When you buy an appliance, you get an instruction booklet that tells you how to operate it. But there’s no booklet for choosing the right appliance in the first place.
An important consideration is choosing a product that will do the job without costing a fortune to operate. After all, as you’ve heard many times before, the true cost of any home appliance is not only the purchase price, but also how much it will cost to maintain, repair and operate it.
Take a walk around your home and note how many products you have plugged into electrical outlets. The average homeowner is spending about one-fifth of his monthly power bill on the energy that is being used for home appliances, with the bulk of that amount going toward the major energy-users: refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer.
When you need to purchase one of these big-ticket items, here are tips that will help you pick a product that will not only do its job but will do it efficiently and cost-effectively.
If you’re using a major home appliance that is 10 to 15 or more years old, think about replacing it. Just because it still works is no reason to keep it. Product improvements in recent years have made today’s appliances enormously more efficient than those of just a decade or more ago, and the costs of operating an older appliance can be substantial.
Read the yellow EnergyGuide labels when shopping for a major appliance. Federal law requires them, and they’ll inform you not only of the expected energy use of the product but also how the product compares with the most-efficient and the least-efficient products available. You can get an accurate estimate of what your energy costs will be by plugging in your area’s kilowatt hour rate, because the number shown is based on a national average.
Buy Energy Star appliances. This government program allows manufacturers whose appliances exceed federal minimum efficiency standards by 15 percent to 20 percent or a specified consumption level to use the Energy Star designation. These products are not just energy-efficient; they’re the most energy-efficient possible.
Don’t be so impressed by features of appliances that you buy more than you need. A refrigerator that is much larger than your household needs will cost more to purchase and more to operate, and it won’t be as efficient if it’s not kept filled.
Do you think you won’t use an automatic icemaker and a through-the-door dispenser very much? Then why buy a refrigerator with them when they can increase energy use by as much as 20 percent?
If your new stove has ceramic, halogen or induction range elements, it will be more efficient than one with the old-style electric coil. It’ll be easier to clean, too, and will let you have more control of the cooking temperature.
Consider one of the front-loading horizontal axis clothes washers that uses a third of the water per load as your current one does. They spin faster, too, resulting in reduced drying time and costs. Because 90 percent of the energy used to operate a washing machine is for heating the water, an efficient model can make a huge difference.
