Here is my regular fridge.

Average 61.89W over 24 hours. Hit a maximum of 437 when automatic defrost came on. 188W peak during normal cycle. 1487W total over 24 hours.

 

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

Neither would qualify as being what "modern refrigerators typically consume."

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.

AI can make very useful search engines to get you started down a promising path -- but everything they say needs to be vetted because anything they say is liable to be pure made up nonsense.

 

Here is my regular fridge.

Average 61.89W over 24 hours. Hit a maximum of 437 when automatic defrost came on. 188W peak during normal cycle. 1487W total over 24 hours.

View attachment 359268

If that's representative, that puts it in the vicinity of 540 kWh/year, which appears to be decent, but well short of the best.

BTW, it's not 1487 W total, it's 1487 Wh total.

 

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.

That sounds like an interesting idea too. I'll have to look into that. I've just started to think about this.

 

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.

Hi,

Yes, this is a kind of variable thing to think about. I don't leave the door open for long though. It's hard to say without logging everything day to day and I just started thinking about this yesterday. At least I am started now so I can figure out what is going on.
I am even guessing right now that the fridge has anything to do with it, I just knew that it draws a lot of energy when it runs.

 

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.

Hi,

Yeah I guess it is going to depend on a lot of factors so the only way is to study the run time over a month I guess. It's going to take a while to get anything reasonable it looks like.

 

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

Oh yes ok thanks, I'll try that later today. If that's the case, this might be easier than I thought.

 

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/

View attachment 359251

Hi,

That's an interesting table.

I found out that this is 16.6 cubic foot total, and it is 6 years old, and when new it used 352kWh/year which is about 29kWh per month.
That would only account for about $6 per month operating cost.
Also found that it only requires 1 inch clearance on each side and top and back. There's more than that.
I may be able to get to the plug by pulling out out from the wall carefully, then climbing over the counter and getting behind it (ha ha) to pull the plug and connect a wattmeter. Probably have to use an extension temporarily to be able to see the readings but I have a good one that's not too long.
It's a GE and I have had good experience with their stuff in the past including air conditioners.

It does have a 310 watt defroster but that seems to be working ok.

Maybe this is not the problem. Unfortunately, the stove is all electric including the 4 burners and the oven. The burners look to be maybe 1500 watts with one large one maybe 2000 watts which I hardly ever use. The oven has a very large element though, I'd say at least 2000 watts.
I do have three small lamps that run 24/7 but they only consume 6 watts each.

Even so, this is the first time I looked at any of this because the electric bill was reasonable in the past. I did find out that they gave credit during the summer months that they have to have you pay back now over three months. That's automatically adds $10 to each bill each month.
There were other credits too issued by the state that are now over with too, which made the bill look lower in the past.

This is going to take some careful study to figure out where all the energy is going.

 

Here is my regular fridge.

Average 61.89W over 24 hours. Hit a maximum of 437 when automatic defrost came on. 188W peak during normal cycle. 1487W total over 24 hours.

View attachment 359268

Hi,

Thanks for that data.

I assume you mean 61.89 watts and running for one hour that is 61.89 watt hours, with a total of (about) 1487 watt hours over 24 hours.
The defroster takes 188 watts.

 

I still suggest a thorough cleaning of the condenser section when it can be accessed. It can only improve the efficiency of the system. Plus, no big skill requirement to achieve good results.

 

I still suggest a thorough cleaning of the condenser section when it can be accessed. It can only improve the efficiency of the system. Plus, no big skill requirement to achieve good results.

Thank you.

The problem with this one is it is one of those totally enclosed units. It looks like a box with a line cord coming out of it. You don't see anything else except the doors. I had another smaller fridge like this too and loved it. Freezer temperature was nice and low, fridge kept food fresh for days.
This one has a similar working action: food keeps fresh, frozen food really hard as a rock with no degrading over two months at least.

I did move it out from the back wall another inch, but the spec's say 1 inch is enough. Now it actually has 5 or 6 inches clearance in the back and about a foot on the side, and the other side has clearance too, and nothing on top so about 2 feet of clearance on top.

Right now I have my turkey sitting in the fridge waiting for it to thaw out (ha ha) in time for TG this Thursday. I've been told that is the best way to thaw it out, but it takes days.

 

Hello again,

Thanks for all the replies and ideas this has helped me get to the core of what I am going to have to do to figure this out exactly. It was kind of dumb to ask this question but in doing so some of the mysteries came out into the open which allows me to proceed with confidence now.

Thanks again.

 

If the condenser is not exposed, then it is probably on the inside of that flat back area There may be access from the top and the bottom. And certainly that flat back should be wiped, since dust will stick to flat vertical surfaces most of the time. Not a lot, but enough to slow the laminar air flow a bit.
(I got a textbook on fluid dynamics a few weeks ago. Quite an education, seeing the explanation of why stuff happens.)