Comments on: Is it REALLY green to replace old appliances?

By: Susan

Susan — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:50:00 +0000

Thanks for sharing your research. We inherited old appliances when we moved into our house and I’ve been wondering about this too.

I found your blog through Wordless Wednesday. I’m going to bookmark it and check back!

By: MamaBird

MamaBird — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:43:00 +0000

Great research (including Matt’s commentary)! It never occurred to me to replace our aging fridge. I’m a run things into the ground kinda girl. But will run the #s. Appreciate this post very much, as usual. Love your new header/look of your site!

By: Green Me

Green Me — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:30:00 +0000

Thanks Matt for your good info. I did a little more research, based on what you said, and according to the EPA landfills can accept appliances. Unfortunately, it is up to the individual landfill to make sure that the coolant is removed and properly disposed of before the unit is added to the landfill. On the other hand, the good news is that some states (20) have banned disposal of appliances at landfills and supposedly a good percentage (about 70%) of appliances are truly recycled!

By: Matt Sturtz

Matt Sturtz — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:10:00 +0000

Also one more word, regarding appliance recycling… It’s illegal in most states to leak CFC’s, which are used in the refrigerant chemicals in *most* (but not all) refrigerators, freezers, and air conditioners. In addition, most landfills won’t even accept appliances, so even if it is dead, you still can’t send it to the landfill. What’s worse, non-profit recyclers such as Eco-Cycle, to my knowledge, won’t accept any appliance containing refrigerant.

That pretty much leaves companies such as UNWANTED (in the Denver area — but they’re growing rapidly, it seems). For $35, they will come and pick up your old refrigerator from your curb, working or not (check http://www.unwanted.com for pricing on other appliances). They will safely and properly remove and re-use the refrigerant, and then recycle the plastics and steel.

By: Matt Sturtz

Matt Sturtz — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:48:00 +0000

It’s important to actually *measure* the energy consumption, rather than simply relying on the yellow sticker, or averages based on age, when deciding if newer models are actually more efficient — enough so to justify replacement. A good device for doing this is called a “Kill-A-Watt”, which can be had for around $20 online (buy.com is $17.99, plus $6.68 in shipping). This little gadget plugs into the wall, and you plug the appliance into it. It works for any regular 120V device, anything from a night-light to a window-A/C, and anything in between (think about lamps, aquariums, computers, stereo equipment, etc), but don’t plan on checking out your range, electric water heater, or whole-house A/C, because those are 220V and are usually wired directly into your home’s load center. The Kill-A-Watt measures not only current consumption in amps, but also measures voltage and power factor, and computes those values over time to give you kilowatt hours. The best way to use it is to connect it, and then return a number of hours or days or even weeks (the longer the better, in order to get a good average, particularly for appliances that might only run a few hours a day) later and write down the kWh reading. Project this forward to get a monthly cost, for example if my fish tank measures 3 kWh for 24 hours, that’s 90 kWh for 30 days. If your electricity costs 10 cents per kWh (look at your bill — but make sure to take into account the taxes and fees. It’s probably easiest to take the “total amount” and devide by the “total usage”), than my fish tank is costing me about $9 per month to operate.

So instead of saying “my fridge is aproximately 10 years old, it must be inefficient and should be replaced”, you can arm yourself with hard facts. This is even more useful if you can compare the actual consumption with the original yellow sticker for your appliance, so you know the projected vs. actual energy use. Is it *really* that inefficient, compared to current models?

Although not the “green” your blog discusses, it’s probably not usually worth replacing an appliance before it fails just to save “green” — the cost of the replacement is likely to far outweigh the energy savings. Plus, considering the energy used to produce these highly efficient models, one wonders how much more “green” is really “green”.