Moving on from spring

 Towards the end of April I wrote about moving on from winter - packing away our warm clothes, duvet etc. In May, we enjoyed slightly cooler weather than usual, and a surprising amount of rain. According to the Cyprus mail, rainfall was more than twice as much as normal for the month. But still there's a potential water problem, and hose pipes are still banned, other than for watering plants.

By the end of May, the temperatures were increasing, though the humidity was still low. It was time to start getting ready for the summer. By July I won't want to do anything much during the daytime. On the last Saturday of May, I did some extra laundry, so I could put away even our thinner jackets, as well as stray gloves and hats that were still out. 

We hang things on lines here, and they were all dry within a couple of hours. 

September in Cyprus, and a warm fridge

A couple of weeks ago, we had a guest to lunch. Among other things, I prepared some basic salads - green salad from a bag, coleslaw, sliced tomatoes, etc. Nothing special. But I'm not good at quantities, so there was a lot left over, which I put out for lunch for the two of us the following day. I was a bit surprised to find that the salad was looking a bit sad and brown around the edges, and that the tomatoes were going soft. 

I didn't think too much about it. But by the following day, the tomatoes had fermented, the green salad was going bad, and the coleslaw tasted decidedly weird. I wondered if the fridge was having trouble keeping everything cold enough. But the ambient temperature wasn't any higher than it had been all summer when the fridge had been working without problem. 

Our LG fridge is only a little over four years old. Our previous one lasted at least fifteen years without any issues at all. We replaced it in May 2020. I was becoming concerned that it might break down at some point, and didn't want to risk a summer where this might happen. As it was the year of the pandemic, we knew we weren't going anywhere. 

We also knew that a more modern fridge would be much more efficient to run. Buying a new fridge, we worked out, would essentially pay for itself within about four years with the saving in electricity. And we had money available. The Sam Vines 'boots' theory worked in our favour. 

So fast-forwarding to now, more than four years later, the fridge didn't owe us anything. But still, a four year old fridge ought to be working well. The compressor, the most expensive part, is guaranteed for another six years. And the freezer at the top of the fridge was still working perfectly well. 

We needed empirical evidence that there was a problem. So we found a room thermometer, and put it in the fridge. We waited an hour or so, and were shocked to find it showing 14 degrees Celsius. The thermostat was set to three degrees. The app on Richard's phone that connects with the fridge didn't show any problems. 

We noticed that the fridge was a bit close to the wall behind it. We thought that might be the problem, and moved it forward a few centimetres. Then we waited another hour, and the thermometer reduced to about 12 degrees. But we hadn't opened the fridge in that time, and the room was cooling a little as the afternoon ended. 

On Friday morning, the fridge temperature had gone down to about 6 degrees, but quickly rose back to 10. So Richard went to talk to the owner of the white goods shop where we buy most of our large appliances. He said that he couldn't do anything over the weekend, but would ask an LG engineer to come on Monday. 

The owner then asked if we had another way of keeping our things cold enough. When Richard said that we didn't, he said he would get his staff to bring us another fridge for the weekend. This kind of thing is an advantage of the relational culture here, and of being loyal to one shop. Sure enough, an hour or so later two strong guys arrived with a used but clean and functional fridge. 

We had bought another thermometer in the meantime, one specifically intended for fridges. A few hours later the visiting fridge had cooled to 3 degrees. So we moved things like mayonnaise and spreads into it. We left unopened cans, nuts and chocolate in our fridge - ten to twelve degrees is an ideal temperature for them, and the borrowed one wasn't as big as ours. 

On Monday afternoon, a week ago, the LG engineer arrived. He spoke excellent English, and was happy to talk through what he was doing with Richard. He said that most often this happens when the condenser coils are dirty. We had read that online, but there was no easy way to access them. The engineer pushed the fridge out and removed the back panel. 

The condenser coils, which had not been cleaned in four years, were indeed thick with dust and dirt: 

The engineer had a machine that blew the dust out. All over the kitchen... 

Then he said that would probably solve the problem. 

The following day, the fridge was showing about 7-8 degrees, rising up to 9 or 10 any time the door was opened. The borrowed fridge, for comparison, was down to about 3-4 degrees, rising no higher than 5 when the door was opened. So Richard called the LG guy again, and he said that sometimes it takes 48 hours, so we should wait another day.

We waited another day. The visiting fridge was a bit noisy, and using a lot of electricity. It was also rather in the way, but we were getting used to it. And our fridge was not doing much better. We were getting obsessed with the numbers. But we decided that as there wasn't much that would spoil, we would move things back to our fridge and wait another day or so. 

Nothing went bad. But the temperatures still weren't right, ranging between 5 and 9. Several websites gave checklists of things that might cause this kind of problem, such an over-full fridge or a faulty seal on the door. The only one that was relevant to us was that the back of the freezer was a bit iced up. 

We kept debating whether to call the engineer again... and then it was Friday. We knew that he wouldn't come until at least Monday. On Saturday evening we decided that the following morning we would try to defrost our fridge and freezer entirely. If that didn't work, we would call the engineer on Monday. 

So on Sunday morning, at about 6am, I turned on the visiting fridge again. When it had cooled to 3 degrees - which took about three hours - we moved everything out of our freezer as well as from the fridge, and packed as much as we could into the borrowed one. 

Then we turned our fridge off at the wall. Richard removed all the shelves, in the hope of accessing the panels at the back. It was an excellent opportunity to clean the shelves - and the fridge - more thoroughly than was possible when it had food inside. 

The back panel in the fridge section was easily moved, but there was no ice there. The freezer one wouldn't budge, but clearly had ice behind it. It melted pretty quickly, and left a puddle on the base of the freezer section. It took a couple of hours before that stopped, and all the water had dried up. 

Just after noon on Sunday I put some of the nuts back, and we turned our fridge on again. 

After an hour, the thermometer was showing 24 degrees. 

After another hour, it was down to 18. 

Then it got slower and slower. By four o'clock, it was at about 8 degrees.  By five o'clock it was just under 6 degrees.  We tried to check only once an hour, since opening the door makes the temperature rise, but I couldn't resist. And at twenty to six, I saw:

Hallelujah!

Then at six o'clock, it was back to 4.9 degrees. And over 5 soon after. 

We decided to have one last check at 7.15pm. If it was less than four degrees, we agreed, we would transfer everything back, and turn off the visiting fridge.  If it was higher than four, we would leave them both overnight. 

At 7.15pm, it showed 3.6.  The defrosting had worked! 

So we moved everything back, including the things that had still been left out, and of course that raised the temperature again to 10 degrees.... but we thought all would be well after it had been left overnight.

I hoped it would be down to somewhere between 3 and 4 on Monday morning, but no. It was on 6. I bought some fresh fruit and vegetables and put them in, and the temperature rose to nearly 10. And then it went back to 6. It had occurred to us, more than once, that we actually had no idea how well the fridge had been working prior to this incident. We had never put a thermometer inside, naively assuming that if it said 3 degrees on the front, it would chill to that temperature. 

We knew that 5-6 degrees is not dangerous for food. Many of the things in our fridge wouldn't need to be there at all if the kitchen temperature was 20 rather than 30 degrees. So Richard decided to go and talk to the white goods guy, hoping he might get his employees to remove the visiting fridge. 

They had a good chat. The shop owner said we might as well keep the borrowed fridge a few more days in case our freezer iced up again. He said it was possible that the auto-defrost system wasn't working. He also told us that we should set our thermostat to 4 degrees rather than 3, as this would make the internal temperature more stable. No, I didn't understand why, but Richard did. And sure enough, since setting the thermostat to 4, it hasn't risen beyond about 7 degrees when the door is opened, even when new non-chilled things are put inside.

We're trying to be more efficient about opening and closing the fridge, and plan to clean the coils regularly. At least once a year. We're also being careful not to block any of the vents at the back of the fridge or the freezer section, and will try to ensure that it doesn't move against the wall again.

So we hope this is the end of this saga, and that we'll be able to say goodbye to the visiting fridge before long. 

Electricity bills and meters in Cyprus

Long ago, towards the end of last century when we first moved to Cyprus, we were told that electricity was 'very expensive'.  The people Richard worked with used gas for all their cooking, and various forms of heating in the winter that didn't include electric heaters. None of them had air conditioning. 

And, indeed, Cyprus was one of the most expensive countries in Europe for electricity, so we, too, were as careful as we could be. We turned off lights when we weren't in rooms, and when we did, eventually, instal one air conditioner in our living/dining room, so that we could use computers without destroying them, we calculated carefully what the cost of running it might be, and didn't use it more than was absolutely necessary.

But costs are lower now, and appliances are more efficient. I like having an electric oven, and various other kitchen gadgets. Lightbulbs now are so long-lasting that we think nothing of leaving them on when we're out, or when we forget to turn them off. We knew, of course, that it would be pricey using our electric water heater in the winter, and the air conditioners in the summer. And, indeed, our bills for those seasons were sometimes double those in the spring and autumn months. 

However we didn't look too closely into the amounts, as they were never unreasonable; certainly not the huge amounts we heard about from some other folk here and elsewhere. 

Towards the end of July 2019, we had to replace the air conditioner in our bedroom. It was quieter than the old one, and considerably more efficient. We started wondering how long it would take to pay for itself, so to speak. And then we wondered whether, if we replaced the elderly and very inefficient air conditioner in our living room, and ran the new one more often, would it in fact cost less than turning it on only when in the room?  

Since the ambient temperature was only about 32 at the time, I wondered if running even the old unit more often at 30 degrees, rather than our usual 28, would make the whole house more comfortable. In particular it would remove the humidity which is often the worst part of the heat. 

So I started monitoring our electricity usage. The meter is outside, in a little box so it's easy enough to read. 

And since I was checking it anyway, I thought I would also keep a note of our guest flat electricity usage. 

After a few days, I realised that although the electricity usage of the main part of the house was quite reasonable, we seemed to be using an inordinate amount in our guest flat, which was empty at the time. We knew it would use perhaps one or two units each day, as all our water pumps and one or two other things are connected to the guest flat electricity.  But not ten or more, which is what we were seeing. 

We went through the entire flat, checking. The fridge and freezer were off. We turned off the wall switches for anything that had an LED light. We made sure the TV wasn't on standby.  We couldn't work out what it could possibly be. Were the pumps using a ridiculous amount of electricity? Was someone tapping into our electricity?  Or was it possible that we had a faulty meter....? 

So Richard found a different kind of meter, one he had used years ago in his office. He said he could check the daily usage of electricity from our guest flat, as well as a couple of appliances. So we plugged it into our freezer - wondering if that was using too much electricity - and our fridge-freezer, which was about fourteen years old, and the guest flat. 

I know. It's pink. I don't much like pink. But it's a useful gadget... and over the course of the next week or so, we learned two things.

1.  Our guest flat, according to this meter, was only using one or two units per day, as we expected. 

2.  Our freezer used less than one unit per day, but the older, less efficient fridge-freezer used between three and four units per day. 

The first of those was of more immediate concern. Richard went to the electricity board, and after being sent to various different departments, finally managed to explain the problem. The person he spoke to said that the electricity board could come and instal a new meter for us, and take the old one away for checking. 

If it turned out that the old one was, indeed, faulty, then this would cost nothing, and we would be refunded a percentage of the past year's bills. BUT.. if it turned out that we were wrong, and that the meter was not faulty, then we would be charged 70 euros. Not unreasonable, in the circumstances, and we were pretty sure that it WAS faulty. However we didn't know how accurate their tests would be...

The new meter was installed the following week, and started giving figures that matched with the amounts on our pink meter:

And to our great relief, we received a letter from the electricity board, informing us that our old meter was faulty, and we would receive a refund on our next bills. Which, indeed, we did.

So we were very pleased that I 'just happened' to start checking the guest flat electricity usage when I did.  

Fast forward to the middle of May this year. When we realised we would not be visiting the UK during the summer, as I wrote in another post, we replaced three air conditioning units - the very old one in our living room, and the two which are the most used, in our studies.  We also replaced our fifteen-year-old fridge freezer, deciding that if we were going to do it, then the best time was right before the heat of summer. 

And I started checking our electricity usage each day. It was quite enlightening. We realised that leaving ceiling fans running all day, as we have done some years, isn't very efficient. Unless we're actually in the rooms, there's little point as they don't change the temperature. They only use about 100 watts but that means one unit is used every ten hours.. which doesn't sound like much, but for three or four ceiling fans, it can quickly mount up. 

However, we did use our air conditioners extensively, including running the living room one almost all day on the hottest, most humid days. It was a very hot summer, with several records broken.  

Our electricity bills are two-monthly, and it happened that our meter had been read within a few days of our having bought the new fridge freezer and air conditioning units. Between the middle of March and the middle of May, usually our lowest usage, we had clocked up 785 units. That was with no air conditioning usage, and very little water heating, as the solar heating works effectively from about March through to November.  

Between mid-May and mid-July, with our newer, more efficient appliances - and a lot of air conditioning in late June and the first half of July - we used just 661 units. That compared to 1119 in the previous year during the same period.  With a temporary reduction in fuel costs in the equation, it was probably the lowest electricity bill we had ever paid. 

The second half of July was hotter still, as was August. And it remained hot in September, so we continued using air conditioning.  Inevitably our electricity usage was higher.  From mid-July to mid-September we used 1049 units; that compared to 1289 the previous year - and in 2019 we had two weeks in the UK at the start of August; I had another two-and-a-half weeks out of Cyprus.  Had I been here, as I was this year, it would have been a great deal higher.  The last time - three years ago - that we were in Cyprus all summer, we used over 1400 units.  

So we have probably already saved, in electricity bills, the cost of one of the new air conditioning units. I know we're fortunate to have been able to do this; the 'Sam Vimes Boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness' holds, as ever.  But as the sterling/euro exchange rate gradually gets worse, and may plummet still further, it's good to have lower bills.  And newer appliances are better for the environment, too.