Fridge freezer costing £20 per day to run?

[Buttonsluna]

Hi there ,

We have just realised our standard size Liebherr fridge freezer is costing us over £7,000 a year to run . Obviously we’ve unplugged it and bought a new one (arriving today), but do you think I can get compensation from the company?

It took us a whole quarterly bill period to realise it‘s been using over 100 KWH per 24 hours. Our bills went up dramatically before that, but we put it down to both WFH.

Basically we now owe thousands of pounds we can’t afford (I feel sick and I’m having panic attack about how we’re going to pay).

As soon as we realised there was a problem when submitting our meter read, we bought a plug to check how much electricity each appliance is using. We were shocked that our Liebherr FF cost £23.50 over a 24 hour period!!!

We purchased it from John Lewis 10 years ago. Is there any recourse for compensation or do we have to suck it up? Is this just what happens when FF break down- is it normal? It seemed to be functioning ok, everything cold/ frozen and no frost or anything.

If you have any ideas please help. We acted as soon as we realised there is a problem so please don’t tell me I’m stupid for not noticing, I am busy working mum and struggle as it is to keep up with all life admin. Obviously I’m checking meter constantly now.

Fridge freezer costing £20 per day to run?

Impossible.

They didn’t get high though. She was just freaking out and pressed a few extra zeros on the calculator.

Cancel the FRIDGE

I haven’t read the full thread but I’m still going to comment.
It is impossible that your fridge is using that amount of electricity.
You say you had the house rewired recently. Why was this? (This is not the cause of your issue but I’m interested in why you had a rewire).
How many adults live in the house?

@PigletJohn

Fridge freezer costing £20 per day to run?

Impossible.

She miscalculated - it's 43p a day....

@Wtfdoipick

Years ago we did have an electrical leak in wiring so yes it can happen, in our case it was a damaged cable running through the ground to the garage, let's just say the plants were growing very well for a while till they started dying from overheating.

Electricity doesn’t leak like that. It can arc. You’d know about it though. It doesn’t trickle away and give you unexpected bills.

I could have diagnosed this problem from the first post.

Sorry wrong thread

@changeitplease

Forgot to say I have next hour within which to advice anything. Come on guys we need to help ... there are usually 100s of replies on random post. Please can you give your suggestions ... any specific things she can do. Any helpline?

What are you talking about? OP was wrong about her bills and usage

Xpost

@changeitplease

Sorry wrong thread

To be honest yours was the best and most appropriate post here. The only one that made any sense.

That website about how to spot an electricity leak is one of the most bizarre things! What is it selling? Aaah yes... scroll to the end. Just someone who wants your money. (Well, if you live in Thailand).

What a rollercoaster of a thread!

At best, assuming there's absolutely no heat loss from the system, it would use exactly the same amount of electricity as heating it up once or twice a day

Ah, but you're forgetting the energy consumed by the timer! In your idealised no heat loss scenario the electricity consumed by the timer would be the only difference, and that would be higher than no timer at all.

Of course, there's not physicists here but engineers and we know the no heat loss scenario is gibberish, but still...

We have our immersion on all the time and our monthly joint bills are £80. We were told to leave it on by heating engineer aswell.

Years ago I lived in a flat with no gas. When I moved in it had one of those payment meters that you topped up with a card thing, which I had to wait a few weeks to get changed out. The immersion heater was crazy expensive to run - I only used it a few times to have a bath, but the amount of "credit" it ate in the meter was astonishing. (The flat had an electric shower and that barely used any credit in comparison.)

Leaving the immersion on is just lunacy!

This reminds me of that thread where the woman was throwing all her cutlery UNSORTED into the drawer. Just all in. All together. Not even separating the teaspoons!!!!

Sometimes I read things on here and I think these things are planted to shock. The immersion, on all day??? Come on.

But surely you've already paid the bill up to October?

Your bill isn't crazy high, it's good to keep the bill down but I don't think you need to stop having baths in your house during the investigation.

I think she needs to put the calculator away and cancel the fridge.

Maybe your electric is being diverted to a shed or attic full of suspicious plants.

@Tereseta

We have our immersion on all the time and our monthly joint bills are £80. We were told to leave it on by heating engineer aswell.

It's basic physics that heating the same water up multiple times during a day uses more energy than heating it once.

If a heating engineer told me that I'd view it with the same disbelief as if they told me that electricity is produced by fairies dancing a jig on a pylon. It is bollocks.

It is not possible for your fridge freezer to cost that amount to run. There is nothing in a fridge freezer that can draw that amount of current.

Leaving the immersion on all day is only a reasonable idea if it is very well insulated. If that is the case it doesn’t significantly cool down once it is hot. Every time hot water is drawn out it will come on to heat the incoming cold water. The advantage is that the water in the tank is always hot. If the same tank is just heated once a day as soon as any hot water is used the tank temperature falls, so you could end up with no hot water. Effectively, once the tank is hot you are only heating exactly the amount of water you are using. As a PP said, with perfect insulation it wouldn’t matter what you did.

It’s really stressful when you don’t know why your electricity bill has suddenly gone up. Our local council closed down their home energy team and energy suppliers no help. So you’re on your own and easy to get worked up as it’s like burning money you can’t see!!

It is confusing the way they lay out bills, first generation smart meters can massively overestimate use, cause anxiety and those monitor thingys can be good in theory, but could be unreliable. It’s so easy to miscalculate. Luckily it went in right direction (down!). You’re best checking the actual meter and your tariff.

The only way to be sure, is to do a full shutdown and check if meter is still whizzing by. Then monitor the meter daily and observe what impacts different appliances are having.

If you still don’t know It’s tricky and expensive to decide whether to call sparky/ heating plumber or meter engineer.

@Silvershroud

*safariboot Mon 15-Nov-21 15:26:48 A faulty appliance or wiring could let a current flow where it shouldn't, that's effectively an "electrical leak".* Where would it go? Say you had a faulty FF- where could it "leak" electicity to? Do you imagine it would pour out onto the floor? Faulty wiring could cause overheating, but it couldn't leak. I hope OP checks that link to MST I gave, it is explored there.

From the live to the neutral, making heat, wasting power, and doing nothing of use. Less commonly from live to earth, but that would instantly trip an RCD if one is fitted.