It’s really simple to use.  You don’t need instructions to figure it out just plug it in fill it up and go.

It’s larger than a normal kettle, as it has to store more water than a normal kettle, you can fill both reservoirs if you want before starting a boil cycle.  The idea being that you fill one side and release what you need into the other as and when you want a cuppa, ideally only boiling one or two cups at a time. Of course when you have visitors you can fill it up once and get two cycles out of it.  When really full this makes the eco kettle quite heavy, but time saving.  Filled as intended and the kettle feels off balance in your hand, it’s like the top volume of water is pressing the lever of the kettle split and trying to force it down at the wrist joint.  So stronger wrists might be needed, not a pressie for your gran, unless she’s strong of course.

Whilst the top part of the kettle feels solid the base is flimsy by comparison and would just not sit level on the table no matter how much tweaking with the cable underneath.  Also it doesn’t fit tight so I always felt a wobble when putting it in position.  I didn’t like this.

The latch lid needs to close properly, always ensure you shut it right and its clicked into place.  Whilst using it we never had a situation when the latch did not close properly but it was always in my mind that it might not. Cos if you don’t shut it right when you pour your hot cuppa all the top reservoir will come flooding out, and I mean flooding as the potential energy it has compared to the lower energy for the pouring angle is much higher.

For the same volume of water as my old kettle this boils a bit slower, not excessively its still a fast boil, just not as fast as I was used to.

Be careful when you pour the boiling water.  Now because you only boiled what you needed, or an estimate of what you needed when you pour the water into the cup there could be more water than you needed, but not a lot.  So when you put the kettle upright that near boiling water as its started to cool already hits the hot boiling element at the base of the kettle and reboils extremely vigorously.  This has the effect of spewing boiling water out of the pouring nozzle and spitting, I’ve been hit by boiling drips a few times from this, you have to remember to gently return it to an upright position.

All in all whilst a great idea we decided to part with our eco Kettle.  I always felt I was going to drop it, It didn’t sit right on the work-surface, it only comes in white and we have stainless kitchen, its heavier, slower, I felt it could be a little dangerous if not careful.  We donated it to staff at our local school with the pointers to look out for.

We put our old kettle back which fits snug, looks good, boils fast, is smaller and lighter.  We just don’t fill it up all the way when making a tea, isn’t that much easier ?

This is one of then http://www.earthhour.org/about.  A bunch of cities are going to turn off the lights for an hour including many businesses, here’s a quote

On 31 March 2007, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour – Earth Hour. This massive collective effort reduced Sydney’s energy consumption by 10.2% for one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for a year.

The turn-off time was from 8pm-9pm.

So presumably all of these businesses and cities agreed to turn off the lights, because it would not effect public safety, in the case of city infrastructure,  and would not impact on a businesses income as their workers would not be working.

I have no doubt that the participants are not like the two in my cartoon and for that day the lights went out and no-one was there to notice.  Which you would most likely find is the case 365 days of the year.  So why one day people?  If you can turn the lights out that day, then chances are you can turn them of every damn day and save yourself money by doing so.

Cities should make the conversion to new LED lighting where ever possible, save our money on bills and lower light pollution as these can be more directed.

There are other one day actions like this.  In the UK we recently had e-day another wonderfully ludicrous concept this time leaving everything off.  Well If I don’t need it and unlike my T.V. is designed to be turned off, then turned off it gets.  Just cos its e-day, what, am I not supposed to cook my dinner ?  Or not doing the washing, all you do is postpone the usage to the next next.  This stupidity resulted in a gain in electricity usage that day due to inclement weather. Ha.

So a message to these people one day actions are good to raise awareness but don’t sell them as that, have one-day actions that are pitched at modifying behavior permanently and sell them as that.

Otherwise participants really are just sat in the dark waiting for the chimes to ring to turn the juice back on.

On the upside, there are long term things you could look at.

Powerdown device – Shut down those monitors and printers eating your cash.

Electrisave – Monitor your usage.

Energy Saving Lightbulbs – You can get these everywhere

There are lots of energy savings devices out there only you really know if they will work for you,  I have an eco-kettle and it lasted a week before switching back to a normal kettle, we donated it to local school, it didn’t work for us.

Just contact your leccy supplier and whoever it is will have some kind of energy savings pack, or fill in an energy savings report and some will send you free stuff.  I haven’t paid for a single lightbulb and kitted out the whole house filling in forms and talking to supplier got em all free.