Am I thinking this freezer stuff out properly?

[Wade Lippman]

Our freezer is 7 years old and has gotten kinda noisy. The electric company will give us $50 for it, as long as it is working. The presumption is that a newer one will save electricity. If I can get a good price on black Friday, it ought to be a good time to get a new one.

I have one of those things you plug into and it shows electrical usage.
It now says 9.36kwh and 161 hours since I plugged it in. That is about 6 days and ought to be a fair test.
It comes out to .06 per hour.

The new ones say they use 660kwh a year, or .08 an hour.

So the old one uses less electric than the new one? It can't be working that poorly. So buying a new one isn't a great idea.
Does that sound right?

Why would the electric utility give rebates when the new ones use more electricity?!

[phil harold]

You can increase efficiency by blowing out the coils once a year
In fact:
If your compressor fails under warranty and the coils are dusty, warranty is voided

Fridge is 9 years old compressor failed in the second year
Service guy told me that they made the refrigerators for energy star ratings and minimized the compressor which were all failing two years later
so the replacement uses more energy but lasts longer.

If you buy a new refrigerator how much does that cost added to the electric costs
if you replace your fridge every 7 years that has to be considered in the operating costs
what happened to those fridges that lasted 20-30 years
I know my freezer is 17 years old and no known problems

yours is noisy, is it the fan or compressor?

[George Bokros]

I replaced our freezer about 4 yrs ago. The new one replaced one that was 33 yrs old. It seemed to be running fine but I wanted a frostless and a more energy efficient one.

[phil harold]

frostless and a more energy efficient one.

That almost sounds like an oxymoron

My upright freezer i got was more energy efficient because it was not frostless

yes i defrost it once or twice a year, which really aids in the reduction of freezer burnt food

[Jeff Erbele]

Our freezer is 7 years old and has gotten kinda noisy. The electric company will give us $50 for it, as long as it is working. The presumption is that a newer one will save electricity. If I can get a good price on black Friday, it ought to be a good time to get a new one.

I have one of those things you plug into and it shows electrical usage.
It now says 9.36kwh and 161 hours since I plugged it in. That is about 6 days and ought to be a fair test.
It comes out to .06 per hour.

The new ones say they use 660kwh a year, or .08 an hour.

So the old one uses less electric than the new one? It can't be working that poorly. So buying a new one isn't a great idea.
Does that sound right?

Why would the electric utility give rebates when the new ones use more electricity?!

I think there may be a flaw in your calculations. Freezers do not run all of the time. They cycle on and off maintaining the temperature the thermostat is set at which should be 0 degrees F per nation wide food safety standards.

Your calculations
660 kwh = .08 kwh per hour calculated as
Freezer running 24 hours per day x 365 days = 8760 hours per year
660 kwh / 8760 hours = .075 round up to .08 kwh per hour

Your watt meter if calibrated and working properly should only be recording consumption when the freezer is on.
6 days x 24 hours = 144 hours not 161 hours which is 10.6...% greater.
Something else is wrong here. If you are off that much in less than a week, computing annual calculations is pointless.

I think start over with your test. Reset your watt meter and mark the date and test start time.
The longer your test period, the more accurate it should be; again assuming it is working properly. You could test it with a light bulb, given the average standard watts and recording the time but you will not detect minor errors in a short duration.

I am not certain of what your watt meter recorded with the 161 hours. My guess is that was freezer run time, but could have been elapsed test hours.

Another key point is if you are comparing apples to apples, the identical cubic feet, both either self-defrosting models or not and both either chest or upright.

I understand you only have a few days to Black Friday but why get caught up in the hype. This is not the end all, last chance sale. This is only the kick-off of many leading up to year-end inventory reduction sales and ring in the New Years sales. Plus national appliance week is in the Spring and typically one of the best times of the year to buy appliances. Further why buy one if you don't need to. Blow out the dust first, see if it makes a difference.

[Steve Peterson]

My guess is that the sticker on the front of the freezer needs to be run in a controlled environment that mimics a typical house. The temperature is probably around 75 degrees, or maybe 70 degrees half the time and 80 degrees half the time to model average indoor temperatures throughout the year. If your freezer is out in the garage in upstate NY, then the ambient temperature is probably closer to 50 degrees. That would not be a fair test.

Steve

[David Weaver]

The only way to tell would be to put the watt meter on the new freezer and see what it uses. I have serious doubts about whether or not a new freezer would be much more efficient than one 7 years old.

[Wade Lippman]

The current freezer is in a heated basement. It might be a degree cooler than upstairs, but no more.
The Kill-a-watt meter time is hours from when it was plugged in; so the 161 hours is hours since the freezer was plugged into the meter.
The two are both 13.7 square feet.
The new one is not energy star; I doubt the old one was.
There are no coils. The sides heat up instead; so there is nothing to clean. Seemed odd to me but there is nothing in the manual about cleaning coils.

[David Cefai]

There's another factor to consider. A freezer will work harder in Summer as it has to pump heat across a steeper temperature gradient. As another poster pointed out, the motor does not (should not) run continuously. Had you performed your test a couple of months ago you might have been horrified at the results :)

[Michael Kellough]

Our freezer is 7 years old and has gotten kinda noisy. The electric company will give us $50 for it, as long as it is working. The presumption is that a newer one will save electricity. If I can get a good price on black Friday, it ought to be a good time to get a new one.

I have one of those things you plug into and it shows electrical usage.
It now says 9.36kwh and 161 hours since I plugged it in. That is about 6 days and ought to be a fair test.
It comes out to .06 per hour.

The new ones say they use 660kwh a year, or .08 an hour.

So the old one uses less electric than the new one? It can't be working that poorly. So buying a new one isn't a great idea.
Does that sound right?

Why would the electric utility give rebates when the new ones use more electricity?!

That spec is probably derived from running the test model in a 68* environment.

Manufacturers have gotten really good at making appliances last just longer than the warranty so cost of repair/replacement has to be considered.

[David G Baker]

I had a very old freezer given to me. The price was right and I didn't care how energy efficient it was because the cost of buying a new one would far out weigh the cost of the extra energy consumed by the old free freezer. I used the freezer for around 10 years then sold it to a friend for $35. I sold it because it was on our patio and our dog somehow pulled the power cord and we didn't catch it until it was way to late to save the contents. The old freezer was to large to fit inside the house, new freezer ended up in the house in an area where the dog didn't have access. When I purchase an appliance I do pay attention to its energy consumption. Has anyone priced new kitchen appliances, etc? Are they on the gold standard?