I’m English which means I can’t go more than 2 hours without a cup of tea.
Of course, this means you always need a kettle on hand for boiling water.
So I have learned a thing or two about using a kettle in my campervan and other remote trips.
For an Englishman, life can’t get any worse than trying to boil a kettle and immediately blowing a fuse in an inverter.
The big problem with kettles is that they use a lot of power, like anything with a heating element.
So you need to ensure you have the right size inverter to run a kettle.
But don’t worry.
It’s why I wrote this article from my first hand experience to cover what size inverter you need, the best products available, and all your other questions along the way.
What Size Inverter Do I Need to Run a Kettle?
At a very minimum, you will need a 1000 watt inverter to run a kettle, but you might need a 2000 or even 3000 watt inverter to boil water.
This is because all kettles require a different amount of power. You can get low wattage travel kettles that draw under 1000 watts or you can get quick boil home kettles that suck up 3000 watts.
If you’re planning to run a kettle from an inverter, I strongly suggest getting yourself a lower wattage kettle. This will mean you don’t need such a big inverter and reduce the toll on energy your battery needs to supply.
To work out what size inverter you need for your kettle you should add 20% to your kettle’s wattage. This is because inverters are not 100% efficient, they lose energy during the conversion of DC to AC, plus use power for internal systems like cooling fans.
For example, if you have a 1000 watt kettle, you’ll need at least a 1200 watt inverter. You can work this out by multiplying kettle watts by 1.2. So 1000W kettle x 1.2 = 1200W Inverter.
How Many Watts Does My Kettle Use?
It should be pretty easy to find out how many watts your kettle uses. The first place to check is in the technical specification or user manual. You should find your kettle size in wattage here. If you don’t have this information (who keeps a kettle manual?) try looking on the manufacturer’s website.
Another simple option is to use a wattmeter. I highly advise this for anyone using an inverter. You can quickly attach it to any AC appliance to get a live power reading.
You should expect the average home kettle to use between 1500 and 2500 watts. While a travel kettle can be less than 1000 watts.
Does a Kettle Need Pure Sine Wave?
No, you don’t need a pure sine wave inverter for a kettle. You can happily use a cheaper modified sine wave inverter to run appliances with heating elements like kettles. This is because they are resistive loads that won’t have an issue with the sharp steps in voltage flow that a modified sine wave creates.
On the other hand, the benefit of pure sine wave inverters is that they more closely replicate the smooth electricity supplied by the main grid. That means you’re not restricted to what you can run. You could power a kettle, microwave, refrigerator, power tool, or AC unit happily.
Try a Low Wattage Kettle!
If you want to run a kettle off an inverter I highly recommend using a low wattage kettle. You will draw far less power and significantly reduce the energy you draw from a battery.
Even if you have a very powerful inverter to run a large kettle, you will also need a huge amount of battery energy to keep up.
For example, a 2500W kettle from a 12V battery could draw a current of over 200 amps! In comparison, a 750W kettle on a 12V battery will draw nearer to 60 amps. That’s nearly 75% less amperage. You could be saving around 150 amps each hour of usage.
How Long Will a 12V Battery Power a Kettle?
Let’s work out how long your 12V battery can power your kettle. You’ll need two bits of information for this – kettle watts and battery capacity in Ah.
Hint: Deep cycle batteries should have their Ah capacity clearly marked on the side. It could be 50Ah, 75Ah, 100Ah, etc.
There are a few factors to consider when calculating battery runtime including inverter efficiency, voltage, battery capacity, and power draw.
To make it easy I’ve created this formula to use with any 12V battery. Here it is:
(10 x battery capacity in Ah) divided by kettle watts = runtime in hours.
Let’s say you have a 100Ah battery and 1200 watt kettle, it would look like this:
(10 x 100Ah) ÷ 1200W = 0.83 hours. (50 minutes).
So a 100Ah capacity battery will run a 1200W kettle for 50 minutes.
As you can see, a kettle will draw a lot of energy so you need to be careful how often you boil water. Of course, you won’t use a kettle for 50 minutes, more like 5 – 7 minutes at a time. So you’ll likely use 8 or 10Ah of battery energy each time you use your kettle.
Final Words on Power Inverter for Kettle
I’ve been so busy writing that my tea’s gone cold! I’ll switch the kettle on in a sec once I’m done.
By now you should see that the size of the power inverter is directly related to your kettle’s wattage. For a travel kettle, you might be able to use a 1000W inverter. But for a bigger domestic one, you’ll need a 2000W or 3000W inverter.
Just remember to add at least 20% to your kettle watts to work out the minimum inverter size.
Thanks for reading.
