Vaping 101: How Vapes Work, the Types and the UK Rules
The whole subject, one honest briefing
Key Takeaways
- Every vape is the same four parts: battery, coil, wick and e-liquid. Everything else is packaging.
- Device types are a spectrum from prefilled pods (zero effort) to mods (full control).
- UK law caps tanks at 2ml and nicotine at 20mg/ml, and bans single-use disposables.
- The UK approach treats vaping as a quit-smoking tool: regulated, legal, and taxed from October 2026.
Strip away the jargon and vaping is one mechanism: a battery heats a coil, the coil vaporises liquid held in a wick, you inhale the vapour. A £6 prefilled kit and a £60 mod both do exactly this; they differ only in how much control they hand you over the process.
This is the briefing we wish every beginner got: the mechanism, the device families, and the UK rulebook around them.
How a Vape Actually Works
Inside every device sits a coil, a small heating element wrapped around cotton wick. The wick soaks up e-liquid; the battery heats the coil for the second or two of your draw; the liquid in the wick flashes to vapour. No combustion happens at any point, which is the entire health distinction from smoking.
Coils wear out with use (weeks, typically) and are replaced either individually or as part of a pod. Batteries recharge over USB-C on anything modern. That is genuinely the whole machine.
The Device Families
| Prefilled Pod Kit | Refillable Pod Kit | Sub-Ohm Kit / Mod | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Effort | None | Minimal | Hands-on |
| Running cost | Medium | Lowest | Higher |
| Draw style | MTL | MTL / RDL | DTL |
| Who it suits | Switchers, no-fuss vapers | Most people, most of the time | Enthusiasts |
The UK Rulebook
UK vaping law sets the boundaries you shop within: tanks and pods max out at 2ml, nicotine at 20mg/ml, nicotine-containing bottles at 10ml, and products must be notified and tested before sale. Single-use disposables have been banned since June 2025, which pushed the market to rechargeable kits with refill containers. From 1 October 2026 a £2.20-per-10ml duty applies to vaping liquids, covered in our vape tax guide.
Sales are 18-plus, and advertising is tightly restricted, which is why reputable retailers age-check and why anywhere that does not deserves suspicion.
One Good Kit Per Family
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The Vape Scribe
I am known as The Vape Scribe, a dedicated author specialising in insightful, well-researched content on the vaping industry. From in-depth flavour analyses to emerging market trends, my work aims to inform, engage, and inspire readers across the vaping community.
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