An electric water boiler, also called an electric dispensing pot, electric water heater, electric water urn, is a consumer electronics

Consumer electronics

Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...

 small appliance

Small appliance

Small appliance refers to a class of home appliances that are portable or semi-portable or which are used on tabletops, countertops, or other platforms in the United States of America...

 used for boiling water and maintaining it at a constant temperature. It is typically used to provide an immediate source of hot water for making tea

Tea

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...

, hot chocolate

Hot chocolate

Hot chocolate is a heated beverage typically consisting of shaved chocolate, melted chocolate or cocoa powder, heated milk or water, and sugar...

, coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

, instant noodles

Instant noodles

Instant noodles are dried or precooked noodles and are often sold with packets of flavoring including seasoning oil. Dried noodles are usually eaten after being cooked or soaked in boiling water for 2 to 5 minutes, while precooked noodles can be reheated or eaten straight from the packet...

, or baby formula, or for any other household use where clean hot water is required. They are a common component of Japanese kitchen

Japanese kitchen

Daidokoro is the place where food is prepared in a Japanese house. Until the Meiji era, a kitchen was also called kamado and there are many sayings in the Japanese language that involve kamado as it was considered the symbol of a house. The term could even be used to mean "family" or "household"...

s, and the kitchens of many East Asian countries but are found in varying use globally.

Components

An electric water boiler consists of a water reservoir with a heating element

Heating element

A heating element converts electricity into heat through the process of Joule heating. Electric current through the element encounters resistance, resulting in heating of the element....

 at the bottom. Some models offer multiple temperature settings. Other models are part of larger water systems that boil water and provide hot, cold, and lukewarm

Room temperature

-Comfort levels:The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers has listings for suggested temperatures and air flow rates in different types of buildings and different environmental circumstances. For example, a single office in a building has an occupancy ratio per...

 water. Water may be dispensed in various ways, e.g. by pouring, an electric pump or by pressing a large button that functions as a diaphragm pump

Diaphragm pump

A diaphragm pump is a positive displacement pump that uses a combination of the reciprocating action of a rubber, thermoplastic or teflon diaphragm and suitable non-return check valves to pump a fluid...

. Electric water boilers have a built in thermostat that detects when water has reached its boiling point of 100 °C (212 °F) to automatically shut off.

Sedimentation

Sedimentation is the accumulation within the water reservoir of natural minerals that exist in trace amounts in municipal water mains, mainly calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...

. Heating the water causes the minerals to separate and fall to the bottom of the reservoir. This buildup can eventually create a variety of interesting noises in gas boilers, reduce the efficiency of the unit and give rise to a sulfur (or rotten-egg) smell.

See also

• Samovar
  Samovar
  A samovar is a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in and around Russia, as well as in other Central, South-Eastern, Eastern European countries,Kashmir and in the Middle-East...
  
  
• Electric kettle
• Thermoelectricity
• Electric steam boiler
  Electric steam boiler
  An electric steam boiler is a type of boiler where the steam is generated using electricity, rather than through the combustion of a fuel source. They are used to generate steam for process purposes in many locations, for example laundries, food processing factories and hospitals...