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.

The fridge freezer's electrical draw will presumably vary according to it's thermostat so might not even draw 100w all the time.

I'm not sure about your theory about the re-wiring as I'm not sure electricity can leak out of a broken wire either, OP. It's not like water. Power is drawn when a connection to a device drawing power is made. If you still have excess consumption after you sort the immersion heater then perhaps it's more likely there is a fault with the meter unless you have a strange-smelling hydroponics set up nearby wired into your supply.

Try calling AO to cancel the new FF.

But I do know that with AO you can reject a delivery and they will refund you.
I did this, I ordered a new cooker from them but realised too late it was the wrong size, when the van arrived I ran out and told them not to unload it and that I didn't want to accept the delivery, they did try to argue with me but eventually they said they would take it back and that I should call and cancel the order.

Quote: “Have had two heating experts confirm it needs to be on 247 otherwise will cost more to run. Didn’t seem right to me either, hence second opinion sought. It was installed in 2019.”

It will be easy for you to check this theory. Spend a week where the immersion is only on for as long as it takes to heat the water (20 minutes?) when you actually need water - perhaps twice a day. Set a timer that will ring to remind you to switch it off). Take a meter reading before and after these 7 days and compare usage to now when it’s on all the time. (You have the whole house usage of two meter readings already and can divide by the number or weeks covered)

I agree with the kettle analogy. Imagine for 24 hours you stand at your kettle and boil it. When it starts to cool slightly - say after 1 or 2 minutes you boil it again. You keep doing this for 24 hours and in the morning and in the evening you make a cup of tea with some of the boiled water (but keep boiling). Do you actually think that this is cheaper than boiling the kettle twice in the time and making a cup of tea in the usual way?

If you have an electric shower and a dishwasher so you can get clean and wash your pots I would be tempted to spend a week with the immersion switched off completely to get a good idea of the difference using it is making to your usage and bills. (Just a note that electric showers are expensive when running too)

If the thermostat is broken I believe that rather than resting in between boils it can boil all day.

Try not to compare your bills on £ rather than usage as we know £ per unit is going up so our bills might go up significantly with no increased usage.

Good luck

Totally invested in whether you managed to cancel the new fridge.

Electrical leak? That's a new one on me.

@BertieBotts

Totally invested in whether you managed to cancel the new fridge.

"Cancel the fridge" is definitely the new "cancel the cheque"

My smart meter gave me a similar fright in October. I think I looked on the 12th and it said I had used £97 of electricity in 12 days (since 30th September). Our monthly bill is usually around £65 in the winter so even with higher prices that was a big jump. I had numerous chats with British Gas before it was sorted but it was a problem with the smart meter.

@ellyoctober

Next door couldn't be stealing your electricity could they? That's level of energy usage would make me very suspicious that there could be a cannabis farm.

I thought that too, and I went a step further and wondered if the neighbours are stealing the lecky and using it to grow cannabis!

There was a case a few years ago where this was happening.

It's physically impossible for it to be cheaper to leave an immersion on all day. 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. So if it's very well insulated it might not cost much more keeping it on constantly but it won't be cheaper.

Fridge freezer delivery rejected from AO . You were all correct it is using a fairly normal amount of electricity since the monitor price was adjusted.

We’ve turned the immersion off permanently and will see what effect it has on meter readings over the next few days. We have a dishwasher and can bathe at my folks house (close by).

Electricity leaks - not claiming this is a thing, but was reading about it here....

homeguru.homepro.co.th/en/4-signals-warning-that-electricity-in-the-house-is-leaking/

The other cause could be an electrical leak in broken wiring. We only had 60% of house rewired, so this will need checking

I’m sorry… a what now?

Our neighbour is an older dinner lady. Would be hilarious if she’s growing cannabis, like that film with Brenda Blythen ‘Saving Grace’!

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.

Your Electricity Bill will be Very Big if you don't pay it for months and months on end.

Try paying it monthly then you won't have these heart attacks.

Your bill is not outrageous.

@Buttonsluna

This was the bill where I’d been paying £89 DD then they said we owed £625 debt on electricity. You can see we use hardly any gas.

The three previous readings on that bill were estimates. If they were underestimated, the account will now be playing catch-up for at least 9 months worth of undercharging.

I don't think things are half as bad as you think, OP.

We turn our immersion on when we need it.
In summer it can be 3 days if the weather is really hot.
We don't have a bath though just a shower and our kitchen sink has its own little heater which is left on permanently.
Our electrician said leave the immersion on permanently but it stands to reason that continually topping the temperature up will cost more.

@LittleOwl153

Assuming you have a 3kW rated immersion, on a 20A fuse then the figures calculated above hold - so your immersion on full pelt for 24hrs is costing £16.56 max. If it is a 6kW rated then it could be double.

But unless it has a faulty thermostat or no insulation, it won't be going full pelt for 24 hours. It'll be coming on now and again whenever the water temp drops below the amount the thermostat is set at, to bring the temperature back up.

Elictircity can't leak. It's not like water.forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5572380/is-it-possible-to-leak-electricity

@youwouldthink

Make sure you heck all sources to the point of turning off everything in house and see if the charge/units are still moving. 10 years ago I bought a show house. Had been with same electric co for years and in the new house...pretty much same size as previous house my bills were coming in 5 or 6 times higher!! Almost a year of desperate calls to the provider and several electricians out and still paying crazy bills. I was wrecked with it. One afternoon I had a knock to the door from the head of my County Council asking if my bills were high. It seems the developer, who had gone out of business, had wired the street lighting for my street and the next street to the power supply in my garage. The relief!!! Never got my money back though!

What do you mean you never got your money back? Did you not put in a complaint/claim from the council?

@Buttonsluna

Right I’ve just recorded a meter reading for electricity now of 43148.7

I make that approx £170 for the electricity you've used since the reading on the bill you posted, OP. That seems a bit high for a period of 6 weeks to me, but then I use gas for cooking and water heating so my elec usage is very low.

But still nothing like as bad as you thought!

I think it's the immersion heater too. They cost an absolute fortune to run.

If the thermostat is broken I believe that rather than resting in between boils it can boil all day.

I think you'd know if that was happening @Winter2020 - it'd make the most god-awful racket!

It's happened to me twice, once one in my parents' old place when I was a kid and once in a flat I rented when I first left home. It was like having the worlds biggest electric kettle boiling away non-stop.

A faulty appliance or wiring could let a current flow where it shouldn't, that's effectively an "electrical leak".

I'll also suggest again the possibility of a hot water leak driving up the immersion heater cost. I'm not sure how you'd test that other than finding the leak itself.

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.

You can’t get compensation on an electrical product after a decade, no.
Sorry your bills got so high