Hamilton Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: Maintenance

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass kettle 40865C

This electric glass kettle, the Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass kettle, has been quite reliable over the last few years. It boils water quite quickly, faster than on our gas stove, which we have to turn on the fan and vent afterwards. It is also easy to clean. After a while the kettle stopped turning on, so I had to do a couple of things to it. Here is the user manual for reference. I did not see any replaceable parts available from Hamilton-Beach.

One thing I had to do was to lightly sand down the round contacts at the bottom of the glass kettle, which became oxidized. This is quite simple. Empty the kettle, turn it over and you’ll see the circular copper contact.

After a while the kettle no longer turned on. It turns out that the base’s central contact, which connects to the central pin on the kettle, was slightly misaligned and not contacting. I plugged out the base. On the bottom there are 3 screws that require a triangular tip to remove. I used a bit that had 3 teeth, from a security bit set, which allowed me to remove the screws. Inside you’ll see the 3 copper connection arms, two of which have steel contact pins.

To realign the center pin, use a small needle nose pliers and carefully twist the center copper arm back so that the pin aligns with the center hole in the base. This realignment fix should take you less than 3 minutes, start to finish, and is very easy if you have the triangular security bit. The kettle started working again.

I tried to sand down the top of these silver contact pins, but the base holes are small and could not get any sanding tool into the holes.

Once realigned, reinstall your three screws, plug the base in, fill the kettle and boil water!

Overall the kettle is well designed, reliable and easy to service. It is well engineered. I found the top of the kettle’s chrome parts started to get oxidized, so I use a bit of 0000 steel wool once in a while to shine it up.

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: Tool to remove the base screws. Photo1 by Don Tai

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: Base electrical contacts. Note the copper center pin arm, right side electrical connector, which had to be realigned with the centre hole. Photo2 by Don Tai

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: Base electrical contacts. Note the copper center pin arm, right side electrical connector, which had to be realigned with the centre hole. Photo3 by Don Tai

Kettle Electronics: Getting to the heart of the matter

The kettle top is odd shaped, and the sides are bulbous. In order to get to the kettle bottom electronics level I put the kettle into a mixing bowl, upside down. I added a thin towel on the second try.

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: Put it upside down into a mixing bowl so the bottom is flat. Photo4 by Don Tai

The bottom of the kettle has a plastic plate. The inner base has 3 Philips (“+”) screws, slightly larger than the outer 3 screws. One of my outer screws was the triangular head, which you will need the specialized security bit (above). The other 2 screws were smaller Philips screws. You can now pry the plate off the bottom and expose the electronics.

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: Remove the screws and pry up the cover to expose the electronics. To the right is the handle. to the left are the electrical connections, above and below the circular contact area are the switches. Photo5 by Don Tai

From the center contacts on one side will be the handle. On the opposite side will be the electrical contacts, one for the center pin and one for the copper ring that surrounds the pin. Above and below the center contacts are the on-off contacts, which turn the kettle on and off. These can get oxidized and prevent the kettle from operating. The transparent switch on the outside of the kettle, the one that we turn on, causes a piece of plastic to move, forcing these on-off contacts to connect together.

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: One of the electrical contacts, in copper, are just below the round connectors, the handle is to the left, electrical connectors to the right, photo6 by Don Tai

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: One of the electrical contacts, in copper, are just below the round connectors, the handle is to the left, electrical connectors to the right, photo7 by Don Tai

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: One of the electrical contacts, in copper, are just above the round connectors, the handle is to the left, electrical connectors to the right, photo8 by Don Tai

On the handle side there is a metal disc. Mine has rusted, but as it is not part of any electrical circuit it does not matter if it has rusted. It just looks terrible. All the replacement thermostat units comes with a disk like this.

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: on the handle side there is a rusted metal disc. It is not part of the electrical circuit, and just looks bad. Photo9 by Don Tai

We will now remove the electrical unit. The whole unit is called a thermostat. Note the orientation of the red and blue electrical connectors, because one is power and one is ground, so you don’t want to mix these up.

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: If the handle is on the left, the red electrical connector is the lower contact and the blue connector is the upper contact. Photo10 by Don Tai

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: If the handle is on the right, the red electrical connector is the upper contact and the blue connector is the lower contact. Photo11 by Don Tai

Remove the Thermostat

With a gentle tug, disconnect the red and blue electrical connections. Note their orientation (see photos above). There are 3 chrome Phillips screws to remove. The thermostat can then be lifted out. I found that both of my on-off switches were oxidized, so I cut a 1cm wide piece of 400 grit sandpaper and put it between the on-off switch contacts and slightly sanded both the top and bottom surfaces. This seemed to work well, restoring the switch. This sanding is much easier when the thermostat is removed, but because there are pieces of plastic in the way, still not easy to do.

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: the thermostat removed, I removed the metal disc near the handle, but did not need to, photo12 by Don Tai

The thermostat is marked Strix, 3, 110-240 13amp, U8811. There is also a “1125” mark on the plastic. I could not find an exact part number replacement for this in a Google search.

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: thermostat, marked Strix, 110-240 13amp, U881, Photo16 by Don Tai

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: thermostat, marked Strix, 110-240 13amp, U881, top dimensions, Photo13 by Don Tai

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: thermostat, marked Strix, 110-240 13amp, U881, bottom view, Photo14 by Don Tai

Hamilton-Beach 1.7L Electric Glass Kettle 40865C: thermostat, marked Strix, 110-240 13amp, U881, bottom dimensions, Photo15 by Don Tai

The thermostat dimensions for the front are 4.8cm from top hole to top hole, and 5.3cm from a top hole to the bottom hole. The thermostat dimension for the back are 5.4cm from the top hole to the bottom hole, and 4.5cm from one bottom hole to the other bottom hole. These dimensions are used when you look for a replacement thermostat.

Replacement thermostats that look identical are available from China on Amazon, but not with the same part number U8811. Rather they have a part number of U1855 and U1867. I don’t know the difference between them. Some of them have an anti-drying switch and others do not.

The cost is around $18CAD. When the cost of a new kettle is $60, it may not be worthwhile to replace the thermostat. There are small and seemingly fragile plastic parts in this kettle. At the end of the thermostat, where the metal disc is located, there are plastic parts that need to be transferred from your old thermostat to the new one. I could not figure out how to remove this square piece of plastic. If you did inadvertently break a part you may not get your kettle back together in workable order. There is a risk there.

Further, the parts and descriptions on Amazon are in Chinese. While this is ok for me, it would not be understandable for non-Chinese speakers. Also, my replacement part number cannot be found on Amazon, so I would need to go for a more generic thermostat. It will probably work, but there is a risk of breaking some plastic in the kettle when installing the new thermostat.

This kettle boils water quickly and has been reliable for 4 years (2019 Dec to 2023 Dec), and we are still using it. We will buy another one when this one dies and when I cannot resuscitate it.