HEATING WATER FOR TEA and THERMOS FLASKS
We drink vast quantities of tea on board. Five to six cups being the norm
Water is boiled on our cooktop, which runs on electricity which is not entirely dissimilar to a house. We don't have electric wires running to our home, so we spark up our generator.
Generator is 9Kw Kohler and drinks diesel at the rate of about 1.1 litres an hour.
We used to spark up the genet every time we made a cuppa, then figured out that maybe filling up a couple of thermos flasks could save me enough money to buy a couple of beers at the end of each month.
THE COSTS OF HEATING THE WATER
Sooo, with two kettles, we can heat up 4 litres of water in 20 minutes to fill up two flasks.
Consumption: 11 litres per month.
Heating up the kettle six times a day, at 15 minutes a cuppa.
Consumption: 44 litres per month
Huge savings with two kettles and two thermos flasks.
COMPARISON OF FLASKS
We have tried and tested two makes of thermos flasks.
The first was very highly rated and manufactured in the USA was the STANLEY
STANLEY worked very well for at least two weeks then failed to keep the water hot. We had purchased two of these. Both failed.
Fortunately, STANLEY warrantied their flask, so replaced them.
The next two failed as well.
We decided to try the brand name THERMOS.
We had three shipped down to St. Maarten. One 1 litre stainless steel, one 1 litre with glass flask and one 0.5 litre for cold water that we tried with hot water. Just a wee test… :)
The glass one broke. The one for cold water actually works pretty well, and the stainless steel one has been keeping the water hot for us so far.