Ohhh no! My electric kettle went nuclear today, instead of keeping the water at a perfect for tea 80 degrees Celsius it started boiling the water. I think the heat sensor must be broken and it just didn't know when to stop applying heat. This is ironic because a few minutes prior to me noticing the overload I looked up "thermopile" on wikipedia for unrelated reasons. I'm not worried the thing has built in sensors that automatically shut it down if it runs out of water. Out of curiosity, I let it run for a few minutes with no water in it, but with a close eye on it. Sure enough it heated up and then automatically powered down when it was clear there was no water in there. So its nice to know that my kettle wouldn't have burned my apartment down had this happened when I was away.
I'll have to buy a new one, because I love it so much. I'm not sure what I will do though, should I open it as tea season is really nearly at an end, or just mail it home? Hmmm....
UPDATE: It appears it is okay. I just triggered some kind of crazy self cleaning/water purification mode. I pushed some buttons and it appears to be working fine now. Still I'm going to leave it unplugged when I sleep and am at work and keep a close eye on it when I am home, but it looks like I averted a melt down!
