Time for a new refrigerator

Something inspired me to clean out the fridge on Wednesday night. And I mean...clean it out. Completely. It was time to wash all the glass shelves and the door shelves, plus the entire interior. I got rid of a lot of jars and bottles and stuff that had been in there for a long time and, by the time I’d finished emptying the fridge of its contents, there was not much left. Then I had an idea.

The lad had a tiny fridge up in his room. It hadn’t been plugged in since he left for school. I asked if he’d bring it downstairs for me and, after it was cold enough, I put all the remaining food in it. I think it’s about 1.6 cu foot—a dorm style fridge. It’s kind of a tight fit inside, but it’s holding everything. And I unplugged the big fridge.

I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to see exactly how much electricity the big fridge uses. I’ve whittled away at electricity usage in this house and even while the lad was away from home, I still couldn’t get my daily usage below 11 kWh. That’s quite high, I thought. So, after two days of having the tiny fridge plugged in and the large one unplugged, it appears that my daily electricity usage has precipitously dropped to 5 kilowatt hours per day. That’s a savings of six kilowatt hours each day.

That means my 13 year old horridly inefficient refrigerator was slurping up at least 7 kilowatt hours per day which is in the 2500 kWh per year range. At $.17594 per kWh, that fridge was costing me about $440 per year or $36 per month.

I think it’s time for a new, smaller and energy star rated refrigerator. One that only uses about 376 kWh per year with operating costs a fraction of what I’ve been paying. I haven’t decided on a model yet, though. Probably either a 10 cu foot Kenmore or Whirlpool. They seem to offer the best efficiency with the size I want. But I’m still looking.

And speaking of refrigerators, I saw this luxurious LG fridge on the display floor of a nearby store. Holy moly. I’d never have to leave my kitchen. But it’s an energy star rated fridge, which is kind of amusing—in a way. The thing has a television, weather and info center, digital recipe index, digital photo album, and digital calendar with programmable reminders built into it. That’s a lotta extras for a fridge.