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.

Op your fridge is fine , you seem to be confusing the maths between w and kw. I would return the new fridge.

@titchy

The gadget showing 100 watts is about right. But 100 watts doesn't cost what you seem to think it does. 100 watts is 0.1 of a kilowatt. At 18p per kilowatt hour, the fridge costs 0.18 x 0.1 x 24 = 43p a day!

So send the new one back.

And use the money to get your immersion heated from the boiler.

@Buttonsluna

I just wanted to draw your attention to the above post invade you miss it!!

100W gives 2.4kWh over a day. It's 0.1 kW multiplied by 24 hours. The average cost of electricity in the UK is around 18p per kWh so the fridge is costing 43p per day or £13.14 per month.

I didn't spot titchy's post, good to see my numbers match.

Might be worth cancelling the new fridge purchase.

Use the funds for an electrician instead.

What you've been told about the immersion heater is a myth. We wouldn't dream of having ours on all the time.
www.cse.org.uk/advice/energy-saving-tips/energy-mythbuster

Ah a PP is right. 100w is 0.1kw so you would need to adjust the price you input into the device to get the correct price as you've put a price in for kW and it's recording in watts

We ran tests this weekend on immersion on/ off and didn’t make a lot of difference to meter readings
Perhaps when you did this, the thermostat meant that the immersion wasn't actually heating the water during your test.

So a 10yr old fridge developed a fault? Unless it had a very long warranty, I don't think you have any comeback.

Re: the immersion heater - the only time we've run ours was when the boiler was broken and it was our only source of hot water. And yes - it was pricy!

Turn it off and sort your hot water another way.

Common sense would suggest that there's no way the FF could be costing that much per day, I think something has gone wrong with the programming of the device.

I was quite surprised to read just the other day that a fridge costs around £1 a day to run, there's no way it could jump up over 20 times surely.

This might be a stupid quetion but if the fridge takes 100W isn't that the same as an old fashioned light bulb?

I think you should clarify the figures and query the meter with the electricity company, they do occasionally break.

Are you absolutely certain that hot water from your boiler isn't warming water in your tank?

(ASlthough it wasn't £000s pricy tbf)

@Chemenger

100W gives 2.4kWh over a day. It's 0.1 kW multiplied by 24 hours. The average cost of electricity in the UK is around 18p per kWh so the fridge is costing 43p per day or £13.14 per month.

@Buttonsluna read this Although if your kWh price is 20p then your price per day is 48p

It's not your fridge freezer that's using all the electricity

That plug in power meter looks exactly like the one I purchased a few years ago to plug into my (relatively new) chest freezer. I can’t remember the exact figures but I remember it showing ridiculously high energy usage. This wasn’t reflected in my main electricity meter/bills so concluded the power meter was cheap and inaccurate/faulty.

So I’m not convinced it is your fridge freezer eating the electricity either but no suggestions as to what it could be.

It can't be the fridge. I could run a car charger for 24 hours off a plug at the maximum amount (3.6kw) and it'd still be 'only' 83kwh per 24 hour period. And that would arguably be dangerous - sockets aren't designed to push 13amp 24/7.

I would return the fridge and spend the money having a timer fitted to your emersion.

OP I think it's much more likely that your bill is wrong.

My mum received a water bill for £22,000! Yes you did read that right - twenty thousand pounds. The water company eventually sorted it out.

Large electricity bills usually arise because the power is being diverted to a neighbour's cannabis farm or similar. Even an immersion heater wouldn't cost that much.

Electrical engineer here.

Fridges are heat pumps. If your FF was consuming 100KWh per day it would be the same as having two 2kW electrical heaters running 24/7 in your room. Is the room temperature 30 degrees Celsius?

Not to mention that the plug socket would be literally melting, the fuse would have blown etc. etc.

The only item in your home that could be using that amount of power would be the heating, even that would only be possible if you've left a window open or have set the thermostat to 30 degrees.

Most likely it's a meter issue, contact your supplier.

@Buttonsluna

Our gas bill is £20 pcm. We hardly put the heating on (I’be Irish blood too!). Our electricity bill was £185 pcm May- mid October.

Before that was £20pcm for gas £70pcm for electricity. Used to be half that in old house. I don’t know units as everything online and they went bust.

I dread to think what it will be mid October to now as units have shot up.

Is this your actual bill according to what you have used or what the utility company want you to pay per month by direct debit?

What is your actual usage in kWh?

It really doesn't seem to be your fridge freezer causing the jump in electricity prices. Echoing other posters to say the usage monitor shows a pretty standard output.

I know what it's like to get a massive unexpected bill and the panic it causes but this is what I'd recommend doing in steps:

1. return/cancel new fridge
2. Turn everything off
3. Wait until meter stops and write the figures down
4. Plug one item back in at a time, checking the new figure on your meter after a set time and recording that too
5. Leave the immersion heater until last. Monitor your meter over a course of a few hours to see the impact the immersion has.
6. If you haven't found the culprit, record your meter readings at the same time each day for a few days.
7. Contact your electricity company to ensure the meter isn't faulty
8. Check wiring of the house

Feel free to PM me if you want, it was approx 4 years ago now but I used to work in this kind of area.

@K4fkaesque

Electrical engineer here.

Fridges are heat pumps. If your FF was consuming 100KWh per day it would be the same as having two 2kW electrical heaters running 24/7 in your room. Is the room temperature 30 degrees Celsius?

Not to mention that the plug socket would be literally melting, the fuse would have blown etc. etc.

The only item in your home that could be using that amount of power would be the heating, even that would only be possible if you've left a window open or have set the thermostat to 30 degrees.

Most likely it's a meter issue, contact your supplier.

The reader she is using shows 100W not kW

Then the £23/day, 100KWh reading is incorrect.

The 100W reading would also only be that high when the compressor is running.

I’m in Ireland and I’m having conniptions at the idea of leaving the immersion heater on 24/7! there is no way that can possibly be right. That will be costing you an absolute fortune.

You'e confused yourself because your monitor gives a reading in Watts but you've calculated the bill as if the reading is in Kilowatts. One Kilowatt = 1000 Watts, so you've overestimated the fridge's energy usage by a factor of a thousand!

Cancel the new fridge and go back to the drawing board on working out what is causing your high electricity usage. The problem is not your fridge!