> Comparing the power consumption of a [broken] 30 year old refrigerator to a brand new one
Totally fine to choose as the author did, but for others who might face a similar choice: repairing a thermostat in a fridge is dramatically easier than fixing almost anything in a dishwasher. I did that with my fridge - cost <$20 for the part and maybe 30 minutes of work. Your (EU) kilometrage may vary.
I suspect the power savings would be much less dramatic with a fixed thermostat.
One thing that catches my eye here is the use of a smart plug on the refrigerator for current monitoring. I've tried a ton of different ones including the "good" ones like Shelly, and they all seem to use shunt resistors to gauge power draw. It would make me really nervous to use something like that to measure power draw on a big inductive load like a fridge. It's a shame, I've never seen a current clamp in plug form with no on/off switch, so you've basically gotta do some fab work, but that's basically really the only safe way to collect current data for anything that pulls a non-trivial amount of power.
A 21 kWh/month it's 252 kwh/annum (I guess?), which is around energy label E in the new EU energy labels.
If you go for energy label A, some fridges have 101 kWh/annum, which is more than half less! I haven't seen many, and they are usually very tall, but hopefully we can see more and more in the future.
I got a rated "A" for one year, this model (256 liter fridge + 122 liter freezer) :
https://eprel.ec.europa.eu/screen/product/refrigeratingappli...
Rated for 113 kWh/year
I left a powermeter on it for one year and got 130 kWh.
It's amazing that the average power consumption is less than 15 Watt.
The article mentions ice building up in that old fridge, and this reminded me what I was told by a man who was fixing these things- that the condition of rubber seal and fridge not being leveled correctly can also lead to the ice buildup (if thermostat is not broken). He did not explain in deep technical details why, but said that when the fridge door is not sealing fully then the room air enters the fridge and due to different condensation point it causes moisture buildup at the coldest part. I am not sure how factual this was, since after hearing this I adjusted the fridge so the doors were always closing themselves thanks to gravity, and the ice still kept building up. I did not replace the seal though :)
Since a fridge's compressor runs about 30% of the time, most of the energy savings of the new fridge are because of a new thermostat.
But the new fridge will not last thirty. Heck, he's lucky if it lasts ten. Five if he lives in an area prone to electrical surges.
My new Bosch 2020 refrigerator broke down after 3 years of usage. Coolant leakage. Not repairable due to the foam direct injection.
New ones break quickly and then consume zero energy. So then you buy an even newer one without caring at all about the emissions to buy the new one and to get rid of the old one. And then feel good to be "saving the planet" because you have a super efficient fridge and repeat the cycle.
Why talk about 2.6 kWh/day (power*time/time = energy/time = power) when there is perfectly fine unit for that, namely the watt?
2.6 kWh/day = 2.6 kWh/24h = 108 W, on average.
I really want to know the power usage of the old fridge after it was fixed. :(
Energy Star appliances started to show up circa 1995 so there may have been comparably efficient fridges back then.
The dramatic things with refrigerators is that in most countries people will install them in the kitchen for obvious practicality reasons, which is often also the hottest room of the house/appartment due to ovens, stoves and spending a significant amount of time there. If you think of it, it is bonkers that we put a device meant to keep stuff cold in what is a heated place in northern countries. Some hold houses and building used to have non heated dedicated rooms meant to keep food at a lower temperature naturally in winter but this has pretty much disappeared.
OTOH I live in a coastal city in south of Spain and every time I read a label that said food shouldn't be in a fridge but kept in a fresh and dry storage I ask myself where the eff should I store it there is no place like that unless I am running aircon 24/7 which I certainly won't do.
Nobody talking about the refrigerators in Europe. They work differently. The ice forms inside the fridge part not just the freezer part. I don't know why and have not looked into it but it is in every fridge, including brand new ones.
The comments are well done and I am impressed. I would add the maker of the new one, partly as a tribute to them as well as gathering feedback from others. The fact that one compressors runs 24/7 might indicate it has failed to on 24/7 - also the ice block also says this? Thus a replacement thermostat might well reduce the KwHr used by the 24/7 operation. Looking up the model on youtube for thermostat repairs might help the new owner repair it and get a few more years, although an older less efficient unit, with a repaired thermostat it might not run 24/7 and use fewer KwHr?
I (well, my landlord) replaced a similarly old refrigerator last year. The thermostat was fine, it had developed a very slow gas leak and the charge had dropped enough that it was freezing rather than cooling.
It was using around 29kWh/month before the leak was noticeable, the new one uses 12kWh/month. The new one is slightly larger than the old. The old model was freezer-on-top style, the new one is a less efficient freezer below model.
Hopefully the new one lasts as long as the old!
If you have to buy 5+ refrigerators in the time the old one you are likely doing more harm to the environment than marginally more electricity consumption
Since after 3 years you're beyond the break-even point due to energy use, the old refrigerator should be disposed of rather than given away.
By keeping it in service, it's making somebody poorer. Especially since the person receiving the free 30 year old power hungry refrigerator and keeping it for a decade is the least likely to afford a replacement.
Somebody already disadvantaged will eventually be stuck with structurally higher bills and find it harder to save due to this.
Those that's not your problem it's more a government policy problem.
So can we project from the authors data that, under normal operation, both bridges roughly consume the same amount of power?
years ago we were renting a property that came with a fridge.. and our electricity bills where huge. I turned it off and our power bills more than halved. It was enough for us to buy a new fridge and barely notice the powerbills change after that
>assuming that it doesn’t break down.
Ha! Good luck with that.
The last time I bought a brand new freezer... it died in under 5 years... can't remember the brand... some asian import to Canada here.
I went out and bought a used kenmore I think it was off of Marketplace... >15 years old and it lasted longer than the brand new one did... at 1/4 the price!
These were both chest freezers and besides it's compressor being slightly louder, I doubt it used much more energy at all. If anything, it was probably insulated better, and used less I would imagine. It was much heavier, at least.
Anybody know how the author collected the energy consumption data?
Well, um, yeah. If you're comparing anything to crap it will be better than...crap.
Regardless of efficiency, it is very difficult to find a newer refrigerator whose compressor doesn't emit a very irritating high pitched whine almost continuously.
Electricity is so cheap (8-9 cents per kWh), it doesn't even make sense to invest in saving it. I would any day choose a cheaper product over 20% more expensive one that uses 10% less power.
Agree with the others here that this is absolutely not a fair comparison. Most likely the door of the old one was not sealing well, hence the continuous running and frost buildup. I have a late 30s Frigidaire that I restored a few years ago which has been taking around 200kWh/y (70W compressor, ~33% duty cycle.)