Refrigeration is a load that uses a lot of electricity because the refrigerator is "on" 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The Sun Frost refrigerator is often listed as the most efficient one commercially available. Unfortunately, the delivered prices start at around $2,000, they require manual defrost, and fitting one in my kitchen would require extensive modifications to the existing cabinets and counters. The imported efficient refrigerators available are just too small for a working-parent US home where the food shopping trip every week or two has to last until the next food shopping trip.

To replace the fifty year old refrigerator in the house, I purchased the most efficient energy star refrigerator I could find, which was 35% more efficient than the current standard and about 20% less efficient than the comparable size Sun Frost. It was self-defrosting and fit in the available space with no modifications.

This was installed the second week in December. By March, it was functioning improperly. The motor would go off and cycle on less than a second later. After having repair persons come out five times with no success, Sears offered to replace the refrigerator with a new one of the same type. Three months later, this new one was also exhibiting symptoms uncharacteristic of a properly functioning refrigerator. Ice was building up in the freezer, it was cycling off and on erratically. Switches did not always work as intended. Etc. The salesperson at Sears apologized for the problems I was having and offered to make things right, but we did not see another Kenmore energy star refrigerator that fit in the space, so we returned this refrigerator.

I have to mention, that the Kenmore 6098*99* series refrigerators we used for over six months were every bit as efficient as claimed when they were working right. Energy consumption was 120 watts when the compressor was running, with about a fifty percent duty cycle, which comes to 525kW per year at an average room temperature of 85 degrees fahrenheit. My "watts-up" cumulative watt meter agreed with this estimate. The "yellow tag" rating for the refrigerator was 493, which I presume would be at a 68-70 degree fahrenheit room temperature.

My mother purchased a Kenmore 96597** energy star refrigerator about a year before I did. That model is no longer available. Hers is working fine, though I haven't done any energy monitoring on it. It is rated for 560kW per year. I don't know what to say about the Kenmore model we tried twice, except that the Sears warranty is every bit as good as they claim and Sears wouldn't be in business if they had many failures like this.

We ended up special ordering a Maytag MTB1956DE refrigerator, which fits in the space after cutting 1/2" off the bottom trim of the cabinets. So far I am very happy with this refrigerator. No energy monitoring data to report, yet.

Here are the inside and outside of the returned Kenmore refrigerator.

(Not necessarily in that order.)

As part of the safety precautions, I installed commercial fire extinguishers in the kitchen and basement, a gas detector, three carbon monoxide detectors and several smoke detectors which rely on multiple technology sensors.

Carbon monoxide (top) and gas detectors. Fire extinguisher.

As a byproduct of these installations, I found the kitchen stove top was emitting elevated levels of carbon monoxide. Rather than spending a lot of time refurbishing a fifty year old stove, I decided it would be easier to replace it with a new one which I installed the end of February. Stove tops are no longer available in the size of the previous one, but Sears sells a Kenmore/GE model which fit after cutting about an inch off three sides of the original hole. The new one has electric ignition, which I have not done energy monitoring on, yet. I had not really thought about ignition when I ordered the stove, and I had to plumb in a new electric outlet for it. There's only so much time in the day for testing, but I'll get to it as soon as I am able.

This might be considered a life-time project, I suppose.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me.

Picture of the stove, here.

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