Hello there,


I am doing an energy consumption check for my appliances due to high electric energy costs. I got it down to the refrigerator run time, or at least it looks like that so far.

I noticed that the refrigerator runs as lot. Since it can consume 500 watts when running, if it runs 8 hours a day that comes out to 120kwh per month. That is based on an average month length of 30 days.

That represents a significant portion of the total monthly cost, but I am not certain that it runs 8 hours a day because I did not get to measure that yet (not that easy).

So I was wondering if anyone else sees this kind of thing also. Do you know how long your refrigerator runs per day (roughly) ?

 

You need to put a power meter on the refrigerator, or at the very least, measure the average duty cycle over 24 hours.

 

You need to put a power meter on the refrigerator, or at the very least, measure the average duty cycle over 24 hours.

Hi,

Oh yes, the problem with that is the fridge is very hard to move as it is in the corner and there is a cabinet right next to it. That would mean it would have to move very far out so I could get behind it, then run an extension cord from the outlet to the power meter then to the fridge.
It's an unusual configuration of fridge and cabinets so I was asking others to see what they might have found out already and save myself a lot of work.
I have to be careful not to scratch the floor also. It's wood laminate. Why they used that for a kitchen I have no idea.

Worst case I could do that test, but it would be very difficult to set up because of the way the different things are arranged in the kitchen.
I have read that they can run a long time like a large part of each day, but I don't know how accurate that is.

 

If you really want to do this without having to move the fridge or getting access to the electrical cable there are other solutions.

Fridges buzz and vibrate when the compressor is operating. You can create a circuit that detects the vibration and then trigger a timer. Measure the total run time over a 24-hour period.

 

If you really want to do this without having to move the fridge or getting access to the electrical cable there are other solutions.

Fridges buzz and vibrate when the compressor is operating. You can create a circuit that detects the vibration and then trigger a timer. Measure the total run time over a 24-hour period.

Hi again,

Yes that sounds like a good idea. I was hoping to skip the work though (ha ha) that's why I as asking around.
Maybe other people had this experience already and maybe even did some testing.

 

Google AI summary:

The average refrigerator uses between 300 and 800 watts, but actual daily energy consumption is lower because the appliance cycles on and off. Modern refrigerators typically consume about 600 watt-hours (Wh) or

0.6
kWh per day, costing around $17 per month on average. Factors like size, age, and efficiency all influence power consumption.

So typical usage would be 18 KWh per month. If yours is using 120 KWh per month, fix or replace it.

When I did a similar assessment, I found the laundry was the worst offender at about 1KWh per load, so the fridge must have been quite low.

 

Google AI summary:

So typical usage would be 18 KWh per month. If yours is using 120 KWh per month, fix or replace it.

When I did a similar assessment, I found the laundry was the worst offender at about 1KWh per load, so the fridge must have been quite low.

Oh that's interesting. I guess the only way to be sure then is to do some measurements like MrChips suggested. Dang, this is not going to be easy.

 

I put an amp-clamp on each 120V feeder in the breaker box in my small apartment and connected a data logger. It is surprising what you can observe from just two measurements:

● 240V loads show up as equal jumps in both lines. From this, you could see:

○ a regular pattern of the waterheater cycling on and off throughout the day and night to maintain temperature and switching on when hot water was running

○ the less regular pattern of electric baseboard heat switching on and off, less often at night

●120V loads are more varied throughout the day. Half the loads are on one feeder, half on the other. But it was very easy to observe the regular pattern of the relatively large load of the refrigerator kicking on and off.

I just did this for a couple days to observe the patterns. Definitely easy to observe the refrigerator. Over time, I think more and more detail could be learned. I'm pretty sure some of the home energy monitors that have appeared recently do exactly this.

 

If it seems that the refrigerator runs excessively, I suggest examining the condenser coils on the back. First, are they insulated by a layer of dust?? AND, is the air flow blocked? If the effectiveness of heat removal is reduced then so is the efficiency reduced, resulting in excessive run time. So restoring adequate air flow over the condenser coils is a simple way to reduce the cost, by restoring the efficiency.

 

Hello there,


I am doing an energy consumption check for my appliances due to high electric energy costs. I got it down to the refrigerator run time, or at least it looks like that so far.

I noticed that the refrigerator runs as lot. Since it can consume 500 watts when running, if it runs 8 hours a day that comes out to 120kwh per month. That is based on an average month length of 30 days.

That represents a significant portion of the total monthly cost, but I am not certain that it runs 8 hours a day because I did not get to measure that yet (not that easy).

So I was wondering if anyone else sees this kind of thing also. Do you know how long your refrigerator runs per day (roughly) ?

Where are you coming up with 8 hours/day? Is that just a random number pulled out of thin air to have something to work with, or is it based on some level of information?

It's going to be very hard for us to guess how long your fridge works each day, as it depends on a lot of factors. A big one is how many times a day you open the door and how much stuff you take out and put into it each day.

 

So typical usage would be 18 KWh per month.

According to my Google AI search:
A refrigerator's monthly electricity consumption can range from 40 kWh for a new, energy-efficient model to over 120 kWh for an older or larger one.

Don't know where that 18kWh value came from, but I think it's abnormally low.

 

Google AI summary:

So typical usage would be 18 KWh per month. If yours is using 120 KWh per month, fix or replace it.

When I did a similar assessment, I found the laundry was the worst offender at about 1KWh per load, so the fridge must have been quite low.

The numbers that Google AI spat out don't make a lot of sense.

It says that refrigerators typically consume between 300 W and 800 W, but then it says that the typical daily consumption is 0.6 kWh. At 300 W that means it is running just two hours a day and at 800 W that it is running just 45 minutes. Both of those numbers seem pretty low.

Looking at a few sites, such as:
How Much Electricity Does A Refrigerator Use? 2025 Guide
Understanding Refrigerator Electricity Consumption: How Much Power Does a Refrigerator Use in a Month? - AppliancesFirst

It seems like 120 kWh/mo is in the ballpark for older (1990s and before) models, while newer models that aren't energy-star rated are a bit less than half that (35 to 50 kWh/mo) and modern energy-star are about a fourth (around 25 to 35 kWh/mo).

 

Most modern frigs are designed for easy roll out from wall. Try it and see...

 

Most modern frigs are designed for easy roll out from wall. Try it and see...

Actually, if it IS consuming the kind of energy he is estimating, then it probably isn't a modern fridge and might, indeed, be a bear to move straight out, particularly without damaging a wood floor.

You can get low-friction pads at a hardware store and tip the fridge up to slide them under. That can help a great deal. I had to move out an old freezer that was in a similar situation (close cabinets on either side) and I took a 1"x4" plank that was about half an inch shorter than space between the cabinets and glued low friction pads to one side of it. Then I wiggled the freezer forward far enough (may 6") until I could tip it far enough back to get the boards a bit over half way underneath it to the point where it more or less balanced on the board. At that point it was quite easy to slide it out, even with having to manually control the tendency to rock back and forth. When I put it back, I made a second board and put one under the back edge and one under the front.

 

Taking random ratings off the internet, a modern medium sized energy star fridge drawing 400 W should be drawing about 1 kWh per day. That translates to a duty cycle of about 10 %, i.e. it runs for 2.4 hours in a 24-hour cycle.

 

I did a research on refrigerators at a food bank and the 18KWH seems rather high. These were donated appliances, not new.ones.\

I certainly do not trust everything I see on line.

 

According to my Google AI search:
A refrigerator's monthly electricity consumption can range from 40 kWh for a new, energy-efficient model to over 120 kWh for an older or larger one.

Don't know where that 18kWh value came from, but I think it's abnormally low.

It came from the Google AI summary I posted.

Re-quoted here:

Modern refrigerators typically consume about 600 watt-hours (Wh) or 0.6kWh per day

0.6 KW h x 30 days = 18 KWh / month.

 

It came from the Google AI summary I posted.

Re-quoted here:

0.6 KW h x 30 days = 18 KWh / month.

Restating a result from an AI query doesn't really qualify as answering where a value that people are questioning comes from.

18 kWh/mo would be 216 kWh/year

That would make it far more energy efficient than the top-ranked new refigerators:

https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/most-energy-efficient-refrigerator/

 

It came from the Google AI summary I posted.

Looks like another AI garbage result.

 

Perhaps a very small, extremely well insulated refrigerator. OR, maybe a refrigerator in an unheated garage. My friends have one like that.

Looks like another AI garbage result.

OR, It might be that they neglected to add that little detail: "(Per cubic foot)". EASY TO MISS, and it makes the numbers rather impressive. Just a simple error!! ??? Or maybe not.