All too common, this one. The number of times we’ve been invited to someone’s home and offered a cup of tea (a primary food group, in our opinion) and the helpful homeowner fills the kettle with a litre of water, boils it and then carefully pours out two cup-fulls.

Fill the kettle with enough for a couple of cups and it boils in around 60 seconds. That’s about 2 Pence of electricity. Fill it with a litre and it’ll take 3 minutes to boil – three times as much energy used AND the tea takes that much longer to be made. Now, how can that ever be a good thing?

It makes sense: only fill the kettle with what you plan to use. It’ll come to the boil sooner and the savings add up over the year if you have 5 brews a day, every day then that’s getting on for a saving of £60 on your bill each year.

Ours is white without, thanks!