What's more costly?

I'm pretty sure the kettle is better. Using the microwave is also efficient for heating water but I'm not sure if it's more or less. Also try to not heat more water then you need.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Feb 6 2007, 12:13 PM) [snapback]386238[/snapback]</div>

An electric kettle is the most efficient. Heat goes directly to the water in a "closed" container. The method is to heat only as much as you need (as indicated on the side window).

 

Heat from gas is much cheaper here in NY, where electric rates are very high.

Waste heat this time of year serves to heat my house, so there is no waste heat.

Boiling water with gas heat is cheaper.

Don't forget the losses and inefficiencies of generating electricity and getting it to your house.

Harry

 

in costly I was more thinking about environmental cost

 

i still think the microwave is better especially when used to preheat. the amount of resources to generate electricity is much smaller than providing natural gas i would think although some natural gas is collected as a by-product of mining or oil extraction processes.

so i guess it boils down (pun intended) to how each source of power is created. in my area, it would not be a question at all since 80% of our power is hydro.

 

My first thought was gas would be more efficient. It really depends on where you get your electricity. There are several loses involved in using electricity to heat water.

First, the power plant has inefficiencies. Then there are transmission losses (these would mostly be pretty small). Most of these kettles that I've seen sit on a base so I wonder if the base acts as an inverter that converts AC to DC. If so there are losses there. These kettles are also pigs. The typical ones draw 1.5 kW!

A microwave's more efficient than a kettle I would think.

As for household water heating gas is way more efficient but as skruse pointed out heating on the stove wastes a lot of the energy because it's not concentrated. You could probably rig something to mitigate this. I wonder how efficient induction stoves are.

 

I think we collectively wasted more energy responding to this topic than you did boiling the water either way. :lol:

In other words, I don't think there's a heck of a lot of difference. Either way, the cost is a very small, small fraction of a cent. Now if you're filling up your hot tub with the water...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(maggieddd @ Feb 6 2007, 11:06 AM) [snapback]386179[/snapback]</div>

What's more costly? In terms of cost to you, it is probably electricity, but it depends on what you pay for gas verses what you pay for electricity. I'll see if I can do this calculation right ...

To raise a pound of water from 59°F to boiling at 212°F takes 153 BTUs. (That's one BTU per degree, with a starting point of 59°F for tap water in my area, to the boiling point here at sea level when the barometric pressure is 29.921).

Most electric bills charge by the kWh ... "kilowatt hour", which is 1,000 watts. Because a single kWh contains 3,412 BTU, dividing it out shows that you need .04 kWh to bring that one pound of water to boil. At .17 a kWh, which is my "baseline rate", it costs me .0068 of a cent to bring it to a boil. Your electric bill may have a much lower kWh charge.

Most gas bills charge by the "therm" ... which equals 100,000 BTU. Some charge by the cubic foot of gas, and that's problematic because you have different BTU content of the gas at different places. So we'll use the therm example. You need .00153 of a therm. I pay .84 a therm, so my gas cost is .0012852.

So electricity costs over 5 times as much.

But wait! We aren't done.

Electric resistance heaters deliver 100% of the energy (well, almost) to the water. Gas is about 80%. So you really have to increase that gas cost by about 20% to get closer to what it costs when you consider the efficiency of the gas. So if we add another .0003 to the cost of .0012852, we get .0015852. So electricity is still 4.2 times the cost of gas in my area.

 

Hi All,

If its winter, and the gas heat that does not make it into the water offsets the heating and humidification costs of the living space. So in winter, boiling the water by gas is cheaper, as long as we are talking household quantities of water, and not industrial levels.

In the Airconditioned portion of the summer electric may be better. As the there is less waste heat and humidity to be removed from the living space. And airconditioning/dehumidification are not 100 % efficient. Whereas dumping unused gas heat and combustion products into the living space are pretty close to 100 % efficient.

 

at 5 cents/kwh i will microwave simply because time is WAY more expensive than gas or electricity

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Feb 18 2007, 09:58 AM) [snapback]392408[/snapback]</div>

Hey, all that hydroelectric power sure helps up there! My baseline rate is .17, more than three times yours (of course, California had the botched deregulation scheme, so we are paying more than most areas).

You might be close to break even for electric space heating, depending on what your gas costs.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(fshagan @ Feb 18 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]392423[/snapback]</div>

we aren't anymore, that is why most new construction is gas, but 75% of all houses around here more than 10 years old are electric. gas is going up though so that will not be the case forever. heck we have electric baseboard which is the worst option. still manageable but i like it cool and my SO is 8 months pregnant and is hot all the time now so we turn off all the heat at night now

 

I'm not sure what 'cost' you are interested in, but you may have to consider the generation costs of electricity if your question is about energy rather than pennies.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DaveinOlyWA @ Feb 18 2007, 03:46 PM) [snapback]392454[/snapback]</div>

You have my sympathy and support ...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(donee @ Feb 18 2007, 09:04 AM) [snapback]392360[/snapback]</div>

Heh. Here the humidity is a bonus!