Biden admin proposes more stringent efficiency standards

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Increased energy efficiency is a good and necessary goal with which I fully agree but it's not always efficient to replace a working appliance for that purpose.

My 2003/4 GE SxS per the Energy Guide labeling is rated 686 kWh/year, $57/year at a 2001-based cost of $0.0829/kWh, $4.74/month.  My January 2023 bill is $0.1609/kWh so $9.20/month.  (Feb 2023 is $0.1486.)

A new GE today of the same size (and less features) would cost $2,211 at one of the big-box stores and have an energy rating of 615 kWh/year, $8.25/month at the current (LOL) rate.  An insignificant reduction of $0.95 energy cost per month.  It'd take 2,322 months, more than 193 YEARS to recoup the purchase cost in electric savings (if I'm calculating that correctly) ... although without considering future increases in electric service cost.

Double the efficiency, raise the purchase cost by $300, reduce the yearly kWh to 307, reduces the purchase cost recoup to 41 years.  Seems unlikely a refrigerator bought today will run for 41 years without multiple and increasingly costly repairs.  Yes, there's a bigger picture and a beneficial reduction in overall electric consumption if everyone in the country did that ... but consider that many people can't conjure the $$$$ in up-front funds to replace a working refrigerator for the sole purpose of reducing electric usage.
 
North American refrigerator, energy efficiency

I do not believe North American refrigerators are any less energy efficient than those sold in the rest of the world.

When I made trips to the UK, France, Germany, Geneva, and Australia, I made a point of going into stores and comparing appliances and energy labeling, and all those places showed that large American refrigerators were actually extremely efficient in their energy usage, when you could find anything even close to comparable in size from these different countries, they often use more energy than the US models.

US refrigerators have a huge advantage because of they’re so large and we can afford to have 3 inch thick walls and doors filled with insulation. So any type of comparison should include energy efficiency per cubic foot of cooled area. It could be much more efficient to have a large refrigerator and reduce shopping trips as well. The amount of energy expended even riding a metro system as many times as much as you little bit of energy cost to keep a slightly bigger refrigerator running.

We also have been using inverter compressors LED lights inside waste heat to eliminate condensation on the outside and ultra efficient ECM motors so I don’t see how there could be any real difference.

Different reading methods to show different results. Maybe that’s the difference you’re seeing.

This is why the US is only striving to reduce energy usage about 12% because we really reached about as far as we can go without some radical new technology, which is not being used in Europe either by the way.

John
 
But it's not about replacing for efficiency

As you said, there has been close to NO progress in efficiency in the past 20 years in US refrigeration.
The EU has seen another 20% or more reduction in the past few years due to the new label alone.

And replacing just for efficiency is almost NEVER a good idea.
Taking into account the carbon footprint of production and disposal, it's almost always more environmentally friendly to keep an appliance unless it needs replacement anyway.

However, you also said, it's unlikely that any appliance today lasts 20 years or more.

That also means that in about 30 years, give or take, you will probably have a close to 100% replacement rate for these appliances.

Which in turn means again that you'll have most of the efficiency gains as a country down the road.

A more personal note on that.
My mum is moving from her flat in our house into my grandparents old flat in our house on the ground floor some time this year.
She bought an all new kitchen and on my advice is buying a freestanding fridge-freezer combo for her new kitchen. The kitchen is quite "upper middle class" already.

So I showed her 2 options.
One was an upper MOL model from the BSH freestanding range.
It's class "C", costs around 800-900€.
As an "nice, but expensive" option, I also showed her a Liebherr Class "A" model. These start at 1500€, but are top efficiency and come with a 10 year warranty on the entire appliance.

She liked the more expensive one more even though I repeatedly told her that it probably won't pay for herself.
But she said she likes it much more, and if it saves energy, that's a great plus.

The difference between a C and an A is about 60-70kWh.
So, let's say something like 25-30€ a year.
So - best case - it takes 20 years to recoup.

Dosen't make sense.
But if you are already spending 5 figures on a new kitchen, you might as well spend the few hundred bucks on a nice, efficient fridge.
 
Reply number 40

Hi Glenn, thanks as usual for your very detailed analysis of the refrigerator you have and its equivalent replacement.

I wouldit’s equivalent replacement.

I would never suggest replacing a product for energy efficiency alone when there’s so little difference.

However, there’s actually a lot more difference than you think when your current refrigerator was made, they did not run the icemakers etc. when they were doing the energy rating now they do so the standards have changed and you would probably find more of a two dollar or a little more difference per month. An operating cost still not enough to replace a perfectly good well-made refrigerator.

The other factor is your refrigerator with state of the art when it was built, it was better than many, so it’s a little bit ahead of the time it always pays to invest in a high-efficiency product when you are buying one.

John.
 
Why?

 

My clothes are perfectly clean with low water levels.  I would never use a TL again with low water levels, but my FL's are fine.  I get the impression you do not pay the bills, but water costs a good deal and in vast portions of this country it's in short supply.  Why make matters worse when there are alternatives out there.
 
If there’s only front loaders available one day, there WILL for sure be an antitrust suit since that’s taking one’s decision away what they want and that’s called a MONOPOLY. Sure, it’s not one company making appliances but there might as well be a monopoly since they only “choice” there will be is a brand and nothing else since all front loaders are virtually the same.
 
@sudsmaster - All these newer machines barely use the "Hot" Line, unless you are choosing a Clean Machine, or Sanitize Cycle. Almost all of them that I've seen, no matter what manufacture turn Hot to Warm and Warm to Cold. Cold = Cold.

@mattl... I happen to pay my own Water Bill, and I can tell you, it's really not a big deal. My Water Company charges everyone for Minininum Usage, and I still do not generally ever use enough (even using a Conventional TL) to ever go over that point. I actually should try to find a way to use the unused water I am paying for, in some capacity, but that's for another time. I'm a household of Two, and I pay about $45 a month.
 
 
Washing in a cup of water.  Jerome, you are exaggerating with your outrage.  There are no washers on the market that wash a full load in 8 ounces of water.  Way more than that is needed just to saturate a full load dripping wet, plus enough to fill the tub to trigger the water level pressure switch even to a minimum HE level.
 
givemehotwater I was responding to gelaundry4ever who is a younger member.  I'm a one person household and pay $230 per quarter, so about $70/mo.  I've got a new efficient KA DW, replaced all 4 toilets with high quality Toto dual flush toilets and that is my current bill.  I have a couple of TL machines that I run a couple times a year to keep them lubricated, and I cringe when I see them fill with water. For some time I was doing a lot of laundry and saw my bill drop by 20-25% when I switched to my Duets.  My clothes last much longer and stains that were in various item for years came out with the steam cycles.  Wins all the way around, plus I used much less detergent, another win.

 

We all can get set in our ways and beliefs, but I'm willing to explore other options and in this case I have found ZERO down sides to any of the improvement I've made- and my bank account is much happier.  If you don't feel the same -fine- but as water becomes pricier get back to me then.
 
Reply #50

Well, when you take the choice away from what one wants, it IS being a monopoly along with being anticompetitive. My post may not seem like it makes sense to you, but I see everything differently from most people. Taking away choices from what people want IS being monopolistic.

“Washer energy regulations have NOTHING to do with antitrust regulations or monopolies, LOL”.

Again, when you DO NOT let ANYONE have ANY sort of choices in what THEY want, IT IS being a monopoly and being anticompetitive since you are only allowing people one choice or very few choices.
 
What does the word Monopoly mean?

Apart from the board game...
smiley-wink.gif


A monopoly is one company being the only supplier. That is what the word means.

 

If there are two or more companies supplying the product or service, it is not a monopoly, no matter how similar their products of services.

 

Words have meanings. You can't just decide to define a word differently to everyone else. The whole point of language is to transfer an idea, thought or information from one person's brain to another person's brain, via the medium of written or spoken words. If everyone defined each word uniquely, then communication would be impossible.

 

Limited variety of products in the market is unfortunate, undesirable, for sure. But it does not constitute a monopoly.

 

Manufacturers have been trying to make top loading automatics more competitive in terms of water use and electricity use for decades, but they have had limited success. Front loading washers, and top loading tumble washers, are actually very clever in that they achieve a lot of the desired outcome (soil removed from clothes) with dramatically less water, detergent and electricity than fill-to-the-top top loader washers. The manufacturers have tried reduced water levels; spray-only rinsing; two-stage washing with a low level fill, recirculating concentrated detergent solution  pumped over the wash before filling with cold water to complete the wash; and novel ways of agitating in low water levels. They have had disappointing results, with various combinations of poor rinsing, tangling, poor washing, and unreliability. Who knows what new top loading marvel that actually works is just around the corner?

 

The increasing market share of front loaders, and top loading tumble washers, seems inevitable. It's not just a matter of regulations, as energy prices increase and some regions have increased water shortages, the efficiency (that word again..) of tumble washers becomes more appealing. Setting a minimum efficiency standard puts pressure on manufacturers to lift their game and make something better. This will also have a side-benefit of making US-made machines saleable in export markets again. There is one US-made top loader that gets a lot of love on this website, when tested by Choice it is consistently one of the worst performers, sometimes even featuring in "What Not To Buy" lists. Its sales here are minuscule.

 

There are some quite efficient top loaders, Fisher and Paykel are a prime example of a really excellent and clever top loading automatic washer. They are lightly constructed, the casing is quite light and "tinny" but they are a very proven design and use clever technology to get a very good result whilst keeping resource use down somewhat. (but still use more water and detergent than a front loader.) They also seem to last for many years, on average.

 

 

[this post was last edited: 3/6/2023-04:41]
 
“Limited variety of products in the market in unfortunate, undesirable, for sure. But it does not constitute a monopoly”.

Not a monopoly in the sense that it’s one company making and marketing such products, but a monopoly on choice. Reason why I say there’s a monopoly is all machines are virtually the same these days (yes there’s a few exceptions but referring to mainstream machines), have the same cycles, same options, and overall are similar to one another.
 

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