Energy Star Appliances

[Delta]

Originally Posted By: Leo99
How dirty are you folks getting?


Now THAT'S a loaded question!

But personally my work cloths are disgusting working in an industrial environment. We just dumped our 2.5 year old Maytag top loader HE that didn't have the agitator. By far the worst washer we've bought, and was getting to the point it would no longer spin cloths properly. Not to mention the electronics were starting to get wonky. Bed comforters were the worse because it wouldn't agitate. Just spent a nice $500 on a GE that has an agitator a couple days ago. Time will tell if it'll be any good as it's also an HE machine. All the standard types were not large enough. I prefer not to take my comforters to a laundry-mat every other weekend.

We have a compact size Whirlpool dishwasher that I absolutely LOVE. After figuring out the right detergent packets to buy you can almost throw un-rinsed dishes in there and they'd be completely clean.

 

[barryh]

The big energy users are fridges and freezers because they run 24/7. We recently replaced a fridge and freezer that were both 25 years old. The new ones use half the energy and I can already see the saving in the bills.

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Energy saving, water saving washing machines suck. Worst move I made was buying one, after three botched attempts at fixing it my patients wore thin and its gone now. Garbage.


Yep that is akin to say I bought a Ford Tempo in 1987 and it was a pile of junk and so all American cars are junk.

 

[sleddriver]

Originally Posted By: coopns
....The energy star appliances are more expensive but I have no idea if they pay for themselves over time? And what makes them energy star?
It depends.....
Buying an ES-rated pool pump will DEFINITELY save you money as it runs at least 8hrs/day down here. Same with buying a more efficient air con. system for down here: It will run a lot. Three electric motors need to run at once, for a long duration, thus a more efficient motor will save you money.

How many loads of dirty dishes/clothes do you wash/week? How long does a cycle take? Your payback time-frame here will be a lot longer compared to the above. Also, is it efficient and fast or efficient and slow? How much is your time worth? What are you willing to spend? {I'm amazed at how long the newer stuff takes to finish a cycle.}

Another point to consider is what your water & electricity bills run/mo. Don't fall prey to the marketing w/o looking at this. For example, at HD there's this guy walking around starting up conversations with people about how old their HVAC system is. "How'd you like to cut your e-bill IN HALF?" There's the bait. He assumes I'm a typical idiot customer who knows nothing about HVAC and my Summer e-bill is $300-400.

But I'm not. On both accounts.

When I explain after letting him speel his schpeel first, that my highest Summer e-bill is maybe $130 (only because of the 19% rate increase 5 yrs ago) for about 1200kWhrs AND I live in an all electric house (no gas) AND my generic Janitrol HVAC system is now 27yrs old, his mouth falls open and he shuts up....for once.

Too much conflicting info in his pea-sized commission-based brain. Then I challenge him with "So you're PROMISING to cut my e-bill to $65/mo, eh? But to do so, you want me to pay you roughly $2800/ton for a new 3T system...plus tax. How longs the payback on that?" He can't promise that! And he knows it. Time to look for another sucker....

Finally, what's with all the "board replacements" on these new, expensive appliances? As if "electronics boards" are new technology? Since when? Why so unreliable...and expensive? Where's the "savings" in paying for that?

 

[PeterPolyol]

Problem with new appliances is that the technology advances just as fast as the greed-driven, penny-pinching 'economical engineering' that results in poor materials and workmanship. Older appliances weren't more durable just because of their simplicity.