Stoopid....

[Bbbananas]

I have a freezer in my garage - a fridge-sized thing. It has not been defrosted properly for years & is now at the stage where there is more ice than room for food, so I decided to defrost it for christmas. I left the door open a week ago, thinking it would slowly defrost. The light duly came on & I thought - good, it's cooling down. A week later it has hardly thawed - I thought, dimly, it's because it's so cold outside - as cold as a freezer anyway.

Last night, in bed, it hit me like a thunderbolt - derrrrrr - it wasn't defrosting because I hadn't switched the bl00dy thing off, or pulled the plug out....!! So for a week it has been using electric trying to keep the freezer going & probably trying to keep the whole darm garage at freezer temperature with the door wide open.

I cannot believe my stupidity. Has anyone any thoughts as to how much electric this will have consumed? Am I lucky in that it has been so cold anyway? Will British Gas Electric bill really sting me next time around?

[rowanwitch]

ouch...lucky it has been so cold

[Bbbananas]

I'm not good with machines & electronics rowan..... (and I should have said the light was on cos it's warming up..... double stoopid!)

[B00]

Gawd, lol.

[Bbbananas]

Expensive then huh? Judging by your reactions. Bugger :-(

[Count-A-Strong]

Salla, just to make you feel a bit better, our dishwasher stopped working last Thursday so we've been washing up by hand (!) since then. I phoned a repair man who duly arrived yesterday. He removed the kitchen unit plinth and traced a cable to a plug under the sink (which I swear wasn't there before) and pushed the plug back in as it had become dislodged slightly. Machine works fine. £20 call out charge and a very red face.

[jd_here]

Only a £20 call out charge for an electrician. Gosh, you were lucky, where do you live??

[Count-A-Strong]

It should have been £30 but I think he took pity on me. He was a domestic appliance repairman rather than an electrician and I live near York.

[Bbbananas]

That was particularly stoopid of you count.... especially being a man.....!!

Do you all t hink my leccy bill will suffer big style because of this faux pas? Or should I say c0ck-up?

[Count-A-Strong]

A freezer would typically use about 2 Units (kwh) per day. If you work on worst case scenario and say it's been using 5 a day, just look at your bill to see what your unit cost is and times it by 5 and then that by the number of days it's been off.

[hippyhoppy]

You have a light in your freezer...? Dead posh then!!!

[Bbbananas]

It's a light on the outside hips. Nowt posh about it, or I wouldn't hide it away in the garage.... It's usually used for bags of ice for my gin & cocktails....!!

[hippyhoppy]

Oh OK.. like a little orange light meaning 'shut the door'.. Got ya! I must admit my 'drinks' freezer (also located in the garage) needs defrosting.. just can't be bothered...

[R1Geezer]

Not as bad a mate of mine's Mrs, she unplugged the freezer to put her hair dryer in temporarily and then didn't plug it back in, went on holiday and came back to a freezer full of gunge! Lovely

[joko]

its a tiny little light bulb and the freezer would have been on anyway...so i doubt it will be much at all ...barely noticeable even

[Bbbananas]

Joko - thanks, but it's not the electric that the little light would have used - it's the electricity that would have been used in struggling to keep the freezer frozen, and the rest of the rather large garage also.....

Oh well, whatever will be will be....

[ChuckFickens]

So it's your fault it's been so cold lately!

[albaqwerty]

IMHO I don't think it will have consumed a mega chunk of leccy. No doubt some other techie person will give a more accurate view. I've left a freezer door open, both in my garage (when I had one) and the one in the ktichen, not at the same time but the garage mis-hap did not appear to affect expenditure.

[Whoever]

You're lucky you didn't burn your freezer motor out !

We defrost ours by putting everything in an old blanket in one of those pop-up gardening waste disposal bags, then put saucepans of nearly boiling water inside the freezer - after switching it off, of course. We replace the water in the saucepans as it cools, and generally get the whole thing defrosted in under an hour.

You probably will end up with a fairly large electric bill. I should start saving up now!