How Hot Plates Work

Home Appliances - Science Behind How Hot Plates Work

What are Hot Plates and how are they different?

In simple terms, Hot Plates are a no flame sleek new generation kitchen cooktops.It is basically an individual stove top burner, completely separate and detached from anything else so it can either be moved around freely, or stored out of sight when not in use to save space.

There are several situations in which you would want or need a hot plate – and not only when you move into a dorm room (in most cases, they’re not allowed anyway). To save money on food costs when you travel, you could take a hot plate, a pot and pan, and cook in your hotel room, if permissible. In some apartments and small homes, a full stove may not be feasible.


Instead of traditional means of producing heat by using fire, a hot plate produces heat by using electricity. It is done by running electric current through its heat coils. These heat coils have a relatively higher level of electrical resistance. As electricity encounters resistance along its course, the build-up changes from electrical energy, to heat energy, causing the heating coils to emit heat. So in simple words it is the resistance as the electricity moves through the coils that produces heat

In the hot plate which in turn heats up its surface acting as a safer version of traditional style cook tops.

Traditionally, hot plates have been of the electric coil variety, which work as you might expect them to. Electrical wire is hidden inside flattened coils of metal. When you turn the knob, electricity travels through the wire and heats up the metal. That heat then transfers to whatever pot or pan you have on top of the coil.

The Working

The heating element is made up of Nichrome high resistance wire, which converts electric current

into heat energy. The electric power supply is provided to the heating coil through a thermostat.

One has to turn or adjust the control dial to set the temperature of the plate. However, the thermostat    isn’t calibrated; the numbers on the dial aren’t temperatures, just levels of heating in the primitive ones.

Whereas the latest ones have got temperature controls too. When the temperature dial is turned to the off position, a bent metal spring pushes a second contact point against the first, which cuts off the flow of current to the heating element. As one turns the control dial clockwise, a screw moves the second contact away from the first, thus providing power to the burner.