Your view: letting off steam over noisy kettles

Comparing a kettle’s noise to a plane might seem like a stretch – our loudest kettle came in at 95dB and a plane taking off is an audio-booming 140dB – but it’s a comparison Rachel made:

‘My kettle sounds like a jet taking off from Gatwick. I can’t hold a telephone conversation and boil the kettle at the same time.’

This led to an amusing comment from Wavechange:

‘This is your captain. Warning lights will be switched off shortly, but you are advised to keep your seat belt on throughout the flight. As you have heard, the kettle has boiled and tea will be served soon.’

Still, noisy kettles don’t bother our regular commenter Wavechange:

‘The noise made by the kettle does not bother me. When the noise stops, it is time to make the tea, so it is quite useful.’

Kettle on, ear plugs ready

Anon the Mouse’s kettle certainly isn’t as a quiet as a mouse – they described their kettle as ‘so loud we can hear it from one side of our home to the other.’

And John Ward thinks his kettle has seen better days:

‘Our kettle gets tremendously excited and makes a phenomenal racket, drowning out all conversation during the last few minutes of the boil. This has got worse as the kettle has got older. It helps if we put one of those ribbed rubber mats underneath it to stop the transmission of vibration, but the screaming from the cold molecules as they get scolded by the hot ones is still alarming.’

David Dundas thinks the evolving kettle design is to blame for the noise. He’s tempted to design his own quieter kettle:

‘Electric kettle noise is a big problem and it was much less when kettles had immersion elements. I am an engineer and I feel sure I could design an efficient kettle that is much less noisy than the present offerings, if only I had the time to do it.’

Boiling kettles kill conversation

Antony’s kettle would serve the perfect brew if it wasn’t for the unsavoury noise:

‘Our Russell Hobbs kettle is great. It is well designed, made out of good materials, and looks like it will last. But it is astonishingly noisy, drowning the radio and making phone calls impossible while it is boiling.’

Hughesy is tempted to move back to an old-fashioned kettle:

‘Who decided that all kettles should have a nice resonant metal surface over the element? We had a good old Hayden white plastic kettle made in England now about 15 years old. The element is the old traditional type immersed in the water and is quite quiet compared with modern horrors. It still works and have only recently replaced with a modern Kenwood £20 cheapy because the plastic was worn and looking dirty.

‘The Kenwood is noisyish but one still converses without too much difficulty. The old kettle did not fur up too much because we use filtered water. It is easy to clean a furred element. Very tempted to go back to using an old fashioned kettle (if I can find one) on the gas hob – at least it would be quiet!’

Do noisy kettles bring your temper to boiling point, or are the complaints just a lot of hot noise?