Refrigerator shopping

[Jarlaxle]

If you look at the labels, the energy usage of refrigerators have really gone down over the years since the 80's. At one point, you could replace a refrigerator from the 80's and the cost of the new one would pay you back in electricity savings in just a couple of years.

No.

 

[wag123]

If you look at the labels, the energy usage of refrigerators have really gone down over the years since the 80's. At one point, you could replace a refrigerator from the 80's and the cost of the new one would pay you back in electricity savings in just a couple of years.

This has to be appliance industry nonsense.
I have an extremely reliable 35 year old (80's) Whirlpool 23 cu/ft top freezer refrigerator that uses 135 running watts. I also have an 8 year old GE 18 cu/ft top freezer refrigerator that uses 130 running watts. The defrost timer is about 18 hours run time on both of them. It is interesting to note that the newer GE uses almost double the watts of the older Whirlpool during compressor startup. Unless they are using much better (more efficient) insulation now days, this claim is obviously false because the wall thickness is the same on both of them.

 

[Wolf359]

This has to be appliance industry nonsense.
I have an extremely reliable 35 year old (80's) Whirlpool 23 cu/ft top freezer refrigerator that uses 135 running watts. I also have an 8 year old GE 18 cu/ft top freezer refrigerator that uses 130 running watts. The defrost timer is about 18 hours run time on both of them. It is interesting to note that the newer GE uses almost double the watts of the older Whirlpool during compressor startup. Unless they are using much better (more efficient) insulation now days, this claim is obviously false because the wall thickness is the same on both of them.

You'd have to look up the energy star label to see what the annual consumption is in kilowatts. Just max wattage doesn't translate to annual cost. You haven't really presented the data to say it's false. Even today they sometimes sell two models of a similar refrigerator, one is energy star and the other is not and the one that isn't, consumes more kilowatts per year.

 

[Skippy722]

This has to be appliance industry nonsense.
I have an extremely reliable 35 year old (80's) Whirlpool 23 cu/ft top freezer refrigerator that uses 135 running watts. I also have an 8 year old GE 18 cu/ft top freezer refrigerator that uses 130 running watts. The defrost timer is about 18 hours run time on both of them. It is interesting to note that the newer GE uses almost double the watts of the older Whirlpool during compressor startup. Unless they are using much better (more efficient) insulation now days, this claim is obviously false because the wall thickness is the same on both of them.

From what I can find, the standard for a normal top freezer fridge in 1980 was 1500-2000kWh per year, modern ones are using ~300~700kWh a year.

 

[wemay]

Anything but Samsung and LG.

Tell me about it. Our 3 yr old LG just broke down. Waiting to hear what the warranty repair Technician says. Another technician we called advised us to get rid of it as soon as we can. They are plagued with weak compressors. The very same compressor design will be the replacement, so expect another 3-5 years at most. What a headache.

 

[tyman]

Tell me about it. Our 3 yr old LG just broke down. Waiting to hear what the warranty repair Technician says. Another technician we called advised us to get rid of it as soon as we can. They are plagued with weak compressors. The very same compressor design will be the replacement, so expect another 3-5 years at most. What a headache.

Yup. It’s like a German car out of warranty. Just don’t do it.