Energy Usage Costs by Appliance

Sea_Shell

Just on the point of "American Style" fridge freezers.    What makes them so bad?

Is it their size, or is there something else about them that makes them expensive to run?

We have large (standard white) separates in the kitchen, rated at 222kwh pa (freezer - 170L) and 134kwh pa (fridge - 240L)

The brochure states they are both A+ rated.    That's also where I got the usage data from.*

They stand 1430mm tall and are 580mm wide (each).

How does this compare to an American set up??


*This can't be too far out, as when we are away, the house "background" usage, including them, is about 1.5kwh per 24 hours. or average of 63w constant draw.

jimjames

scaredofdebt said:

Ally_E. said:

scaredofdebt said:

Ally_E. said:

scaredofdebt said:

I think our problem is cooking, we tend to use 20-30 units a day but yesterday we cooked a big meal and usage was nearly

 50 units/kwh

How much does a typical oven use?  Also how much does a typical hob use (induction)?

I can't easily measure those as the plug isn't easily accessible.

You used 50kW/h in one day? That's a quarter of the monthly usage for us and I'm liberal with our electric oven use 

Probably about 47/48 kW/h and it will be ~26 hours or so as I read the meter a bit later today.

It's quite a large 4 bed detached house, 6 people including 3 teenagers with their gadgets.  No heating though, just hot water that's usually about 3-4 kW/h a day.

But the only obvious difference I can see is we used the cooker/hob etc for a longish period of time, there is an extractor fan with LED lights as well and they were on as it was dark.

You combined your electricity used with water in your message above. Did you mean 50kW/h of all energy, that being gas and electric combined? 50kW/h of electricity is a lot. We are in detached house too, but just the 2 of us. During the times when husband was mining crypto we had usage of 15kW/h a day max. Even on days when he mined and we had a heatwave and had the aircon blasting 24/7 we used 20kW/h a day. I would strongly recommend investigating this high usage. Tapo energy monitor from amazon is very useful for this. 

No gas here all electric, the nearly 50 kW/h was for everything combined, with water heating, the CH isn't on at the moment, yet!

Is the water heating constantly? Our immersion only runs a couple of times a day to produce enough hot water for a family

chris_n

tghe-retford said:

I need to do more data gathering into this but it appears from what I have found so far, home entertainment setups including LED TV's (not even plasma or CRT), sound systems, game consoles and computers could be more of an issue regarding cost than using an oven regularly, on par with or even exceeding a fridge freezer running 24/7.

The biggest cost was the home entertainment set-up followed by the fridge freezer. And I think it is down to the concept of lower wattage items being used for long hours as opposed to high wattage items being used occasionally.

I asked my daughter to measure some things recently. The (50 inch ? Now 2 years old ) Samsung QLED TV I gave her uses around 150W she also has a similar vintage Samsung standard LED TV (42 inch) uses 50W. Not all LED TVs are equal, obviously there is a size difference here but I suspect the QLED uses at least twice as much size for size.

tghe-retford

chris_n said:

tghe-retford said:

I need to do more data gathering into this but it appears from what I have found so far, home entertainment setups including LED TV's (not even plasma or CRT), sound systems, game consoles and computers could be more of an issue regarding cost than using an oven regularly, on par with or even exceeding a fridge freezer running 24/7.

The biggest cost was the home entertainment set-up followed by the fridge freezer. And I think it is down to the concept of lower wattage items being used for long hours as opposed to high wattage items being used occasionally.

I asked my daughter to measure some things recently. The (50 inch ? Now 2 years old ) Samsung QLED TV I gave her uses around 150W she also has a similar vintage Samsung standard LED TV (42 inch) uses 50W. Not all LED TVs are equal, obviously there is a size difference here but I suspect the QLED uses at least twice as much size for size.

Correct. When accounting for every other variable, higher resolutions and HDR need higher wattage because they require more computing power. And obviously the larger the size, the more LEDs it needs and the higher the cost. The one variable that people don't tend to take into account when determining energy cost is time. It's why fridges are rated at kWh per year. Fridges, like TVs don't operate fully 24/7 and the point I was making is that your home entertainment will be on at a lower wattage for a longer amount of time in a time period such as a month or a year compared to kitchen appliances.

Two similar LED TVs from the same manufacturer and range. The full HD one uses 50W whilst the 4K no HDR one uses 60W. The most energy efficient similar sized 4K TV I could find on most people's budget uses 64W with HDR and 40W without.

Magnitio

chris_n said:

I asked my daughter to measure some things recently. The (50 inch ? Now 2 years old ) Samsung QLED TV I gave her uses around 150W she also has a similar vintage Samsung standard LED TV (42 inch) uses 50W. Not all LED TVs are equal, obviously there is a size difference here but I suspect the QLED uses at least twice as much size for size.

Samsung TV's do have an eco setting. It is worth checking out what difference it makes.

MattMattMattUK

Sea_Shell said:

Just on the point of "American Style" fridge freezers.    What makes them so bad?

Is it their size, or is there something else about them that makes them expensive to run?

We have large (standard white) separates in the kitchen, rated at 222kwh pa (freezer - 170L) and 134kwh pa (fridge - 240L)

The brochure states they are both A+ rated.    That's also where I got the usage data from.*

They stand 1430mm tall and are 580mm wide (each).

How does this compare to an American set up??


*This can't be too far out, as when we are away, the house "background" usage, including them, is about 1.5kwh per 24 hours. or average of 63w constant draw.

It is a combination of things, Their size usually contributes to the cost, the increased volume requiring cooling, often their design means that they fully empty of cold air when opened, which further increases energy usage when cooling down again. The other factor is that the cooling of water and ice making increases usage as it regularly has to cool down tap water which a normal fridge-freezer does not have to do. 

They are not as bad as they used to be though, US standard fridges and fridge-freezers were built to far lower energy efficiency and insulation standards than those sold in Europe so they earned a reputation based on that as well, however American standards are now roughly equivalent and imports are far rarer. 

brewerdave

Sea_Shell said:

Just on the point of "American Style" fridge freezers.    What makes them so bad?

Haven't ever had one - but don't they have two compressors -one for the fridge and one for the freezer portion ??

sully1311

Sea_Shell said:

Just on the point of "American Style" fridge freezers.    What makes them so bad?

Is it their size, or is there something else about them that makes them expensive to run?

We have large (standard white) separates in the kitchen, rated at 222kwh pa (freezer - 170L) and 134kwh pa (fridge - 240L)

The brochure states they are both A+ rated.    That's also where I got the usage data from.*

They stand 1430mm tall and are 580mm wide (each).

How does this compare to an American set up??


*This can't be too far out, as when we are away, the house "background" usage, including them, is about 1.5kwh per 24 hours. or average of 63w constant draw.

My Samsung American F/F is rated at 398kw/h pa so not far off your separates but it's rated G. 

Sea_Shell

sully1311 said:

Sea_Shell said:

Just on the point of "American Style" fridge freezers.    What makes them so bad?

Is it their size, or is there something else about them that makes them expensive to run?

We have large (standard white) separates in the kitchen, rated at 222kwh pa (freezer - 170L) and 134kwh pa (fridge - 240L)

The brochure states they are both A+ rated.    That's also where I got the usage data from.*

They stand 1430mm tall and are 580mm wide (each).

How does this compare to an American set up??


*This can't be too far out, as when we are away, the house "background" usage, including them, is about 1.5kwh per 24 hours. or average of 63w constant draw.

My Samsung American F/F is rated at 398kw/h pa so not far off your separates but it's rated G. 

Interesting.   Do you know the capacity for each part?   Does yours make ice, or dispense cold drinks?  Ours don't 😉, just basic Currys own brand.

scaredofdebt

Magnitio said:

scaredofdebt said:

 "including 3 teenagers with their gadgets."

It seems this is becoming a common theme with high usage. Do you know what their gadgets are? Gaming PC's? PS5?

Mainly phones so not much cost in terms of electricity, one has a laptop and I know they use very little, one has a desktop so ~3p or so per hour.

It's more the shower usage I am aware of here!  I have told them to try to have shorter showers but I haven't got around to timing them yet