How much to run a fridge?

[Honk]

Electricity company are putting our bills up by £20 per month due to increased usage and according to SWMBO it's my beer fridge that's caused this increase. Could it really be burning through that much electricity?

I bought a second hand American type larder fridge / freezer initially as a fermentation chamber but more recently it's been used as a keezer so is on cool (controlled by an inkbird) 24/7.

It's pretty inefficient, the small freezer compartment doesn't get used, it's noisy and when I want a beer i have to open the door to access the party taps inside, but on the plus side I can fit 5 (maybe 6) corny kegs in it. Mostly it's kept around 11 degrees C.

Can it really be costing that much to run? I guess I can go back to using it as a fermentation chamber where it's typically on cool for the first couple of days only and a few days cold crashing. Mrs has offered to buy me a newer more efficient fridge to store beer in but it will have to be smaller than the monstrosity in using now.

 

[Ghillie]

From what you've said, I'd doubt your fridge has one of them energy efficiency stickers on it? You know the one that says like "A+" and will give you a value in kWhr/annum? If you do you can easily get an estimated running cost.

Without the sticker, it's purely speculative. Without knowing how often your compressor kicks in, how long it runs for and it's current draw - you cannot get a kWhr/annum figure and apply that to the price of a unit of electricity.

What deadband have you got set on your inkbird (i.e. 0.5C)? Your compressor may be cutting in more frequently that if you were just running it on the integrated thermostat - which means more energy consumed. I did plan on buying another inkbird for my kegerator, but then I thought: "what's the point?" I drink my bottled beer out the fridge without super accurate temp control and enjoyed it so a keg is no different. Some might argue that they can accurately carbonate, but I'm yet to see the benefit of getting 2.77653 vols of carbonation vs 2.7-ish :)

£240 a year to run a fridge freezer still sounds really excessive - even if it was very inefficient.

Have the energy providers not fairly recently confirmed price rises across the board though?

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I doubt its the beer fridge, have a look at the table below and see the full table using the link.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money...ity-bills-wasted-appliances-left-standby.html

 

[cushyno]

I used one of those plugin energy monitors with my ~30 yr old Hotpoint fridge over the hot summer months. Controlled by a STC-1000 it was only kicking in occasionally and over a 4 week period was indicating somewhere around 84p per month to keep it at 20°C.

It uses lots of juice to get down to 2°C for crashing, but once it's there it holds the temperature well in my garage. Maybe looking at less than £3 per month.

Obviously with one of those mahoosive US style fridges your mileage may vary...

 

[Dutto]

Why chill a beer anyway?

Traditionally, beers were conditioned and served at "cellar temperature" (i.e. just below ambient temperature) and the modern fashion of chilling beer was so that the taste-buds became so numbed with the cold that the drinker couldn't fully appreciate what a crappy beer they were drinking.

There may be some justification in chilling a lager type of beer, but remember that lager yeasts were developed so that lagers could be brewed at lower temperatures; rather than that they should be consumed at lower temperatures!

Just think! NOT chilling your brew and thereby saving £240 a year, you could convince even a hard-hearted SWMBO to let you buy a lot of shiny stuff.

A small price to pay methinks!

 

[LeeH]

1. Shop around, you should be doing this every year.
2. Monitor it, elec costs around 13p/kWh.


https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/362417662268

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub

 

[foxbat]

Search "plug in electricity monitor" on Ebay. They will reveal how much you are using.

I use mine on brew day as well to keep an eye on the kW being consumed by the boiler.

 

[Honk]

Thanks for the replies everyone I shall look into these monitor s.

@Dutto

At 11c cellar temperatures are what I'm aiming for. until recently I just used to drink at whatever temperature was in the garage but have enjoyed having cool beer on tap in the house during the summer months.

Edit : plug in monitor ordered I shall update this thread once I have some results.

 

[Leon103]

Just take up her offer

My elec company are putting ours up £20 a month too, I checked our usage and it's bang in right for the last 4 months. When I queried it they said because I will use more electricity over winter so it's standard practice to put it up. I use my hit tub ov3r summer so th3 price shouldn't go up.

 

[Dutto]

Not wishing to deflect the Thread but I would like to point out that nowadays ALL of the Utility Companies (and the Banks) are thieving gits who are solely interested in profit!

When I took over my Mum's finances knew she had "lost it" when I looked at her Savings Account and discovered that Lloyds Bank had moved her money from a "Super Saver" account that paid about 3% interest to a "Super Saver" account that paid 0.01% interest! "Super Saver Account" at 0.01%?? Yeah, right!

When I queried this, the bank's manager told me that they had informed my Mum by Post in a Booklet, which had advised her to move her money. I found the "Booklet" and sure enough, in the small print somewhere about Page 48 of 50 there was a notice that told the bank's customers that the move had occurred for the "Super Saver" accounts.

Within a couple of weeks of this, I also discovered that the Gas, Electricity and Water companies had between them just over £2,000 of my Mum's money in THEIR Banks!

What alerted me to the situation was that the cheeky sods at SSE informed her by letter that they would be increasing her Direct Debit by £10 per month due to a planned increase to their electricity price.

Dealing with these outfits requires ALL customers to realise:

1. There is no such thing as a "Loyal Customer" any more.
2. They will take as much money off you as they possibly can.
3. These companies will offer better deals to new customers in the belief that they won't change in the future.

Always make sure that YOU are in control.

 

[LeeH]

https://purepla.net/?gclid=CjwKCAjw...gYFInv2sUqJM13dhoef8Zc4qUto60QJRoC-TEQAvD_BwE

This outfit had the cheapest tariff in my area last week or so. Might be worth looking at, switching is zero hassle.

 

[xozzx]

Have a look at bulb. They are cheapest for me and can leave any time, they will even pay any early termination charges to your current supplier.

Anyone not using quidco should take a look. I change supplier for everything every year and get cashback through quidco. Recently bt paid me £180 for 3 months of fibre broadband - they upped the price by £2 a month so I cancelled and changed to plus net and another £85 cashback. Change mobile provider, car and house insurance, etc every year and occasionally bank accounts to get the introductory offers and cashback. For all the time it takes I probably make £100 an hour doing this.