Sales Tax Holiday

I thought I was going to buy a new refrigerator today.   

Nope.  Out of stock, line to order too long (wasn't worth the Maryland sales tax holiday $60 benefit to stand in line for an hour).  I want the ancient basement refrigerator gone (too much chipping off frost the the cooler section), the current temperature-recovery-challenged kitchen one moved to the basement, and a new one installed in the kitchen.  

I do a lot of fresh food prep, so I am in and out of the refrigerator a lot.  I need faster temp-recovery (like to save the milk).  The stores had the stainless steel variety, but every appliance in the kitchen is "finger-proof black" so that (SS) would feel out of place.

I'll live with the current stuff for a month or so until the one I want is back in supply.  Or until Consumer Reports suggests a better one...

Yeah, there is always a better product a few months away, but that ancient refrigerator has got to go soon!  It is like an incandescent bulb in an LED world.  I bet it is 25% of my electric bill these days.

Which reminds me; I should replace the 37 year old water heater with a tankless (and maybe heat pump powered one).  After all these years, I might be drinking moldy high (bad) mineral water.

Appliance Failure

I hate it when major appliances fail.  They're "major" appliances not just because they are large, but because they are expensive and important (My M/V might object to being left out of the group since I use it daily).  And it takes some research and time to replace them.

Minor appliances are easy.  Your M/V fails, you get another anywhere in 30 minutes.  Same with toasters, slow-cookers, fans, radios, clocks, etc.  But try to replace a dishwasher in less than a week...

Anyway, I noticed after my usual dinner binge of opening and closing the refrigerator a dozen times for this or that, that the thermometer was up to 50F.  I keep it at 35-37F, and that is the middle cold setting (4 out of 7).  But I use a lot of fresh foods and it warms up briefly inside being opened so much.

But when I went to put leftovers away an hour later, it was still 50.  Uh, Oh!!!  Hoping it was the refrigerator thermometer, I also stuck my digital cooking thermometer probe in there.

I checked for internal airflow blockages, but it is designed so that blocking the internal airflow is nearly impossible.  I distinctly recall from the manual that no cleaning of external coils is required, and indeed after pulling the refrigerator out a few inches and shining a flashlight behind it, there is nothing to clean.

This morning, it was still 50!  *GLOOM*

I've gone through a few refrigerators in my time.  It's always the condensor, and replacing the condenser is most of the cost of a new refrigerator.  But you pay $100 for the serviceman to tell you that.

So I jacked up the cooling button to max.  After 4 hours, it got back down to 37F.  I can live with that for a week while I choose a new refrigerator.  But it does mean that a lot of stuff was held at 50F for 36 hours.  Which means stuff like mayonnaise and salad dressing are dangerous.  I don't keep fresh meat, so no loss there.  Veggies and fruits are safe.  You can tell when they go bad anyway.  So I haven't lost much food.

With the cooling selection on "maximum" I can wait a few days.  At least it's not like having the A/C die in the middle of Summer or the Furnace die in Mid-Winter...

The choice for a new one is ongoing.  When the previous refrigerator died (sadly only 5 years ago) I replaced it immediately without doing much research.  I like bottom-freezer models and I went to one store and bought the cheapest most energy-efficient model they had in black.  Bad move...

This time, I'm going for the largest, best temperature-recovery time, bottom-freezer, with slide out shelves, in black, high-reliability-rated refrigerator I can find that will fit in the space.  Right now, according to Consumer Reports magazine website, that seems to be a Kenmore Elite 79043.


I decided to ignore the energy-efficiency rating.  I don't do that lightly.  But I discovered something surprising about refrigerators.   The big low-efficient refrigerators cost about $59 per year to operate.  The best-efficiency (with slow temperature recovery times) cost about $40 per year.  The difference is irrelevant.  Why would I want a refrigerator that ages my milk faster each week to save $19 per year?

Its not like choosing a car that saves $1,000 in gas per year...  $19 is the difference between most and least energy costs?  Who cares?

There is more to the decision.  I keep an older refrigerator in the basement for bulk veggie and fruit storage, garden seeds, beer, wine, bird suet, sodas, etc.  I bet it is so energy-inefficient that I've paid for a new one several times over.  I should have replaced IT years ago...

So the new one will go in the kitchen, the current one will go in the basement (where 50F is just fine for the things I keep there), and the deliverymen will haul away the oldest one for junk.

Looks like I am going shopping at Sears tomorrow!

More Energy-Saving Work

Now that the BIG DEAL insulation project is completed, I can move my attention to other energy-saving projects. I've seen charts that show the heating and cooling costs account for about a 1/3 of your total energy bill, which was more than I thought but not by a lot.  The surprise was how much hot water costs (10-15%).  That's double the refrigerator!  Now, I have my water heater wrapped up in an insulation blanket designed for water heaters, so my hot water usage cost may be lower than average.  But still, for one appliance, that's still a lot!  So...

First on the list is the water heater.  It's 28 years old, and was certainly a cheap one to begin with. 

I've been debating among a new standard energy-efficient water heater, and instant-on water heater, and a heat pump water heater.  I still can't decide which is best for ME (single person, low-volume, infrequent but frequent fast demand for cooking and dish-cleaning).  I'm inclined to the "instant-on" (heats water as it passes through the pipes rather than stores it); one medium one for the whole house and one small one for the kitchen sink.  But I'll do a final research this week.  The payback depends on the type I select.  The standard type is cheaper, so payback is faster, but costs a bit more over the years.  The heat pump water heater has a longer payback, but is cheaper to operate after that.  The instant-on type is between those. 

The choice might seem obvious in the long-term, but technology changes and maybe I'll have solar panels on the roof in a few years (see way below).

Second is replacing the basement refrigerator (which I use as a sort of root cellar for long-term storage). 

I keep a considerable amount of fresh food in the house (I don't go grocery shopping often), and my current kitchen refrigerator is good but not enough.  The previous (original 28 year old refrigerator) holds the bags of carrots, potatoes, beer, garden seeds, birdseed, and other stuff, and long term frozen stuff.  It is probably HORRIBLY HORRIBLY inefficient, so a newer modest refrigerator would probably pay for itself in just a few years.  And the electric company offers a generous rebate for replacing old refrigerators with new energy-efficient ones.  I'm guessing a 3-4 year payback.

Third, my basement workshop has four 4-bulb fluorescent light fixtures all wired into one switch.  I seldom need them all on.  Most of the time, I just need the one over the basement refrigerator.  I can separate those connections into 2 switches so only half come on at a time.

Fourth, switching more bulbs from incandescent to LED bulbs.  Any LED bulbs I use to replace incandescent bulbs will not only save money, but probably outlive me.  And replacing bulbs in the stairway fixture 15' above the floor is a real adventure.  Same with the floodlights outside the front door.

Fifth, I should consider replacing the washer and dryer.  They are over 15 years old.  I'll be checking to confirm it, but my recollection from reading Consumer Reports magazine is that the newest ones have a payback time in energy savings of about 4-5 years.

Sixth, and this one is VERY uncertain, replacing the standard heat pump with a geothermal one.  I did some initial research and most places around here like to drill holes down at a cost of about $20,000.  But there are some that seem to work just as well horizontally for $8,000.  Geothermal is VERY energy cost-efficient.  But $20,000 would take a 10-year payback.  The horizontal geothermal is slightly less efficient but needs only a 8 year payback.  But that depends on how much I'm saving with the new home insulation work just completed.  I'll have to wait to see what my Winter electric bills are now.  More research required...

Seventh and least likely, removing the 3 mature trees shading my house and covering the roof with solar panels.  I like the trees, but I'm worrying in every strong storm that one of them will fall onto the house.  Conflicting thoughts here.  I might be able to actually sell the trees (2 are oak) to sawyers.  But I still wouldn't have sunlight on the roof all day.  It's close to cost-efficient, but I can't decide.  I'll need to contact a solar engineer (not a salesman) and a sawyer who buys large trees.  But it probably doesn't make sense to do both geothermal heating AND solar panels, so I'll wait a year.

That's a new TO-DO list, but one I can deal with.