Is it cheaper to boil a kettle of water, by gas or electric?

Question

I prefer to boil my water, for making a pot of tea, by using a kettle on the gas ring of my cooker. I also own an electric kettle, which my husband prefers to use, if he is making the tea. I was wondering which is the cheaper option and kinder to the environment?

Answer 1

I have in fact done this by reading the meters each time and seeing how much it cost to boil the water. Gas worked out cheaper

Answer 2

ELECTRIC - Based on the fact (in the UK) that Electricity and Gas are about the same price (for the energy provided).

Heating a kettle by Gas generates a lot of waste heat around the kettle. The heat escapes up the sides.

An electric kettle has the heating element inside and so has much less wastage.

So boil Electric.

Answer 3

This same question was asked several weeks ago. The correct answer was electric kettle, because the element is totally immersed in the water therefore ALL the heat went into the water. As someone pointed out ,put your hand above a kettle being heated by gas. I REST MY CASE.

Answer 4

I've just looked at our kettle and it's 2.4kW, I think it takes about 2 or 3 minutes to boil a couple of mugs of water, so that uses about 80 or 120watts of power, which is about 2p or 3p I think. Surely gas is slightly more expensive as it has to heat the metal of the kettle before the water and then your loosing heat through the metal and the air around it as well as gas creating extra CO2 when it's burning. I'm, not sure, but there's probably not much in it.

Answer 5

Haha...
That would have to depend on your gas or electric supplier.
Just do a small experiment.
Boil the same amount of water for 2 times.
1 by electric and the other by gas.
Then check the change in meter readings.
Then you will get the answer.
But for me in Perth, the gas is alot cheaper than electric in terms of units so for me gas is preferred.

Answer 6

Very good question. The electric heat is internal to the kettle so the losses are lower but gas is a much more efficient energy source.

I will go for gas but I am not absolutely sure

Answer 7

The same amount of water would take the same amount of heat to warm up. It would mainly depend on the price of gas and electricity in your area.

Answer 8

It depends of the price of the gaz the price of the electricity the rendement of the apparatus used, with this little information is is not possible to say what is cheaper to use. Kinder to the envirnment same story, you should know the source of the electricity, is it solar power ? nuclear power ? oil ? wood ? , its impossible to say.

Answer 9

It depends on how much water you put in the kettle

Answer 10

gas