Those "energy hog" fridges....

[cadman]

You've all heard it, those old fridges are terrible energy hogs, why would anyone want one of them?

Well, we know some of those late 60’s/70’s frost-free models are guilty as charged, but what about the classics?

With the arrival of the ’65 GE recently, our main fridge is doing beverage duty in it's same location. That unit? A '51 Coldspot. I've had the kill-a-watt on it for the last 15 days, and while it's a small fridge, the results were surprising.

It consumed 11.62 kwh of power over 360 hours. At our current rate, it cost us $0.91 for the first half of the month and a projected monthly cost of $1.82! Those are the cold, hard numbers. I can't imagine a new energy efficient "green" fridge getting close to that. Crazy! -Cory

 

[swestoyz]

HUM

Fantastic figures there Cory. Certainly lives up to it's given consumption of: frugal.

I'd like to try the same meter on the '61 Frigidaire. A circulating fan running at all times, a draft fan from the freezer compartment running when the compressor is on, a compressor, and a slew of defrost and mullion heaters. Oh yeah, I should crank up the butter warmer as well. LOL

I wonder how bad the '66 Amana is. The defrost heaters warm the kitchen in the winter!

Ben

 

[philr]

I'd be curious to test it on my 1963 Frigidaire Imperial too. Unlike Ben's 1961, it has just one fan in the freezer and no cold plate in the refrigerator section.

 

[austinado16]

Put a Kill-O-Watt Meter on my 1952 Philco about 2 months ago and got similar results. Cost a couple bucks a month to run. We purchased it used for $150 in 1993, and following a $300 paint job, new door gasket, and a bit of rechroming to the handle, door lettering, and meat drawer front handle, it's been in continuous operation as our only fridge, ever since.

 

[volvoguy87]

Fridges.

The old ones can be EXTREMELY energy efficient. The lack of fans makes a difference! The old ones with the freezer compartments usually work on convection, and do not rely on mechanical air circulation inside the fridge.

The lack of a self-defrosting cycle makes a HUGE difference. Defrost heaters are a lot like electric oven elements. They consume a whole lot of power when they're on. Also, a refrigerator has to run to remove the heat built up during the defrost cycle.

My favorite refrigerators are the GE Monitor Tops. The compressor and condenser coils are on top of the cabinet, not below or behind. The parts that give off heat are on the top, where the heat can rise away from the cold parts. What a simple, yet wonderfully effective idea!

Not all that is old is bad or inefficient,
Dave

 

[austinado16]

Yep, no moving parts......

......and 3 or 4 inches of thick insulation in every direction. Nirvana!

 

[sudsmaster]

That Coldspot is using about 282 KWh/yr, which is pretty good. It's similar to what I calculated from having my late 40's GE single door running for a few days in the carport in the summer.

However, these figures may have to be adjusted to compensate for the manual defrost that is needed ever couple of months. This effectively warms up the fridge interior, for an hour or two or more. Then the fridge must run full blast for an extended period of time (a couple of hours?) in order to bring the contents back down to 40F or less. That represents an energy loss that should be factored into the picture.

Still, the thick insulation and the lack of accessory motors and heaters means a manual defrost older fridge may well be the all-time energy saver.

 

[arbilab]

They consume a whole lot of power when they're on. Also, a refrigerator has to run to remove the heat built up during the defrost cycle.
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Specially when they run indiscriminately as most do. The compressor efficiency has improved but seems barely break-even compared to the old "just make cold" design.

Typical 'conservative' fridge is 400kWh. 800W compressor running half the time. Stuff you tack on like mullion and defrost heaters are gonna cost ya. Fans are around 50W each.

Home with gas water and air heat, fridge is the single biggest consumer of Watts until central air kicks in.

 

[rp2813]

I should probably try hooking my '57 GE Combination to a meter.  It does have the forced draft condenser fan but no others, and is of course manual defrost.  It probably has more cubic feet of interior space to cool than fridges from the earlier 50's and older, but it's got to be far more efficient than the '70 Whirlpool frost free fridge it replaced.  Also, since the freezer is separate, the door to the fresh food section remains closed during the defrost process.  Defrost water drains through the floor of the freezer and is carried by a tube to the trough on the rear wall of the fresh food section, then flows down the rear wall and is routed to a drain in the floor of that section and drips into an evaporating pan in front of the condenser fan, as is found on frost-free models.  Since the cold control reacts to temperatures in the fresh food section and not the freezer, I would think the recovery process after defrosting should be quicker than on a single-door model. 

 

[jetcone]

I'm gonna have to try

a Kill-a-watt on my 1933 Monitor Top. It has the watt miser motor. People forget electricity was hugely expensive in the first part of the century so efficiency was top priority to get people to buy appliances.

 

[sudsmaster]

One thing to bear in mind: in addition to the energy consumption of periodic manual defrost interruptions, the typical older manual defrost fridge has less freezer and fresh food capacity than most modern fridges with similar energy consumption.

The most modern energy saving designs will not kick in the automatic defrost cycle according to a timer, but rather when the system senses an ice buildup on the coils (not sure how they do that). Modern compressors are more energy efficient than older ones, as well.

 

[dj-gabriele]

Honestly even the most energy efficient old fridge, when compared to a modern, efficient one, loses the battle. Just consider the volume/consumption ratio:

a modern fridge in A+++ class with a usable volume of 320 litres (11,30 cubic feet) is rated at 162 kWh/year.

I choose this Liebherr model (CBPesf 4033) as it doesn't have a frost-free freezer, just an inverter compressor and fan forced cooling in the fridge, so it's comparable to a "classic" refrigerator

Otherwise you can get a Frost free Panasonic side-by-side model with a capacity of 530 litres (18,72 cubic feet) in class A++ with an annnual consumption of only 346 kWh. This is double than the previous model but also capacity is almost double. I'm sure no other old machine can have the same ratio.

Liebherr (kWh/year)/capacity : 162/320 = 0,50625
Panasonic (kWh/year)/capacity : 346/530 = 0,65283

 

[3beltwesty]

The Most Energy Efficient Refrigerators, 2011 Edition

RE "It consumed 11.62 kwh of power over 360 hours. At our current rate, it cost us $0.91 for the first half of the month and a projected monthly cost of $1.82! Those are the cold, hard numbers. I can't imagine a new energy efficient "green" fridge getting close to that. Crazy! -Cory "

365.25 * 24 = 8766 hours per year

Your fridge for 1 year might be 11.62 kwhr /360 hr *( 8766 hr/year) = 283 KWHR/year

I recently bought the lowest "kwhr/year" unit at Home Depot; it is 335 KWHR/year for 18.2 cuft frost free model, it has a fan too plus inside ice maker.

Specifications:

Configuration: Top Freezer

Size (Cu. Feet): 18.2 **(516 liters)

Fridge Capacity (Cu. Feet): 13.9

Freezer Capacity (Cu. Feet): 4.27

Height (in.): 67 3/8"

Width (in.): 28"

Depth (in.): 26 3/4"

Defrost: Automatic

The Sears/Whirlpool unit it replaced was from about 1989 and was a 22 cuft side by side unit and frost free. Its actual measured consumption worked out to be about 1200 KWHR per year. My folks paid extra to get this thrifty unit; many frost free unit were way higher.

GE 18.2 cuft HERE (kWh/year)/capacity in litres: 335/516 = 0.649

http://ecovillagegreen.com/3447/the-most-energy-efficient-refrigerators-2011-edition/

 

[3beltwesty]

RE "The most modern energy saving designs will not kick in the automatic defrost cycle according to a timer, but rather when the system senses an ice buildup on the coils (not sure how they do that). Modern compressors are more energy efficient than older ones, as well."

The GE unit here has a module that determines when to kick on the defrost heaters. It sort of looks at the number of door openings; total time doors are opened etc. I do not constantly open my unit thus the defrost heater is used less than others. My annual rate I have figured thus in the last 2 months is about 290, lower than the yellow tag.

 

[norgeway]

BUT!!!!

You have to figure in this,HOW OFTEN DO YOU BUY ONE!! If you have a 1950 model..its liable to run 50 more years !! the one you buy today may last 15 or so IF YOU ARE LUCKY!!! THE OLD ONE COSTS MMUUCCHH less overall!

 

[3beltwesty]

Here the new fridge uses 1200 - 335 = 865 less kwhr per year. This is about 130 bucks less electric bill per year at 15 cents per kwh. The fridge was 599 with icemaker -100 rebate or 534 with 7 percent sales tax. it pays off in 533/130= about 4 years.

I grew up with defrosting a 1950's fridge, the good thing it one cleaned out the fridge!.

 

[lordkenmore]

HOW OFTEN DO YOU BUY ONE!!

It's not just the purchase costs of buying a new refrigerator every 10 years or whatever. There is also the environmental impact--and environmental impact is one reason they keep screeching about buying a new energy efficient appliances. It takes energy and resources to make and ship a new appliance. And resources to take away and recycle the old appliance. Overall, it's entirely possible that even an energy hog older appliance that lasts and lasts may actually be better overall for the environment.

It also takes energy (and time) for people who own new appliances to deal with the problems--the time and energy to research buying decisions over and over and over. This time cannot be replaced.

 

[lordkenmore]

the good thing it one cleaned out the fridge!

And a good thing, too! I don't clean out as often as I should or would if I had to defrost.

Although, at least I'm not as bad as one refrigerator I saw. It was in house about to go for sale. House owned by middle aged man. It included things like eggs that were so old they were completely dried out inside. And even small things that dated to his last wife--ten years before.

 

[3beltwesty]

re "HOW OFTEN DO YOU BUY ONE!!"

Here in Katrinaland a huge number of units that were scrapped out in 2005 and new ones bought. By huge maybe 500k units or 1 million. It was NOT just because folks houses got ruined or floaded. Many had no power for over 1 week and they left and the fridge turned into a foul stinky mess with dead body rotten meat smell. They are folks who live 100 mile inland whose power was off and when they returned the unit was ruined. Here I stayed in my house thus "saved" the unit that floated up and I did not have any rotting factor. The entire fan coil area got filled up with marsh grass.

My own 1979 Sears (Whirlpool) refrig in California lasted 18 years before it died. Our early 1950's unit was sold with a house in the late1960's, it was a spare unit that we had in the basement. The new 1971 fridge died about in the late 1980's; its replacement died 2 months ago, it lasted 5 years after being 2 feet in salt water. A freezer we bought about 1982 lasted about 2 years after Katrina then it died too.

My experience is that units that are moved often die way sooner.