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woodysumner
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August 13, 2026
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IHD showing red when kettle boiling?

  • August 13, 2026
  • 2 replies
  • 57 views

I may have a fault on my HD unit. My fridge and freezer are plugged in all the time. The meter shows yellow. Then I plug my kettle in and the meter shows red. This can’t be right. Any ideas please?

Best answer by Santa

Updated on 28/08/26 by Ben_OVO

A fridge and freezer use a small, steady amount of electricity. That keeps the indicator in the yellow range. A kettle, however, is one of the highest‑power household appliances. It typically draws 2,000–3,000 watts. When switched on, the HD unit sees a sudden spike in usage and switches to red.

You can find all the information you need for your In Home Display (IHD), and also user guides in our Forum Library section here.

2 replies

S
Newcomer
SantaSolved
Newcomer
August 13, 2026

Updated on 28/08/26 by Ben_OVO

A fridge and freezer use a small, steady amount of electricity. That keeps the indicator in the yellow range. A kettle, however, is one of the highest‑power household appliances. It typically draws 2,000–3,000 watts. When switched on, the HD unit sees a sudden spike in usage and switches to red.

You can find all the information you need for your In Home Display (IHD), and also user guides in our Forum Library section here.

    Abby_OVO
    Community Manager
    Abby_OVO
    Community Manager
    August 14, 2026

    Hey ​@woodysumner 

     

    I’m glad to see one of the community members has already stopped by with some helpful advice on this. This is fairly normal, my own IHD does the same but only for a couple of minutes while the kettle is boiling, so there’s no fault by the sounds of things with the IHD.

     

    While the kettle will show as going into the red due to being higher powered, this is only for a short period of time. So whatever the kWh are showing on the IHD while the kettle is on, you can essentially divide that by 60 and then multiply it by the number of minutes the kettle is actually on and this would give you an idea of the actual usage and not what the IHD thinks it will use in 1 hour. You can also always check your usage in the app which should show only short bursts of extra usage while the kettle is on.

     

    There’s a handy guide here if you want to know more about kWh too.

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