Appliance experts: What should I do with my fridge?

[bbgobie]

Take it for what you will. From GE's Website. I just picked a random top freezer fridge 24.7 cu ft i think it was.
http://products.geappliances.com/App...ID=GEA&TABID=4

475 kWh/ year

Easily about half of what you estimate your fridge to do. Than you can calculate the cost savings of a new fridge.

[theclencher]

The door gasket heating thing- is that risky? I mean, now it may not be "optimal" but if I heat it is there a chance it'll get ruined?

[QDM]

I doubt you could harm the gasket with a hair dryer even if you tried, it just doesn't get hot enough. If anything you'll have to spend a lot of time holding it in one place to get it warm enough to form into place. I've melted them with an industrial heat gun though.

Q

Originally Posted by theclencher

The door gasket heating thing- is that risky? I mean, now it may not be "optimal" but if I heat it is there a chance it'll get ruined?

[WisJim]

Self-defrosting fridges are energy hogs, and as mentioned, efficiency has improved a lot in recent years. The consumption of yours seems about right for its age, size and features. We had one that was about 30 years old that we bougoht new, still had the instructions and energy use tag, and my "kill-a-watt" meter said it used close to what it originally was rated at. Our new one uses 1/2 as much and is larger. Hard to find frost free nowadays, but it is possible.

We also found that our 15 year old freezer uses about twice as much energy as an equivalent new one would use, so we are probably going to replace it with one twice as big, as we need more room to store berries, fruit, cider, etc., and maybe more venison.

[jwxr7]

winter should (hopefully) improve my fridge consumption, due to the much lower ambient temps in the house. Summer temps around 80f when I tested and will be around 60f in the winter. So my annual wouldn't neccessarily be what i get on a summer day x 365, but it is still a hog.

[GasSavers_Ryland]

This summer I was talking to the owner/enginer of SunFrost (some of the most efficent fridges and freezers made) and asked him why they don't make a chest fridge, turns out that the gains would be minumal compared to how much extra time you would have to have the door open to root around to find the stuff at the bottom, he said that if you wanted to make your fridge more efficent then you should keep it full as air has very little mass, if your fridge is only half full then when you open the door you are loosing alot of cold air, fill it with jugs of water, or bricks or fruit and they will hold the cold in, it's a simaler idea as the open display fridges in stores, the more efficent ones don't cool air to cool the food they cool the food more dirrectly.
Another enginer told me that he felt that it was worth replacing your fridge every 10 years, that the energy gains would pay for them self in less then 10 years, and that because of laws around disposal you basicly have to recycle your fridge.

[theclencher]

I hate the planned obsolescence sound of that...

[ffvben]

any energy star product is sweet. just look for that label. I had a old fridge, it stopped working, i plugged in my general motors fridge( with a Hurst shifter for the beer tap ) and it also stopped working after 24hrs. so we had to run out and get a new one, energy star fridge runs quieter and uses less power than original.

[csrmel]

alot of times replacing a frigerator that runs fine for a newer model simply for the electricity savings is a false enviromental savings.

with the purchase of a new frige, you must also consider its envirometal impact. someone has to mine the metals to make that new frige. someone has to smelt those metals, stamp them out. mold the insulation. collect refrigerant, etc. a new frige has an impact on the enviroment, that alot of times might be greater than just keeping youre old one.
besides that, a new frige isnt normally loads cheaper at electricity usage. it may be a bit, but often people buy a new frige that is bigger, or has more features (seen those lcd friges yet?) and actually consume MORE power than an old one.

remember the 3 r's, reduce reuse and recycle.

the same idea can be applied to cars, and just about anything else. its probably better for the enviroment to keep a older car on the road than it is to make a new car in spite of the fact that newer cars pollute less. one must consider the enviromental impact of making a new car, a new frige, a new anything.

its also normally cheaper. you can get a better return on investment by putting that new frige money into a bonb or cd than buying a new frige and waiting for it to pay for its self in 5 or 10 years.

my own frige is about 15 years old. it came with the house. it consumes about 175watts when its running. about 300 for a second or so starting up. i have a chest high deep freezer that is about 30 years old. takes a couple hundred watts to run. new freezers take about the same electricity to run. theres no point in replacing mine. it works fine.

my car is 10 years old. it gets better than epa mileage. it rivals new cars in mileage. aside from the bling factor, theres no reason for me up buy a new car, a new frige, or a new freezer.