Instant Boiling Water Taps

Any experience with these? I see they can be £1000+ or a few hundred.

Are they difficult to fit? Will be coming off our 16A kitchen radial. All there is on that is a dishwasher, fridge, microwave and currently a kettle that this may well replace.

Interested in your experiences.

It seems every recent kitchen we have done has had one fitted. They have all been 3kw so we have wired a dedicated circuit or to one feeding the odd other appliance.

Although they claim instant boiling water they have never been as hot as a kettle and what do they cost to run, keeping the reservoir at 100 degrees 24/7.

Running cost is secondary as the missus has decided she wants one..........

Apache said:

Running cost is secondary as the missus has decided she wants one..........

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1/

GOD has spoken....

DO NOT argue!!!!!!

2/

Worked at a two-bed flat last year...

They had taken out immersion heater & its associated hot water cylinder...

Fitted shower & basin in the bathroom..

and an instant 3kw water heater in the kitchen supposedly to supply the hot water for the basin & the kitchen sink....

IT was crap... 

couldn't fill a bowl in the kitchen with hot enough water to do the washing up....

unless you let it fill real slow...

but by then the water was tepid anyhow!!

Dunno if it was faulty..

or what make it was..

but while I was there it was rubbish!!

opcorn

The 9kw ones can handle the kitchen sink but struggle if the basin tap is also used. Forget trying to use it for a bath.

There is already hot water for washing up.

This is [near] boiling water for use in hot drinks

think you mean something like this? http://www.nisbets.co.uk/MODular-Automatic-Water-Boiler/CD460/ProductDetail.raction

if so they are good used them a lot back when i was a chef brill for tea and can keep up with any amount of beverage use you would use it for.

BUT i would strongly recommend a espresso machine with a water function if you going to spend a good amount of cash simply because there more versatile and not that much more than a good water boiler. milk steamer is brill for latte's and hot choc cant beat a proper coffee and you can still use the hot water function on em. plus they look 100x better some real nice ones out there

I wired one in the kitchen of our village hall.

A year later, I noticed it was switched off, and the old urn was back.  I questioned why.

It had scaled up, to the point water just came out as a dribble. And the plumber had cleared it out twice already.

Don't consider one if you have hard water, or perhaps fit a water softener (but not sure you are supposed to drink the water from a softener so that may not work)

When it did work, it worked well, and although only a 3KW heater with a small volume of stored water, it seemed to keep up with supplying hot water as quick as they could make cups of tea and coffee.

Apache,

Would I be right in guessing you are on about something like this?

http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Water_Heating_Index/Zip_Hydro_Tap_Office/index.html

Pretty sure they had one of these under counter units go belly up in a big posh office I go to up in London. 300 dealers per floor each sitting in front of 8 monitors sqeezed into a couple of square metres of floor space. All in desk cooling and Electrack everywhere. They don't like them leaving the building & get their breakfast & lunch in house, so no expense spared on the food and beverage front. There's little "kitchens" everywhere with stacked fridges, snacks etc along with microwaves and revolving toasters. Speaking with one of their in house sparks and he said the new instant hot tap thing was £5K.

(They also have a full sized video wall on one floor - 30 screens I think. Apparently they have after works dos where they have Wii bowling competitions. One morning I saw two posh bits of totty playing Wii squash in there - all with their PE kit on.............)

Always makes me wish I'd done better at school!

I havent fitted one, but they seem relatively straightforward. From memory, the quooker is the only tap that boils to 100 deg. It's also one of the most expensive. The others are all near boiling point. (I think they patented a 100 deg instant boiling water tap....others are 98/99 point something)

If you are boiling a kettle more the 7+ times a day then they start be cheaper to run in terms of energy useage..... don't just use them for hot drinks, use them for boiling water when cooking etc.....

I think that they are a very nice to have.....but not an essential.

install it with a time switch so that it turns off at nignt and back on again in time for your morning brew....

I've fitted several from £1000+ where company came out to install ( cold water feed supply, unit plugged into the socket they had asked me to provide) down to cheap £100 jobs, (exactly the same install)

all the ones I've fitted come with a moulded plug. If you imagine a simple toilet hand wash water heater at double the price but under the sink instead of above that is basically what you have. The water doesn't 'boil' the water, it just gets hot in the same way, perhaps a wee bit hotter, I've noticed cups of tea have a white froth to them because the water hasn't boiled and the way it's jetted out!

Worth the money? To me no.

16A radial for all those appliances seems meagre but as you said replacing the kettle for hot tap is a like for like change.

Regarding water softeners, I fitted an in line cartridge type one that claimed to be for drinking water to a beverage water boiler (on the wall Burco) and had to remove it as everyone complained about an odd taste and had returned to using the kettle.

We've fitted lots of Hydroboil units. They're not the cheapest but they're well built, reliable and they deliver water at around 98 degrees Celsius at the tap. Not sure about the running costs but they make fairly small ones that might work for domestic although they're not particularly stylish, a bit commercial looking. They also make under-counter but I've no first hand experience of these..

I think one of the benefits that companies look at with Zip taps is that staff don't have to hang around waiting for a kettle to boil or an urn to heat up... Time saving

The one on the TV Advert which is the quooker unit looks a bit dangerous to me, just coming out of the sink tap, thoughts of kids messing with it and almost steam coming down onto those little hands. Must be a safety lock on them surely.

Steve3948 said:

The one on the TV Advert which is the quooker unit looks a bit dangerous to me, just coming out of the sink tap, thoughts of kids messing with it and almost steam coming down onto those little hands. Must be a safety lock on them surely.

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Not sure about that model , i have seen many different types and all have safety features such as having to press 2 buttons at once etc.

I'm talking about something like this:

http://www.diy.com/nav/rooms/kitchens/kitchen-taps/Steaming-Hot-Water-Tap-Chrome-Finish-9996624?noCookies=false

Sadly I'm not looking for alternative ideas, SWMBO has decided what she wants.

We currently have a Tefal QuickCup that almost does the same job, but not pretty enough.............

I have to say I'm with Slips on this one.

The thought of having one tap that dispenses scalding hot water, next to a very similar looking tap that dispenses normal water would scare me if there was a young child in the house, or even more so a visiting child who is not familiar with it.

If you are going to have a boiling water dispenser, I would have the type that hangs on a wall, and is far more obvious that it's NOT a normal tap to wash your hands under.

Fitted a Quooker at my mates mega posh rebuild. His missus loves it

If going for the B and Q version be wary of their warranty claims and there customer services and after care service falling well,below expectations ...

To repeat in case you missed it..

BE WARY OF B AND Q WARRANTY CLAIMS AS THEIR AFTER SALES SERVICE IS WOEFUL AND THEY WILL,NOT PRINT A CUSTOMER REVIEW REGARDING THE POOR QUALITY OF THEIR SUPPLIED EQUIPMENT.... Just in case I was not clear previously.. These are my thoughts only and do not reflect the opinions of those who are wrong

Just seething