people, you know the ones that helped pay for it out of taxes paid from their real jobs.

There is still a market for good quality products, small example i buy good quality white goods that last for many years and i know i'm far from being the only one.






 Kettle not boiling up - Armel Coussine
Capitalism evolves gb, and the changes are often uncomfortable or worse for those in the way at the wrong time. As a system though its first priority was never the comfort of the majority.

These are big subjects with layer after layer of depth to them. The very thought of plunging in there makes one's heart sink. But who wouldn't be a wimp rather than suffer the agonies of the damned?
 Kettle not boiling up - Lygonos
>>i forget the MSM reason the NHS is crumbling is old people, you know the ones that helped pay for it out of taxes paid from their real jobs.

The current retired generation will receive far more from the state than they ever paid in taxes.

And the reality is no-one has "paid" in the past for what they receive now - today's pensions and healtcare comes from today's taxpayers. Every penny paid into the exchequer through an elderly person's income tax was spluffed years ago on whatever was the priority at that time.

That's the economy crippling truth I'm afraid.

Other than having babies the EU immigrants are still of an age that the NHS is barely registering them as a blip on the radar.

And the current drop in net immigration has hee-haw to do with "tough" Tory policy, and far more to do with the lack of employment opportunity since the economic crash.

 Kettle not boiling up - corax
>> The current retired generation will receive far more from the state than they ever paid
>> in taxes.

Yes, and a larger proportion of that retired generation will live for much longer than they ever used to, hence a large drain on the pension pot.

>> That's the economy crippling truth I'm afraid.

Also a much larger proportion of retired compared to younger people of working age like Japan - who will pay for those pensions.
 Kettle not boiling up - Zero
>> >> The current retired generation will receive far more from the state than they ever
>> paid
>> >> in taxes.

I dont think so my old son, some of us have paid taxes at a higher rate for a large number of years, and taken comparatively little from the state to date.
 Kettle not boiling up - CGNorwich


" dont think so my old son, some of us have paid taxes at a higher rate for a large number of years, and taken comparatively little from the state to date."


Was thinking that myself.

All I will get at 65 is the state pension and my tax on my private pension exceeds that amount at the moment and I will be paying 40% tax on that when I receive it. I don't want a bus pass and I give away my heating allowance each year. I suppose I could incur large medical bills but my National Insurance contributions will most likely have exceeded that many times over and there again I might just drop dead with no claim on the NHS.

I'm not complaining but I'm not a drain on resources
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