Pretty much every person I know in Canada has an electric kettle and every single office I’ve worked in has one, my kitchen has 15a outlets which is still 1800W. I have a simple gooseneck kettle that I usw mainly for coffee, it’s only 1kW and holds around 750ml, it’s not blisteringly fast but it’s boiled before I’ve ground my coffee.
The whole “120v is holding us back from having kettles” is way overblown (technology connections has a video on electric kettles).
1800W are not out of the ordinary for water cookers in Europe but that’s definitely on the weak side. 3000 to 3200 is usually the maximum, probably because pulling the full 3600W would drastically increase the chances of tripping a fuse. My food processor is 600W and I might want to make a coffee while kneading dough.
Have to drop the US number by 20% for continuous loads like a kettle would be.
That said, US homes built in the last 40 years or so tend to have a lot of separate circuits in the kitchen. My house has one for the fridge, one for the disposal, one for the dishwasher, one for the lights that’s shared with lights in adjacent areas, stove has its own 240V outlet, and then one for all the other plugs. If I ran the microwave and a kettle and a mixer all at once, I’d probably still trip it, but that’s a lot of multitasking going on.
If kettles were continuous loads we’d have to reduce from 16A to 10A (2200W) or 8A (1800W). Schuko are rated for as little as 1h of 16A but for a kettle that’s plenty, they’re done in a minute or two.
German stoves are connected to at least 2x10A, newer installations (as in since the 70s or such) all provide 3x16A. Not actually three-phase they’re still 220V appliances. Whether the outlets, light etc. are on different phases differs widely.
Pretty much every person I know in Canada has an electric kettle and every single office I’ve worked in has one, my kitchen has 15a outlets which is still 1800W. I have a simple gooseneck kettle that I usw mainly for coffee, it’s only 1kW and holds around 750ml, it’s not blisteringly fast but it’s boiled before I’ve ground my coffee.
The whole “120v is holding us back from having kettles” is way overblown (technology connections has a video on electric kettles).
1800W are not out of the ordinary for water cookers in Europe but that’s definitely on the weak side. 3000 to 3200 is usually the maximum, probably because pulling the full 3600W would drastically increase the chances of tripping a fuse. My food processor is 600W and I might want to make a coffee while kneading dough.
Have to drop the US number by 20% for continuous loads like a kettle would be.
That said, US homes built in the last 40 years or so tend to have a lot of separate circuits in the kitchen. My house has one for the fridge, one for the disposal, one for the dishwasher, one for the lights that’s shared with lights in adjacent areas, stove has its own 240V outlet, and then one for all the other plugs. If I ran the microwave and a kettle and a mixer all at once, I’d probably still trip it, but that’s a lot of multitasking going on.
If kettles were continuous loads we’d have to reduce from 16A to 10A (2200W) or 8A (1800W). Schuko are rated for as little as 1h of 16A but for a kettle that’s plenty, they’re done in a minute or two.
German stoves are connected to at least 2x10A, newer installations (as in since the 70s or such) all provide 3x16A. Not actually three-phase they’re still 220V appliances. Whether the outlets, light etc. are on different phases differs widely.