One nice alternative if you want but can't have an instant hot is an electric kettle---we got one a few months before our remodel, and have been using it for all sorts of things. It boils far faster than our kettle did on the gas stove, and I also love the auto shutoff. No more trying to remember if I turned the stove off after I'm at work! It will have its own space in the new kitchen, and will be the primary source for hot water. We are also in the extreme minority in GW land and only have one water source in the kitchen---not even a fridge line! (Okay, technically it's split for the d/w, so I guess that's 1.5...) It's what we had before and we liked it, so we kept it that way. Works for us. I like the idea of an instant hot, but we have a small kitchen and the under-sink real estate was too valuable to put one in. I contemplated a pot filler, but our stove is close enough to the sink that we wouldn't gain that much. Friends who have one that is very close to the sink still love it because it allows them to fill pots with a child in one arm. You still have to put the child down to empty it, of course, but makes it a little easier! We have a hot water dispenser at work, which I do use, but I do find the water is not quite hot enough for tea. I use it anyway for that since I'm lazy, though. :) (You also may be able to change the settings; no clue how it works, exactly.) I've seen steamers (someone around here who posted a finished kitchen recently has one, I think) and they're very cool, but really only logical to have if you steam things virtually every night or if you have a really large kitchen with space that isn't needed for other things.

We have one of these dispensers at our sink. There are several types of tubing generally used on these hot water units. The way these units work is that when you press the lever for hot water, cold water is sent to the heating tank which then pushes hot water up and out the spout. The supply to the lever valve assembly is high pressure cold water. Polyethylene tubing will work here. Generally the connections are push-in with internal o-ring seals. From the lever valve to the tank is cold water at lower pressure. Polyethylene tubing will work fine here as well. Also push-in connections are typical. From the tank to the spout is what appears to be a silicone tubing with some external clamps. This can handle the near-boiling temps and is typically not found available in most hardware or box stores. In fact, I've never seen it sold at retail. Polyethylene tubing is NOT recommended here at these high temps, but it may survive for a time because of the very low pressure. Splicing copper tubing into the middle of the silicone tubing would be an acceptable way to extend the length. You could possible extend the copper tubing on the faucet itself with copper tubing and a female-female compression connector. Another way to extend it would be to salvage some silicone tubing from an old drip coffee maker - due to the heat it is used to connect to the heating element and to carry the hot water up to the coffee basket.

I received an Instant Pot for Christmas. I use a slow cooker frequently and had wanted one that had the saute function. I have mixed feelings on the saute function now. I like not having an extra pot to clean. I dislike doing this in the counter where the Ventahood is not sucking it up and the grease that splatters. I have yet to find the ideal location in my kitchen to do this to minimize the area that needs to be cleaned. I love the Instant Pot for broth. The really rich broth that would take 24-36 hours to cook on the stove or in the slow cooker was too hard for me to do because I did not want to smell broth that long. The rich broth does take some time in the IP to heat up, cook and cool down, but the clarity is marvelous and my whole house does not stink. Next time I make broth I intend to set it up before bed and then strain in the morning. I do also like the IP for beans and mashed potatoes (potatoes take forever to cook at my high altitude, pressure cooking helps tremendously for that). As far as using it as a slow cooker, I would really need the clear lid for that. As much as the contraption costs, it really should have included that. I have not tried steel cut oats in it yet because I need to experiment first on a weekend. There is a definite learning curve with the machine and one of the downsides is if the setting time did not work for you and the food is not cooked all the way through, it is not as obvious yet and you have to add more time. We have certain time windows for dinner (medication related) and eating a half an hour later than anticipated throws off the rest of the schedule. Things are too tight on weekday mornings to take a chance on breakfast not being ready (not to mention brain cells are not all that active to deal with contingencies). One other dislike of mine is that I need to remember to leave the lid off for a while otherwise, the smell of whatever was cooked lingers inside (I do not like cooking smells after the fact). This is just a matter of remembering to not close it up too soon after cooking. All in all, I am not sure if I would purchase it again, at least not at the IP price. I do love it for the broth and I do need to try some things like cheesecake. There are other recipes I see out there that I wonder why bother doing it in the IP, I do not see the time savings to be real but that probably has to do with my cooking style. It did not revolutionize my kitchen, it is one just one of many tools.

I have a funny story to share re instapot. Two years ago we started a massive kitchen renovation - I got my 6 burner Bluestar range, a walk in pantry, wall ovens - heaven ! Well, in the midst of it, DH discovers IP and started testing out Asian Indian cooking in it. Since we were kitchen-less for a longgg time and his engineering sense of precision to cooking naturally lent to IP cooking, I went along. Well here we are two years later and now we have 2 IPs (and threatening to buy a third small one ... for "those times when you we might need one ! LOL ".DH is turning into a IP-dictator whereby he automatically assumes that any cooking I do can be done faster and taste better in IP. It doesnt help that HIS instapot recipes are really yummy and a great hit with our boys and with friends ! I was half joking to him that instead of upgrading to bluestar rangetop, we should have bought 6 IPs for a fraction of the cost :) If anyone wants to try good IP dishes for Asian Indian cooking I highly recommend https://ministryofcurry.com/top-10-instant-pot-recipes/ Note: No relation to the author, just a blog DH swears by for his IP recipes. HTH