What it the cheapest way to boil water? On a stove,electric kettle,in a microwave or what? for a cup or pint .

Answer 1

Complicated question, considering it's so simple. You can look up gas and/or electric rates in your area, in case the stove is gas. My take is that microwaving in a glass measuring cup heats up mostly the water and to some degree, the cup. Boiling water on a stove heats up the water, the pan, and half the kitchen. On that basis I'd pick the microwave.

Answer 2

cheapest is where you don't waste energy

stove wastes energy because of air convection currents, need to heat a kettle, etc

electric kettle is pretty good but what hurts its efficiency is that most people will typically put in, say, a couple cups of water when they only really need one (some people will even fill it up, only to have the next person throw away the hot water because they like their tea with water boiled on the minute)

so, best overall is microwave. On a per cup basis it compares with electric kettle. And given that when you need a cup, you only need a cup, on a per user basis is beats the kettle hands down.


hope this helps

Answer 3

Microwave- A microwave works by boiling the water within food to cook it. That is why a microwaved chicken tastes like it is boiled. Water on it's own is perfect for the system to work at its optimum and uses less power than a kettle, hob or gas etc, due to energy being lost between source an water.

Answer 4

Although an electric kettle is 100% efficient, it is usually cheaper to boil over gas. The cost per Joule of gas is significantly less than electricity.

A microwave is not 100% efficient (about 80%) so this is the most expensive

Answer 5

Boiling water will kill the bacteria, but what you boil with can add extra heavy metals and increase certain chemicals that don't get evaporated, but get more concentrated such as dioxin, fluoride, etc. The best way to do it is perhaps boil water using a glass or stainless steel kettle as opposed to using aluminum. I have seen aluminum buildup in water after boiling. Stainless steel doesn't have that much heavy metal increases compared to aluminum but boiling in a glass kettle is the best. Adding activated charcoal during the boiling is a cheap way of removing fluoride and other unwanted compounds

Answer 6

In order of efficiency:-

1. Microwave
2. Gas stove
3. Electric kettle

I have done energy tests before and that were the results for the same volume of liquid. Electric kettles are least efficient due to the cost of the energy versus the ammount of energy lost during heating. Microwaves are very efficient and gas is generally much cheaper than elec per unit volume.

Answer 7

An electric kettle preferably one of those flat bottomed ones where the heater is built into the bottom of the kettle and you can boil just one cup of water, there is is hardly any heat wasted compared with the other methods

Answer 8

Over a large candle flame........

It will be slow but it will be far chaeper than using electricity or gas or micrwaves or whatever.....

You might want to use a large magnifying lens and focus the suns rays into the water......cheapest as you do not have to have any of the above.......

Answer 9

On a stove

Answer 10

it would have to be a microwave for a faster result therefore im sure that would make it the cheaper option