Incredible Energy Saving for my Sister might help you too

NotArobot24

My sister asked me what I was doing to save energy and so I gave her the usual tips you see on here.

We got her some energy monitors and I noticed the Fridge/Freezer was using more than double what the annual kWh stated on the manufacturer label.

I called the manufacturer and asked what you have to do to get those figures, they said it is all depends on many things blah blah blah.

So then I went to sales as if I was going to buy a new Fridge/Freezer, told them that I was concerned about real world usage after what happened with my sister.  Nice lady put me through to their engineer who turned out to be decent chap.

He told me that even though a Fridge Freezers might be Frost Free, if a door is left open or the freezer goes from not much in it to being jam packed then the unit might over produce ice on something technical I can't remember the name of.

He told me that the unit should be turned off for 48 solid hours, not the 24 that most people recommend, he said to open the freezer door while the unit was off and maybe put the heating on if it wasn't already.  He also said to remove the drawers and shelves.

She did this and she confirmed that the unit was still melting into the second day.  She mopped up the water as it pooled and she emptied that plastic tray thing above the condenser.

She dried up any water that was on the sides and base of the unit.

Then she washed the fridge and freezer shelves and drawers she had removed, taking care to make sure they were all very dry before returning them to the unit and turning it back on.

She unplugged and reset the energy monitor she had been using and left it on.

It is now using around 5kWh a week, compared with 10 to 12 kWh before, it is actually using less than the label now, about 30kWh less.

She told me it is like having a new fridge freezer and she is well pleased, she says freezer temp is colder and fridge too, this despite it being on level 2 of 5 on both fridge and freezer. 

I am going to do same thing to mine which has been operating for about 9 years without a defrost.

QrizB

NotArobot24 said:

He told me that even though a Fridge Freezers might be Frost Free, if a door is left open or the freezer goes from not much in it to being jam packed then the unit might over produce ice on something technical I can't remember the name of.

The evporator - where the refrigerant evaporates, making everything else cold.

With a "normal" fridge or freezer it's a cold plate at the back of the fridge (or in the ice compartment, if your fridge has one) and you can see what ice builds up on it.

With a "frost-free" model the condenser is hidden away in a compartment at the back of the appliance and isn't generally visible. Hence it's easy for ice to form on it without being seen.

These appliances are often meant to defrost automtically but, as your sister has discovered, if the door is left open etc. they wil frost up enough that the automatic cycle isn't sufficient and it can need manual intervention.

Swipe

I have a Hotpoint freezer which was so frosted up that the fan jammed and the high temp light was almost always on. That also took 48 hours to defrost. There's a known issue / bad design on some freezers where the drainage hole gets iced up and cannot drain during the auto-defrost cycle. If you search youtube there is an easy fix where you attach some copper wire to the heating element and then place it close to or inside the drainage hole which then conducts the heat and stops it icing up.

Ayr_Rage

Also on older frost free models that have the evaporator coils exposed at the back rather than incorporated into the body, pulling the whole unit out from its slot and vacuuming the dust off the evaporator coils is a good plan once a year.

Scot_39

in my old non frost free - I had to unscrew the back plastic cover off the internal freezer compartment - to expose the colling fins around the refirgerant pipes - and used to use a small USB charged battery fan - outside on a box - to circulate warm air around the inside / aluminium fins on the cooling pipes for a good few hours - to get the freezer to defrost in a reasonable time.

Others talked about putting warm water in pots inside the freezer - but worried that might increase temps / damage plastic etc - maybe even the refrigerent system 

It would soak two double and single towels swapped and wrung by hand frequently used to mop up the water - over several hours - as the ice in places could be 1/2 thick on the pipes.  

And the drain hole - to a shallow tank above the compressor unit - would also freeze - so the defrost wouldn't really operate properly.  And ice wold pool at the bottom - in front and behind the cover.

If left too long - the ice would be pushing the plastic cover out into the compartment if left it too long - easily by a few mm - so had to do about twice a year - maybe eventually influencing the door seal itself.

It became such a pain in the end - I replaced the unit it with a modern frost free model.

But I'll bear this tip in mind - as I haven't done a proper defrost since- and been in for a couple of years.

Swipe

I've have used a hand held steamer in the past on a chest freezer which cut down the defrost time by around 90%. This allowed me to cut channels and knock the ice off in big chunks.

bob2302

I chose my fridge-freezer by running costs, it was also by far the cheapest. It's a very simple design, the only thermostat is in the fridge, the compressor cools the freezer as a side effect, via a stainless steel pipe that snakes backwards and forwards between the drawers.

To defrost it, I just remove the drawers, pull out the water spout into a roasting pan, point a fan at it and leave it to it. The ice is exposed, thin and has a huge surface area, so melts very quickly. It's easy to keep the food frozen while it's being done. In the theory ice should cause the power consumption to fall and the temperate to rise, but in practice this isn't noticeable by the time the drawers start to scrape on the ice.  I only defrost about twice a year.

To me a frost free freezer that ever needs a 48h defrost is worse.

NotArobot24

The key reason for the post is that the Fridge/Freezer was a no frost no defrost model, so one would not expect it to need defrosting but it seems that it is a good idea to defrost for 48 hours once a year.

The engineer warned against the other methods quoted above, he said there was a shallow indent into the floor of the unit which would hold a fair bit that could be jclothed out every few hours.  He also told me to look where the melting water was coming from saying that there are 2 to 4 places depending on model so if I put a bowl under those I could catch the water.

He also told me about a rubber thing on the back that dripped very slowly into the plastic thing on top of the condenser, it resembled one of those things that slows dogs down when they eat. She sent me some videos of that and filmed with flash where the water was dripping from at about the height of the first drawer (which had been removed).  I could see that had thin metal fins that had solid ice on.  She had already used a silicon cake spreader to softly remove frost and ice that she noticed at the back of freezer side

I think she dodged a bullet because she was not only paying too much energy but she was ready to buy a new fridge/freezer, she asked me about 5 models she had shortlisted, she was very keen on one at £775 and another at £1250.

I took a look at these and noticed that buying fridge freezers now has con pricing on extras.

One company wants you to join a "club" to get free delivery and disposal, well it is not free if you have to join the club and it is no cheaper either, just a way to make it look as if their models are cheaper.

Another company charges you if you choose a specific room in your house, this is absolutely absurd, I added that company to my blacklist for when I need a replacement.

If you have a fridge freezer that is only partially broken, e.g the Fridge works but not the freezer then I would advise putting it on Freecycle to avoid the "disposal" charges.  I did that years ago for a nephew and a company collected for use as a beer fridge, I think the freezer still worked a bit just not cold enough for food safety but the fridge worked perfectly well..

Swipe

bob2302 said:

To me a frost free freezer that ever needs a 48h defrost is worse.

To be fair, you can go many many years without ever needing to defrost on most models. Then you can plan ahead if necessary and use up most of the contents prior to the defrost. Luckily, I keep a small spare freezer in the garage and a cool box that will just about hold my remaining depleted essentials.

NotArobot24

Swipe said:

bob2302 said:

To me a frost free freezer that ever needs a 48h defrost is worse.

To be fair, you can go many many years without ever needing to defrost on most models. Then you can plan ahead if necessary and use up most of the contents prior to the defrost. Luckily, I keep a small spare freezer in the garage and a cool box that will just about hold my remaining depleted essentials.

I used to have spare freezer but the running costs are OTT, personally I think these are false economies, people get a spare fridge freezer off Freecycle, start buying Christmas stuff in October that does not even have a sell by date before Christmas.

When I advised my sister on what the Engineer said to do I suggested she use this time to eat everything from cupboards as if it was "walking dead" scenario and not to buy fresh or frozen food except essentials.  She told me she used up butter she never uses, got rid of a lot of condiments that were out of date, planned meals from what she defrosted.  She told me the only inconvenience was milk and that was only used for coffee.

She told me she got some funny facial expressions when she served food.

Swipe

NotArobot24 said:

Swipe said:

bob2302 said:

To me a frost free freezer that ever needs a 48h defrost is worse.

To be fair, you can go many many years without ever needing to defrost on most models. Then you can plan ahead if necessary and use up most of the contents prior to the defrost. Luckily, I keep a small spare freezer in the garage and a cool box that will just about hold my remaining depleted essentials.

I used to have spare freezer but the running costs are OTT

My spare small counter top freezer is switched off and didn't cost me anything. It only goes on when defrosting my kitchen one but I'll be adding the copper wire drainage hole fix next time I defrost.