Power used fridge/freezer

[ericmark]

I know the insulation on a fridge/freezer can fail. When this happens because it is cold it absorbs moisture from atmosphere which in turn conducts heat into the unit.

To check on this one should from time to time measure how much power over a given period it uses.

However door opening, setting, ambient temperature will all effect reading so until this time next year I will have no figures to compare with.

I have just run for 24hours with measuring machine connected and it used 2.1KWh but no idea if that is high or low? I will assume form calculation it was running 18% of the time.

Has anyone go any figures I can compare with?

 

[stuartsjg]

It will depend on the size of the unit.

Look in the hand book for the unit, or if its still current, find it in a shop and it will show typical figures on the efficiency label.

I don't think 2.1kWh/24h is very bad. I know most fridges nowadays average between 60 and 120w (1.44 to 2.88kWh per day) depending on the size. On the energy savings trust website ive seen UK avergae figures of 2-3kWh per day.

2.1kWh per day is about £90-100 per year in electricity, again im sure that quite average.

If you bear in mind that the ancient freezers some people have in their garages and sheds (like my finances parents!) consume around 300W all the time due to old technology compressors, poor/low refrigerant, failing insulation, bad door seals will be costing over £300 a year to run where as a moden one may cost £70 a year!

 

[flameport]

My fridge uses approximately 0.6kWh per day.
That is a small under the counter type fridge.
(It is similar to this one: http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/465429/BEKO-LA87W)

The old one it replaced was the same size, but because it was old and poorly designed it used over 2kWh per day.
That is why it was replaced (it still worked, but was wasting over 500kWh per year)

 

[Steve]

In Zakynthos our hotel room had a fridge that looked like it was "built in", and the compressor etc was mounted externally in the cupboard next to it. I saw this a few times there in different places. Seems they dont like attaching a compressor to the fridge! But the one in our hotel had a badly fitting door, and was very iced up. Makes me wonder how much this cost to run.

It could be worse . . .