The Sustainability Review:
Refrigerators

Well I’m back to writing articles on sustainability for the newsletter. I took a 4-year break from this to sit on the Co-op board with my term ending this last election. Some of you know me and my interests but for those who don’t, I like to tinker with all sorts of projects that have an environmentally sustainable bent (i.e. wind, solar, biodiesel, electronic gizmos, plumbing, etc…)

My intent in these articles is to weed through much of the information out there and give a synopsis and/or recommendation on a type of product/method/idea/whatever. Currently my wife, Lahde, and I are in the process of moving/building a new home (with Kurt of 3 Little Pigs doing most of the work) outside of Moscow where we are going to implement many of the items I’ll talk about in articles to come.

I just purchased a new refrigerator. It’s a Kenmore #67889 (top freezer, black, no icemaker, Energy Star, $472.49). Until about 3 years ago you really couldn’t get a refer that would really perform well without going to a Sunfrost and spending $2000+. The Sunfrost is still the best fridge out there but I think it’s safe to assume that most people are not going to spend that on a fridge no matter if it pays for itself over the course of it’s lifetime at our cheap electric rates here in ID/WA. I wasn’t willing to spend this so my search started for an alternative.

At our previous house we supplied the power to the fridge via solar/wind generation so I needed the fridge to use the absolute minimum of power, somewhere in the range of 100-200 kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kWh is the unit of electrical energy equal to 1 kilowatt or 1000 watts of power used for 1 hour. A 100-watt light bulb operated for 10 hours uses 1 kWh. Clear? Let’s move on….

Since 1993 there have been standards for appliance energy use and as of 2004 the Energy Star program has been in existence. These standards have greatly improved the efficiency of appliances but in my opinion there is a small flaw the affects our purchasing decisions. All fridges are required to have the little yellow card that shows the estimated kWh use for a year in them. It’s my opinion that most people don’t look at this and the salespeople don’t know much about them. The marketing is presented to us as “Energy Star” compliant, a.k.a. the most efficient thing available. True and not completely true.

The Energy Star program says that if the appliance exceeds the federal standard by 15 percent or more than it gets the label. The key component I see is that the appliance configuration (top freezer, side by side, etc…) greatly affects how the kWh numbers are set but yet they can all get the label making you think you are getting a very efficient appliance that actually uses a bunch more energy than other configurations. We’ll use a typical 21 cu.ft. fridge as our standard fridge and compare side by side (SS), bottom freezer (BF), and top freezer (TF) configurations.

The Energy Star standard gives their badge of efficiency if the appliance uses less than 519 kWh for SS, 472 kWh for BF, and 410 kWh for TF. That is 109 kWh difference between a SS and TF model yet they get the same sticker and get marketed to you the consumer in the same manner.

I’m not sure if that seems reasonable to me if the goal is efficiency. It’s clear that TF fridges are always the most efficient by nature of design and from looking at brands, Kenmore almost always stands above (except Sunfrost). Most of the competitors are within 20 or so kWh but for those of us who pinch our kWhs that can be significant.

Mike Forbes and his family are moving into a yurt near Moscow Mountain until their home is finished this coming winter.

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