7 thoughts on “The President’s Energy-Efficiency Initiative”

  1. Point #3 (upfront costs vs. savings) are why I have never replaced a WORKING appliance purely based on energy savings. See also: replacing a paid-off car with a car that gets 25% better MPG to “save money on gas” (and, of course, the related debacle of Cash for Clunkers).

    Now, when my dehumidifier recently seized up and died, I replaced it with an energy-star rated unit (which is impossible NOT to buy, I think), but I still looked at the annual costs vs. the price of the units I was looking at, and did the same with my refrigerator when it died, and saved money in the short and long term in both cases.

    Of course, the flip-side of the argument is people who buy a cheap, old, used appliance as a new appliance, which may be more expensive within 12 months than just buying a brand new unit. But it’s also hard to find energy efficiency figures on 70’s-era lime-green “beer fridges” for one’s garage…

    1. My wife and I had a new house built last year. We examined things like paying for a higher efficiency heat pump over the standard (already efficient) one. Running the numbers, it would’ve taken about 15 years for the higher efficiency heat pump to pay for itself assuming fairly stable electricity costs. We stuck with the standard model. Now, we may come up short if electricity prices skyrocket like Obama wants but that was a risk we took.

    2. “But it’s also hard to find energy efficiency figures on 70′s-era lime-green “beer fridges” for one’s garage…”

      That’s easy — get a Kill-a-Watt power meter. Maybe not as accurate as an Agilent scope, but it is cheap and it does the job.

  2. I hope I am not giving you “the buyer’s remorse”, but the whole government regulation of dehumidifiers is seriously broken — with respect to energy efficiency.

    For one thing, dehumidifiers with such American sounding names as Whirlpool, Maytag, and Frigidaire are all manufactured in a certain East Asian trading partner country that starts with a “C” and ends with an “a.” I have had bad luck with keeping a dehumidifier going (I only purchase EnergyStar because I don’t like to pay for any more electricity than I have to. Also, energy efficiency is much, much more cost effective than gimmicks such as rooftop solar panels, grid connected).

    Part of this may be that certain East Asian trading partner country having a reputation for cutting corners; part of this may be our own EPA. You cannot repair a dehumidifier because they keep changing the allowed refrigerant in it. First they went to an ozone friendly sauce, but that had great “global warming” potential (yeah, as if the amount of ‘stuff’ leaking out of dehumidifiers is that big a contributor to Global Warming, but you know the drill). So the models are constantly and chronically changing before “the bugs are worked out.”

    The second thing: continuous fan operation. Many of the newer EnergyStar and Ozone and Climate Change friendly dehumidifiers use continuous fan operation. I bought such a unit last summer and returned it to the retailer who was willing to take it back after the manufacturer (who is the manufacturer, really?) would not respond to my e-mail, and neither would EPA/EnergyStar.

    The Florida Solar Energy Center knows about this in their white papers on dehumidification capability of central A/C — a family member in South Florida calls that locale “Planet Moist” for a reason. The FSEC recommends against running your A/C in continuous fan mode. When the A/C is running, moisture “plates” the fins and coils of the evaporator. When the A/C cycles off (compressor cuts out in response to your wall thermostat) but you still have the blower going, all of that moisture sticking to the coils boils off again adding back that humidity.

    I test that continuous-fan dehumidifier, and it used more energy than an older non EnergyStar unit, all because the fan keeps going. Epic fail.

    The old EPA EnergyStar Web site just told you about the appliances. The new, improved Web site from “Richard Windsor” is thick on self congratiatlations on Saving the Planet and taking the EnergyStar pledge, but you have to root around to find the link for the appliance ratings. When you do, I notice that they do tell if a dehumidifier is continuous fan or not (essentially a “cheat” by the manufacturers to get good results on the artificial test conditions). They don’t tell you why continuous fan or not continuous fan may or may not be important.

    Dick Windsor’s EPA is a model for the whole Obama Administration. It is all talk, talk, talk scold, scold, scold, but I don’t know what kind of dehumidifier to purchase.

    Jim. Oh, Jim. You will probably correct me that the EPA Energy Star under Mr. Obama is a fine, fine example of the government helping consumers.

    Good, I agree with you, the EPA under Mr. Obama is doing the Lord’s work. Now tell me what brand of dehumidifer I am supposed to buy?

    1. My old model (at least 10 years old) was a continuous-fan model. The new one has a fan that cycles with the compressor. The only issue I’ve heard about with regards to humidity sensing issues is that the sensor is right above the water bucket, which leads to inaccurate readings, but I’m running a hose to a drain, so the bucket is a non-issue.

      The old one used to frost over if I set its dial “too low”, the new one has a digital display and setting, and is designed to avoid frost-over. The basement feels and smells better than it did with my previous unit, and I attribute that to the efficacy of the refrigerant system (and likely much cleaner plates), as well as the direction that the fan blows, which circulates the air in the basement more effectively.

      Considering I bought it at an eee-vil major retailer, and they price-matched down 60 bucks to another eee-vil online retailer’s price, I’m happy with my purchase.

      As a bonus, it’s much quieter than the old unit, too, despite reviews that claim that it’s “way too loud” (with which I might agree if I tried to sleep in the same room as the unit, rather than a floor above it).

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