We need a new fridge freezer and the energy rating of lots of them are energy rating F. The rating system goes from A to G.
What does an F rating mean in cost to run?

To get something D rated is an additional £250 in purchase price. What does a D rating mean in cost to run?

Is there anyway to calculate the payback time of a D vs an F?

Thanks

Ian

New European standards reclassified the energy ratings a few years back because basically everything was A, or A+ or A++ etc so it made it very difficult for the consumer to choose as they all sound good.

Worth looking up the comparison charts but basically the old “A” rating is now like an “F”, or “G” rated.

Very few appliances are good enough to qualify for “C” or higher.

That doesn’t answer your question at all, but something to be aware of.
B class appliances for example are super efficient but cost a small fortune if you can even find one.

Meh. Just go with what has the features, design, and price you can take.

Energy ratings are a weird thing.

You could compare them with some arithmetic.

What’s the power rating of the product in kW.

How long will it run for a day in hours.

What’s your cost of electricity per kWh ( pick a number between £0 and £1 over the next few months).

Rating x daily usage x electricity cost x 365 = annual cost

Yikes!

Currys have some comparison figures for models they sell. Might be worth having a look there.

https://www.currys.co.uk/appliances/refrigeration/fridge-freezers

You can even try it with your own projected lifetime ownership and tariff

How many times do you open and close the fridge door every day? Open the fridge less and it might improve the efficiency 🤔

Ideal Homes reckon an F costs £93 a year to run. A D costs £53.

https://www.idealhome.co.uk/property-advice/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-a-fridge-freezer-298277

So a 5 year payback if a D is £200 more than a F. Certainly big enough to consider along with other features.

Find those which are in budget – and which get the domestic thumbs-up.
Use manufacturers’ websites to find rating; if annual kWh usage not stated, contact stockists to check.
Use elec bill to calculate ‘blended’ kWh rate based on 17 hours day/7 hours night rate.
Multiply blended rate by annual usage to get cost pa.
Then you can work out payback period of more expensive/higher rated – this assumes elec costs will remain relatively stable through working life of fridge freezer.
Alternatively, just buy what you fancy.
Mine is A+++ under old ratings, bought just before ratings change in 2020/21; 160kWh pa so £45 on my current fixed rate.

We’ve recently changed ours – whilst energy ratings was considered, it was the size etc we bought it for – the old separate fridge and freezer certainly weren’t as efficient.

We changed ours. The energy rating seems to be dependent on size, so the A ones were all smaller models.

Also ours is something like E but it’s frost free so it will stay E.

I suppose if you have one cubic meter of empty space inside the fridge and /or freezer it’s going to cost less to chill than 2 cubic meters. Assuming it’s empty.

It will be more efficient if there’s some ballast in there, like food…

But that is surely irrelevant to the baseline efficiency rating?

And also if the door gets opened 35 times a day, then it’s always going to be in ‘turbo chill mode’, and you’ll lose any efficiency gains just from that.

Bigger might mean more efficient per cubic m but more power because there are more cubic metres? Not sure.

Thanks all. Mrs B has found a D rated appliqnce thats the size and price she wants!

I was curious to find out how much energy our 30 year old fridge freezer was consuming so I attached a power meter to check. Turns out it was using 650kWh per year to run (about £220!). An A rated fridge freezer takes ~100Kwh to run per year ( C rated = ~160kwh and a D rated ~200kwh). We ended up buying a C rated fridge freezer which in an ideal world will save us ~£150 per year.