Eco Kettle Full Review
Posted: 05 February 2008 by Adam Vaughan
Here's a spot of eco pub trivia for you -- if everyone stopped overfilling their kettles, we'd save enough electricity to power the nation's street lights for seven months. Yes, a completely pointless and incomprehensible bit of trivia, but the message remains: just boil the right amount. Of course, that's easier said than done with some conventional kettles. And filling a kettle and then emptying water to get the right amount for a cuppa is not very green, especially in water-stressed areas like the south east. Which is where the alternative, the Eco Kettle, comes in.
This is the original eco kettle, and remains the first and only to carry the Energy Saving Trust's Recommended badge of approval. Since then, the flashy Plunger Kettle and instant-boiling Tefal Quick Cup have also arrived to offer some competition. This 1.5-litre pot remains incredibly popular though, for the simple reason that it's half the price of those two -- if you shop around, you'll find it for less than £30.
The concept's simple. Instead of one water chamber, it has two -- one for the boiling, and one for use as a reservoir. To use the kettle, you simply top the reservoir to full, and then press a button to plunge the required amount of water through to the boiling chamber. The result is it generally boils much faster than a normal kettle, producing one bog standard mug of tea in around 15 seconds. As a bonus, you're saving carbon and cash in the process.
It's easy to use, but -- like the similar Plunger Kettle -- the button does give a certain amount of physical resistance when you press it. That'll be fine for most hands, but not for frail ones. On a related note, it's also worth pointing out the kettle is considerably heavier than a conventional one, albeit slightly lighter than the Plunger.
The whole thing is well-built and sturdy, fitting neatly on to its base and locking the lid with a distinctly clear 'clunk'. However, the cheap price tag is reflected in the styling, which we'd be polite if we described as bland -- it's like an anti-iPod, reborn in kettle form.
Unlike its competitors, the Plunger Kettle and Tefal Quick Cup, the Eco Kettle doesn't have a water filter. Whether this is good or bad depends on your viewpoint. On the one hand it means less embodied energy and carbon emitted to produce the filters, and less landfill taken up with discarded filters. On the other, it means anyone living in a hard water area needs to be more rigorous about regularly cleaning limescale from the kettle to maintain its efficiency.
On a tasting note, anyone who likes their tea as close to boiling as possible will prefer this over the Tefal Quick Cup, which produces slightly cooler tea. We found it fine and so did most of our unwitting guest guinea pigs, but a couple did complain the Quick Cup produced tea that was too cold for their liking.
Ethics are good. Product Creation, the small company behind the kettle, tells us it's made in China's manufacturing hub Guangdong. The Eco Kettle's makers have known the factory owner personally for over two decades, and visit the factory twice a year to work with staff at all levels -- they believe the staff are "relatively well paid with good working conditions." The factory has been audited by other customers, including M&S. Extra greenie points are racked up by the reportedly low fault rate of the kettle -- Product Creation says it's less than 5 per cent instead of the industry average of less than 8 per cent.
For the price, the Eco Kettle's something of a no-brainer -- even if you don't save the 31 per cent energy the EST's studies suggest you will, it's barely double the price of a bog standard kettle.
Quality
Value
Ethics
Green
