Using between 3 and 4 KWH's per day of electric when we're on holiday !

Mstty

sandy700 said:

Did you know that frost free freezers can use up to twice as much electricity per year as manual defrost freezers?

Are you sure?

A quick check at two appliances websites and all A+ and A rated fridge freezers were frost free.

Maybe true of older models but maybe not new on the new energy ratings.

QrizB

Mstty said:

sandy700 said:

Did you know that frost free freezers can use up to twice as much electricity per year as manual defrost freezers?

Are you sure?

Frost free freezers typically have a heater in them that defrosts the evaporator coil periodically. That design will inevitably use more energy.

A quick check at two appliances websites and all A+ and A rated fridge freezers were frost free.
Maybe true of older models but maybe not new on the new energy ratings.

There are no A or A+ rated fridge freezers under the new energy ratings, so far as I can tell.

Spoonie_Turtle

Energy monitor on 2 (very old) chest freezers says 5kWh last 24hrs   that's £1.78/day and nearly £640 a year - but that 5kWh didn't include time open rummaging to get items out for dinner, nor has it been particularly warm.

We *do* use food we stock up on - as well as reduced items at the supermarket we go to a bulk freezer place which does things at a small fraction of supermarket price (even when the supermarket has an offer on) and their stock changes depending on what excess is left over from manufacturers so stocking up is usually the only way to be sure we'll have xyz for the next few months - but we can definitely downsize, and replacement with more energy efficient freezers would certainly help a lot.

Puts the usual "batch cook and freeze" advice in a different light too, costing electricity to cook more/longer than one meal, freeze it and reheat.  The economics of scale still might work out, but it's no longer such a simple fix/huge saving as it was seen before, when energy was cheap.

PennineAcute

molerat said:

PennineAcute said:

molerat said:

Petriix said:

The fish tank could easily use ~ 60W.

It would be some set up to use 60W unheated and unlit.  I have a large external canister filter and large twin output air pump and they use under 20W combined.

My large external uses 40W, lights (LED) 20W (12 hours a day)

My 800 l/h pump is uses 10 W - does yours have UV which can double the consumption ?

No.  Just a bog standard 1400 l/h "All Pond Solutions" external.  What brand is yours?  Maybe, buying cheap turns out expensive in the long run

PennineAcute

eliza2811 said:

Thanks all. I didn't expect so many answers back 😊 It's been really interesting to read all your comments.  

I guess my 'use' while away isn't that bad.  I can't get rid of the fish. Goldfish seem very hardy and live for ages it seems, although if they died (3 of them), I wouldn't replace 

Seems we both have good taste in fish

Mstty

QrizB said:

Mstty said:

sandy700 said:

Did you know that frost free freezers can use up to twice as much electricity per year as manual defrost freezers?

Are you sure?

Frost free freezers typically have a heater in them that defrosts the evaporator coil periodically. That design will inevitably use more energy.

A quick check at two appliances websites and all A+ and A rated fridge freezers were frost free.
Maybe true of older models but maybe not new on the new energy ratings.

There are no A or A+ rated fridge freezers under the new energy ratings, so far as I can tell.

Yep got my ratings and sucked into the Currys site. Must admit it's a bit of a minefield you need to know the year the model you are looking at was graded.

Thanks for the info👍

Ultrasonic

Another factor with frost-free freezers is some storage volume is lost for whatever the extra bits are required for this. So whilst two freezers with the same external dimensions may use a similar amount of energy, the energy use per litre of storage is likely higher for the frost-free version. There will of course be extra energy used at the time any conventional freezer is manually defrosted though.

Apodemus

Ultrasonic said:

There will of course be extra energy used at the time any conventional freezer is manually defrosted though.

Which in most cases will be much less frequent than the auto-defrost model!  Possibly less frequent than is optimum either.

Ultrasonic

Apodemus said:

Ultrasonic said:

There will of course be extra energy used at the time any conventional freezer is manually defrosted though.

Which in most cases will be much less frequent than the auto-defrost model!  Possibly less frequent than is optimum either.

I agree it should be infrequent. I was just making the point that it's a complication to trying to make a simple comparison.

Heidiho

Just to provide an update here - after leaving the house unoccupied for a few days this week our electric usage ranged from 1.69kwh to 1.79kwh during this time.

Before getting our new fridge & freezer we were always over 5.4kwh when the house was unoccupied. Can’t quite believe the difference! We’re on Octopus Agile so at 35p per kWh that’s a saving of over £1.20 per day.