Water temperature
Varieties of water types that the device can produce. Most models have several options for different situations.
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Hot. Water is heated to a high temperature — usually about 90 – 95 °C. This temperature is considered optimal for brewing most types of tea, and for instant drinks and other products (for example, instant soups), it is more than enough. However water from the cooler is not suitable for ground coffee — effective brewing of such a drink occurs at higher temperatures, about 100 °C. On the other hand, there are specialized household appliances for brewed coffee.
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Cold. Water cooled to a temperature noticeably lower than room temperature — about 8 – 10 °C, and sometimes even lower. Such water can be useful for diluting other drinks (juices, tea, etc.) and lowering their temperature, as well as an independent drink in hot weather.
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Ambient. In this case, it usually means the supply of water directly, without any cooling or heating. Thus, the temperature of the water at the outlet will be the same as in the bottle or water pipe. In addition to the fact that this option allows you to save energy, it often turns out to be convenient from a purely practical point of view — for example, it is more comfortable for many people to drink clean water not chilled, namely at room temperature, and for preparing some instant drinks, dil
...uting medicines, etc. this is the best option. Note that some models may provide the ability of heating or cooling the incoming water to ambient temperature if its initial temperature is very different from this indicator.Heating performance
The performance of the heating system installed in the device, in other words, is the amount of water that can be heated per hour. In coolers, it is usually indicated for water at room temperature — about 20 °C, in models with a connection to the water mains (see "Water loading") — for 15 °C (this is the average temperature of cold water). Accordingly, when deviating from these indicators, the actual performance may be slightly more or less (however, such deviations must be very significant for this to become noticeable).
This parameter determines two main points. First of all, it characterizes the maximum consumption of hot water that the device can handle and the recommended breaks between use. For example, if a user needs to fill 2 tea cups with a volume of 300 mL each, and the cooler specifications state a heating capacity of 3 L/h, this means that 600 g (0.6 L) of water that has entered the tank instead of poured out, the cooler will heat in 0.6/3 = 0.2 h, that is, about 12 minutes. However, the need for such calculations arises mainly with high water consumption, which is very close to the claimed performance.
Also, knowing the heating rate and the volume of the cold water tank (see above), you can determine how long it will take to heat the tank filled with water at room temperature (for example, if the cooler is started for the first time, or if the tank was completely drained before). So, if in the above example, the volume of the tank is 1 li...tre, then 1/3 hour will be spent on heating it, that is, about 20 minutes. However, you can use water earlier if maximum heating is not critical.
Heating power
It is the power consumed by the device in water heating mode. Usually, it is the operating power of the heating element.
This parameter is directly related to the heating performance (see above): a high heating rate inevitably requires appropriate power. Also, the power consumption of the device depends on this parameter. However, it is worth noting that after the end of heating, the device switches to the temperature maintenance mode and requires much less energy. In other words, the heater consumes the specified power not constantly but occasionally, as needed.
It is also worth mentioning that in models that work only for heating, this indicator also describes the maximum power consumption of the entire device. And, if there are two modes (heating and cooling), the total maximum power consumption corresponds to the sum of the powers of both modes.
