Will a 240 volt kettle boil the water using a 110 volt supply?..
As my current accommodation has both 110v and 240v power points, I am able to test the comparison of using either voltage very easily;
With 0.6 litre of cold water, and the kettle plugged into the 110v supply it took … (waiting….) 20 mins to reach boiling, and turn off automatically..
After 6 minutes the kettle was warm to the touch, I am waiting for it to boil now…
While waiting I have been reviewing other comments on the web, which include:
a: Electric kettles take about twice as long to boil in the US (110v) as in the UK (240v)
b: A 240v kettle plugged into a US outlet, will take over 4 time as long to boil the water.
At 10 minutes waiting time, the kettle is hot, but I am still able to keep my hand on the side surface (plastic).
At 13 minutes the side of the kettle is too hot to keep my hand on the surface in comfort. It is probably hot enough to make a coffee, which should NOT use boiling water anyway.
At 17 minutes the water is moving, as if almost boiling.
At 20 minutes… the kettle turned off.
Time for a coffee…
The normal time to boil the same kettle, with the same amount of water, from cold, using 240v supply, is 4 minutes 42 seconds. So the person who said 4 times as long is correct. I wonder if there is a mathematical formula to work that out?
1,081.1 - 873,627
Actually there is a simple calculation. The energy needed to boil a fixed amount of water is the same both at 240V as well as 110V. The resistance of the kettle is also fixed. The time taken to boil the kettle is calculated by dividing the energy required by the power supplied. Power supplied is proportional to the square of the supply voltage so it would take (240×240) ÷ (110×110)= 4.76 times more time to boil the kettle at the lower voltage. 4 minutes and 42 seconds multiplied by 4.76 gives you 22minutes and 22 seconds.