Over the last 50 years the idea of going cordless has bled over into a lot of industries and products. These range from cordless phones, wireless laptops, cordless tools, and even cordless steam irons. You may be wondering why you would want to go cordless with an iron or why it’s a big deal. The simple fact of the matter is that cord can cause an immense amount of trouble when you’re trying to maneuver.
This is the same complaint that’s lodged against any appliance when there’s a cord involved and it’s perhaps the most valid argument for making it cordless. While some household items like a phone aren’t that dangerous with a cord other items such as irons are. The most damage that you could do with a phone is possibly trip someone or get yourself twisted up in the wire. An iron on the other hand has the possibility of burning through the actual cord if there is a mishap in handling plancha a vapor vertical.
Now most people aren’t going to do this intentionally but just like with electric turkey knives accidents are known to happen. What makes the iron a bit more dangerous than the turkey knife is that steam has moisture in it. Apply a hot metal surface to an exposed live wire with moisture in between them and sparks will literally fly. Thus the need to make the traditional iron cordless has been very strong in households.
However until recently the idea has been put on the back burner due to battery technology limitations. In order to constantly heat water to the boiling point to produce steam you need energy and typical household batteries won’t last long under long term ironing. The solution came with the development of cordless power tools. These tools had batteries that could sustain operation for a half hour or more before needing recharging.
Since then the technology has improved and you can now use cordless tools such as drills or screwdrivers for several hours at a time. A cordless steam iron will only last about 1 to 3 hours due to the energy needed but that’s plenty of time to take care of the laundry. Due note that there are various designs for steam irons and not all of them use the traditional method of boiling a tank of water on the unit itself.
Some models use special materials and heating elements to generate steam pressure inside the unit and therefore produce their own steam without water. These units do burn out eventually though and need to be replaced. Aside from using batteries to power cordless irons there have been earlier attempts to make the common household item cordless.
One such idea was to fill the iron with boiling water and use the resulting steam pressure until the water cooled. When it cooled it would need to be reheated and the steam pressure was restored. This would continue until the water inside of the iron evaporated and then the unit would need refilling.
The idea of a cordless steam iron is nothing new, like all current cordless devices its development was rough and there were many failed models. However as technology advanced and became more reliable the idea of a cordless iron was finally realized. The result was an iron that can be used for a few hours before needing recharged with performance at the same level as old fashioned wired models.