Refrigerator, consumption data reprt

[Highbeam]

Folks, I have been trying to reduce my power consumption in my all electric house. I have a kill-a-watt doodad and have been chasing around my 110 volt loads to look for any problems.

My latest discovery is after one full week of data collection on my single residential refrigerator. The bugger consumed 12 KwH of power in one week. That's 50 per month and at 10 cents per Kwh only a 5 dollar portion of my nearly 100$ per month electric bill. It is not a new appliance at all, it came with the house and is labeled as a 7.5 amp consumer on the label which I realize is worst case load.

At 60$ per year, I see no reason to upgrade this appliance to some 900$ fancy schmansy energy star appliance that might consume half of the power and leave me with a 30 year payback period.

I'm back to my theory that the water heater and clothes dryer are the hogs of the home.

 

[velvetfoot]

Yeah, but you have fees and stuff that are independent of usage, no? Sometimes those fees are big. I'd look at consumption. Your house is all electric?

 

[Highbeam]

The 10 cents per KwH includes all fees, taxes, etc. We don't get peak rate billing here and I am considering the consumption as measured. House is all electric with no NG available. Wood heat of course other than the backup wall heaters. Oddly, our base fees are minimal. They wrap up the costs in the consumption rate.

I was honestly hoping that the refer was going to be an energy hog so that I could justify the upgrade to one with an ice maker. Hah!

Has anyone ran a consumption log on their refrigerators?

 

[Sandor]

Highbeam, I did the Kill-a-watt thing around the house also. For a family of four, I have us down to 5-600 KWH per month, not including AC in mid summer.

Eliminating the use of the electric dryer was the biggest bang. We dry our clothes on racks were the stove is located, and outside when weather permits.

A solar water heater setup is next. Those elements draw 4500 watts.

 

[cbrodsky]

Highbeam, I did the Kill-a-watt thing around the house also. For a family of four, I have us down to 5-600 KWH per month, not including AC in mid summer.

Eliminating the use of the electric dryer was the biggest bang. We dry our clothes on racks were the stove is located, and outside when weather permits.

A solar water heater setup is next. Those elements draw 4500 watts.

Were you able to measure the integrated total kWH draw on your dryer for a typical load of clothes? This year we started line drying outside 75% of the time, and in the winter, we started drying about 50% indoor. I know the dryer consumes about 4000 watts if I recall correctly. But that is only when the element is on, and I'd assume it cycles somewhat or depends on heat setting? At 4,000 watts, that's $0.50/hour in our area if it's really pulling that much energy the entire time.

Sometime I'd like to try to measure it using our house meter if I shut everything else down and we go out or something

-Colin

 

[Highbeam]

Unfortunately I can not use the killawatt to measure 220 volt loads which I now blame for my 1000+ KwH per month consumption. I have gone outside and observed the rate of spinnage on the meter. Boy oh boy does it spin fast while the electric dryer is running. The water heater only makes it spin medium fast. I believe that the washer/dryer combo unit which we currently own will be the easiest and best replacement to make. I just today swapped out two dead and dying 8 foot fixtures for T8 electronic ballasted ones with lower wattage tubes, more lumens, and no buzz.

When I swapped out my main electrical panel I checked each circuit while under load to be sure of a 75% loading. I used my electrician buddy's clamp on amp meter and it was slick. It won't measure elapsed amps like the kill-a-watt but a guy could measure instantaneous amperage flow and then time the operation of each appliance.

Good job with the 5-600 KwH Sandor, I would like to stay below 1000 in my all electric home including a full sized hot tub which sees very frequent use. Almost daily unless it is raining. That tub adds about 150 KwH per month and is an admitted luxury. As the little girls become teenagers I will likely see more consumption what with their hair dryers and such.

 

[My_3_Girls]

Not wanting to hijack this thread, but I have to let you guys in on something I did yesterday. My wife told me a few weeks ago that we needed a new dryer. She said the clothes were taking forever to dry. I already replaced the element, so I had a feeling it wasn't that. I pulled the air discharge hose (4" plastic/wire) and found the problem. In 11 years in this house, I had about 2" of free air space inside the hose!! The rest had been filled in with lint. I shot down to the hardware store, picked up some 4" smooth wall pipe, and fixed it. Clothes should be getting dryer faster, and I don't have to spend money on a new dryer. If it's been 5 years or longer since you've checked your "stove pipe" for your dryer, I'd do it tomorrow!

 

[Sandor]

Highbeam, I did the Kill-a-watt thing around the house also. For a family of four, I have us down to 5-600 KWH per month, not including AC in mid summer.

Eliminating the use of the electric dryer was the biggest bang. We dry our clothes on racks were the stove is located, and outside when weather permits.

A solar water heater setup is next. Those elements draw 4500 watts.

Were you able to measure the integrated total kWH draw on your dryer for a typical load of clothes? This year we started line drying outside 75% of the time, and in the winter, we started drying about 50% indoor. I know the dryer consumes about 4000 watts if I recall correctly. But that is only when the element is on, and I'd assume it cycles somewhat or depends on heat setting? At 4,000 watts, that's $0.50/hour in our area if it's really pulling that much energy the entire time.

Sometime I'd like to try to measure it using our house meter if I shut everything else down and we go out or something

-Colin

I didn't get real scientific, just a quick calculation. I figured 5kwh to dry a load, which is about $0.60 a load based on our rates. 10 loads a week, so thats 6 bucks. About 25 bucks a month.

BUT.......

This is really half the story. Our bills dropped more like 50 bucks, especially in the summer.

What most people do not figure is the amount of conditioned air (whether its A/C or heat) that the dryer is pulling from within the envelope and is sending outside. And all that replacement air is coming inside from whatever crack it can find. I figured the dryer was pulling about 200cfm, so, in an hour your sending 12,000 cubic feet of air outside.

In the winter, the dryer was causing some draft issues with the woodstove. Also, that dryer make up air must have been coming from the back bedrooms, as they were cooler than usual.

In the summer on hot days, the A/C could not keep up with the load with the dryer going. Another big issue was humidity. We could not hold less than 60 percent. That warm humid outside air gets really wet when it hits the 75 degree inside air.

 

[Sandor]

Unfortunately I can not use the killawatt to measure 220 volt loads which I now blame for my 1000+ KwH per month consumption. I have gone outside and observed the rate of spinnage on the meter. Boy oh boy does it spin fast while the electric dryer is running. The water heater only makes it spin medium fast. I believe that the washer/dryer combo unit which we currently own will be the easiest and best replacement to make. I just today swapped out two dead and dying 8 foot fixtures for T8 electronic ballasted ones with lower wattage tubes, more lumens, and no buzz.

When I swapped out my main electrical panel I checked each circuit while under load to be sure of a 75% loading. I used my electrician buddy's clamp on amp meter and it was slick. It won't measure elapsed amps like the kill-a-watt but a guy could measure instantaneous amperage flow and then time the operation of each appliance.

Good job with the 5-600 KwH Sandor, I would like to stay below 1000 in my all electric home including a full sized hot tub which sees very frequent use. Almost daily unless it is raining. That tub adds about 150 KwH per month and is an admitted luxury. As the little girls become teenagers I will likely see more consumption what with their hair dryers and such.

Sounds like your making good progress. Modern Energy Star washers make sense, with the biggest benefit being the high spin speeds... the clothes do not need as much drying. They also use much less (hot) water.

Two girls in the house. 12 & 16. They can be taught to be conservative, but it takes some work! When the younger one first starting shaving her legs, should would sit on the edge of the tub with the hot water running full blast for about 30 minutes. The water heater would run cold by the time she was done. Sent the women in there to come up with another plan. If you start young and educate them, will make for an easier time down the road.

 

[cbrodsky]

Sounds like your making good progress. Modern Energy Star washers make sense, with the biggest benefit being the high spin speeds... the clothes do not need as much drying. They also use much less (hot) water.

Sandor, that was going to be one of my questions - are you using a front-loader? That definitely helps, but it still takes quite a while to dry clothes. I figured the hot water/septic benefit is still the biggest for us.

You also raise an interesting point about make-up air. In theory, it's possible that drying at lower heat might be worse because you draw more air from the outside - I often do this to avoid shrinkage on clothes, but not sure it's really better.

-Colin

 

[Highbeam]

[/quote]sounds unbelievably cheap for frostfree fridge. do the killawatt for 1 day & extrapolate.[/quote]

Because of the "Frost free" cycle I ran the data log for a week. Surely there was a defrost cycle in a week? Why would data logging for one day be any better than a week? I suppose I could leave it on for a month or a year to be even more accurate. Or perhaps the refrigerator is just like the myth of the wall warts where these little things aren't really much of a draw.

The biggy is the water heater and dryer and of course electric heat for those burdened with it.

 

[cbrodsky]

I think this example proves a valuable point... if you have a working fridge bought in the last 10-20 years, you aren't going to save enough with a new one to make it worth throwing away a working unit. The difference you'll save doesn't come close to paying it off. And think about the environmental impact of a bunch of perfectly functioning appliances all being thrown out - that adds up too. I get a little annoyed when you see advice like that in newspaper columns.

But when you do finally have to replace it, I think it makes sense to spend a few bucks extra for a more efficient unit. We've been lucky to have bought a front-loader through the City of Austin's program back in 1997 or so for $400 when they were $800+ and we didn't own a washer - that was my first one. And when we built our house, I spent many hundreds on a dishwasher. But I believe these have helped us achieve incredibly low electric/water/hot water expenses over the years and never second guessed those decisions. But I still have a 10 year old Kenmore fridge that works just fine and probably has another 20 years in it before it needs to be replaced, so I don't see making any unnecessary quick changes.

I think from this thread I learned that line drying is still probably the best thing that one can do to make a dent in electric consumption

-Colin

 

[Highbeam]

"if you have a working fridge bought in the last 10-20 years, you aren’t going to save enough with a new one to make it worth throwing away a working unit. The difference you’ll save doesn’t come close to paying it off."

I guess that was my point and discovery. The payback on replacing a functional fridge, even one decades old, can be very very long.

My house is now bleeding electricity from somewhere. I got a high electric bill this last month. 167$.