Service life of a high-efficiency refrigerator?

[mike]

My refrigerator is 36 years old. Still going strong, but if you believe published efficiency numbers, it's costing me a hundred bux a year more than it would for a new one. Payback calculations depend on your assumptions for the time value of money and inflation in energy cost. Just looking at the cash flow, the break even point is 7 years or so. Looks marginal, but let's save the planet. Off I went to look at refrigerators.

While chatting with the guy at Sears, he "disclosed" that the smaller compressors run much longer at higher pressure and they only last 6 to 7 years. If true, that negates all the savings.

Is there any relevant data relating to service life of the newer, high-efficiency home refrigerators? mike

[hallerb]

my high efficency fridge is 11 years old and going strong.

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Our is ~14 years old and never had any problem so far. Knock on the wood!

[hallerb]

- Hide quoted text -

the first generation had all sorts of troubles with overheating blown compressors.

today reability appears good.

[jmeehan]

No it is not really true that the new ones are not lasting as long, in fact I have seen some studies that say they may be lasting longer.

It should also be said that sometimes the estimated savings are ... a little generous. There have also been some changes on how they compute them over the years and different brands are sometimes difficult to compare as they are not using the same yard stick. That said, chances are you will likely save money buying a new high efficiency one over some time, maybe 5-10 years. They are big users of electricity.

I was just researching this myself and was ready to buy a new one, but I have put it off as we may be moving across country in the not too distant future so I have put it off for now.

[ransley]

Test yours will a kill-a-watt meter, my 19.5 cu ft sears costs about

4.75 a month, a 36 yr old unit maybe be 12-25 a month, nobodys electric rates are staying the same.

[hallerb]

well my 1952 fridge bought by my grasndparents was still going strong when replaced about 1997 when i got married. but it had a rusty case, no ice maker, and was generally plain old. our electric bill went down too.

[George]

Likely all that means is that like most bigbox places he was leading you to whatever he was told to sell that day.

[Walter R.]

Did you know that all new refrigerators sold in the US have only a one year warranty on the compressor? That's not because they last longer, it's because, on average, the compressors last less than five years. Five years used to be the warranty standard until a few years ago. The manufacturers were going broke replacing compressors under the 5 year warranty.

Our high end Jennair lasted 3 years. $ 600 to replace the compressor.

[Uncle Monster]

I saw a little dorm room refrigerator at Wal-Mart the other day that has no compressor. It's the first solid state refrigerator I've seen on the mass market that runs off regular line current. It uses a Peltier cooling device. The only moving part is the fan. It will be quite interesting to see if the technology is ever scaled up to the size of your typical kitchen refrigerator.

[8~{} Uncle Monster

[ransley]

It can be scaled up easily but look at the consumption of the unit, I bet it as much as a large side by side

[trader4]

Did you know that you don't know what you're talking about? I bought a Kitchenaid fridge a few months ago. It has a 5 year warranty for parts and labor on the sealed refrigeration system. And the refrigeration system is covered for years 6 through 10 for parts. And I'm willing to bet that I can find plenty of other brands with similar warranties.

Speaking of other brands, from Jennair website:

Jenn-Air 22 cu. ft. Counter Depth Side-By-Side Refrigerator JCD2295KEP "Warranty & Service Plan For one (1) year from the original retail purchase date, any part which fails in normal home use will be repaired or replaced free of charge. For second through fifth year parts and labor for the sealed refrigeration system.

So, where did you buy that Jennair fridge, with no warranty? From some hack on Craigslist instead of an authorized dealer?

[trader4]

I recently replaced a 23 year old Frigidaire 24 CFT side by side with a new Kitchenaid 25 cft side by side. Prior to doing it, I went to the DOE Energy Star website where they have a savings calculator tool. You can put in the make and model of your current unit, energy cost per KWH, etc, and it will give an estimate of the savings. For mine it had the yearly cost to run it at over $300 vs the new one at $90, for a substantial savings. Being skeptical, I used a kilowatt meter to measure the old one for a couple days and then again on the new one. The old one was actually only using about $185 a year vs $90 for the new one. So, the Energy Star numbers we're spot on for the new one, but way off for the old one. Bottom line, the new one is using around $95 a year less in energy.

Still a decent savings, but way off from what the DOE would lead you to believe and if you're doing cost justification, $95 a year is a big difference from $210. Which leads me to wonder what the Energy Star calculator is based on. Perhaps they are assuming door seals that are leaking badly and God only knows what else to make the numbers come out skewed.

[Uncle Monster]

If you Google solid state refrigerators you will find that there is a lot of research going on with new materials other than the well known Peltier devices. The fields of refrigeration and air conditioning should get very interesting within the next few years.

[8~{} Uncle Monster

[jmeehan]

You can take a look at Consumer Reports at the library. They recently (as I recall) published information on what Energy Start and other numbers mean and how they are changing. With reading.

[hallerb]

to buy a new one,

. =EF=BF=BDThey

e quoted text -

they very first high efficency fridges were horrible, compressors failedv a lot.

the manufacturers are doing much better now, if your still concerned get a extended warranty

[mike]

Extended warranties are EXPENSIVE. They are SHORT, typically 5 years or less. Tha's a LONG way from the 36 years I have on my currently still-working fridge.

And there's this disturbing paragraph in the warranty:

In the event that a repair part becomes unavailable during the term of this Contract, Electrolux Warranty Corporation shall be excused from performance hereunder, and will refund 100% of the purchase price of the current Service Contract.

That says, "if it costs more to fix than you paid for the warranty, and we choose not to fix it, we'll refund the cost of the warranty." They don't fix it. They don't replace it. They don't give your money back. They just say, "oops, here's your warranty cost back...bend over...sorry for any inconvenience."

They make money on the warranty if it doesn't fail. And they revoke the warranty if it does fail. Where do I get a job like that?

[ransley]

Perhaps months of 90f were not in your overall figure, or family opening doors.

[trader4]

No, clearly in plain English, it doesn't say that at all. It says if the part beomes unavailable, they refund 100% of the money you paid for the service contract. I'm no fan of extended service contracts, but trying to distort some contract to make it look like it says something different isn't honest.

y back.

[trader4]

Don't know about your house, but I'd say most houses in America aren't

90F for any length of time. So, if DOE is doing that to generate their numbers, I'd say it's not very representative of average use conditions. I'd also be surprised if going from 75 ambient to 90 is going to make a huge difference. The delta between the freezer/ refrigerator and ambient just doesn't change that much.

Speaking of representing actual use, the Energy Star test procedure for refrigerators calls for them to be EMPTY with NO DOOR OPENING. We went through that here a few months ago, and I believe it was Richard that provided the link to the DOE for the actual test procedure.