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FT editor Roula Khalaf has chosen her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
electric dream
Everhot, based in the Cotswolds, is best known for its range cookers. Luxurious kitchen centerpieces with up to four ovens, two grills, multiple stovetops, and induction plates in a variety of colors from muted to spectacular. The company has put his 40 years of expertise into his two more compact products, a 20-litre oven and a new electric heater made of heavy steel and cast iron. Both have a 1.5 kW element and look the same, but the oven has a front door that can be opened and closed, allowing you to put potatoes in it. Or a few potatoes. Both work with standard his 13A sockets.
At first, it feels a little inappropriate to connect something this heavy to a power source. Your sense is that it would consume a huge amount of power, which is not economically or environmentally wise. However, that premonition confirms his lack of awareness of Everhot’s history. The first oven, created by founder Ossie Goring in his mid-1970s, was an environmentally friendly range cooker that ran on a fraction of the electricity from a water-powered turbine on the nearby River Cam. According to Luke Adams of Morley Stoves in Ware, Hertfordshire, who I went to see in action, these appliances are designed to be left on for long periods of time. It has efficiency built in.
“It insulates very well,” he says. “They get very hot and use very little power when you need them. They’re much more efficient than fan heaters, and they’re radiant heat rather than blown dry heat.”
The controls are old-fashioned and simple, with a small on/off button in the bottom left and a thermostat in the bottom right. If you want to know exactly what the temperature is inside the oven, you’ll have to plug in a thermometer to check, but it’s great for warming up lunches, baking sponges, and roasting chicken.
“People ask about heating their outdoor offices and say they want a wood burner, but installing a flue system can be overkill,” says Adams. “These work very well and look very pretty.” I wholeheartedly agree. Everhot electric stove £1,495; morleystove.co.uk
hotpot
The original Instant Pot, launched just over a decade ago, was a slow burner, and by 2017 it had been described as “the whole economy and religion.” The addition of sensors and microprocessors brought slow cookers and pressure cookers into the 21st century, but the top-of-the-line model in this series also includes eight additional features: rice cooker, steamer, sauté pan, yogurt maker, warmer, (sous vide cooker) included. There’s inevitably an app to control it if you want, but when it comes to putting food in it’s easier to press the clear and intuitive front panel. It handled a slow-cooked Sunday lunch and a 15-minute pressure-cooked baked potato admirably, with only the occasional hiss and beep to let you know that all was well. instant pot Pro Plus, £199.99
play clear the fog for me
Inspired by the “harrowing foggy journey” of motorcycling down South Africa’s Garden Route, Jason Atte is the world’s first universally heated vehicle designed to provide clear visibility for motorcyclists and snowmobiles.・Developed a visor insert. His company, Diamond Coatings, was already producing conductive clear his coatings for the military and aerospace industries. The challenge was to create a heating panel that could be attached to an existing visor. This is achieved thanks to excellent fitting guides, strong adhesives, and a few cables tucked behind the padding of the helmet, and the battery pack allows him to run for 8 hours on a single charge. . If the technology is good enough for the European Space Agency, it’s good enough for me. Visin heated visor insert, £179.95; heatedvisor.co.uk
my new flame
Electric heaters have had varying degrees of success over the years to visually indicate warmth, from glowing plastic coals to LED screens with burning logs. However, there is strong evidence that bioethanol can be burned cleanly if only a real flame is sufficient. Le Feu fireplaces are available in ceiling, wall and floor standing versions. Each contains a 1.5L fuel reservoir, providing approximately 6 hours of heating (2-2.5kWh, enough for a room of approximately 20 square meters). There is no need for a flue or chimney, and you don’t have to worry about ventilation unless the room is very small. The ceiling-mounted “Sky” model can be rotated 360 degrees, and the floor-standing model can be placed anywhere you like. It will be perfectly cooked in about 5 minutes after being lit. Le Feu bioethanol fireplace, £1,799; selfridges.co.jp
hot feet and cold feet
Insoles aren’t sexy and I’ve never really been interested in them until now. SoleCooler challenges that preconception with an original idea developed by CEO Bruno Aubert. Climfeet comes in the form of a double-sided silicone pad with an air-filled blue hemisphere on one side (cool) and a flat brown hexagon on the other (warm), connected by a small tube inside the insole. It has been. Here’s the smart part. With the cold side up, every time you lift your foot, cold air flows into the blue hemisphere, lowering your temperature. Conversely, as you walk, air is forced through the nozzles into the hexagon, warming your feet. The warming effect (approximately 4 degrees Celsius) will take time to become apparent, but walkers, runners, and people who constantly stand at work should feel the benefits. sole cooler Climb Feet, 65.83 euros
@Rhodri