How Toasters Work

Video Transcript

"I'm William Perkinson and I'm here to tell you how toasters work. All electrical appliances such as toasters, hairdryers, space heaters, work on the same principle. When plugged into the wall it allows electrical current to come into them and they change electricity into heat energy. It's done through a special metal coil called nichrome. Why is this important? Because if it was just copper wires it would burn out in a flash but this nichrome made out of nickel and chromium alloy helps to slow down the electricity on the wire and when it does that it glows red hot, it's orange. When you look inside the toaster you see that it's getting hot and that's what actually browns the bread. Once you've placed your toast in the top of the toaster you'll depress the lever and you've got a choice of settings. Usually as this one from light to medium to dark it's how toasted you like your bread. In older toasters this was a temperature reading from a thermal couple but in newer ones it's typically just a timer. You set it on whatever desired lever of darkness. But there's always an override and if you see your toast is getting the way you want it or you can hit cancel and pop it out. I'm William Perkinson and that's how toasters work."