A little more about saving energy. It's one of my favorite ongoing pet projects because the benefits are easily measured, and though it's not as financially rewarding as it used to be since energy costs are rising, it's still good to avoid paying those higher costs (kudos to Elizabeth Gaucher for that thought).
A handy tool for measuring electrical usage is the Kill-A-Watt. This thing is awesome. It measures energy consumption, time elapsed, voltage, current, and all sorts of things — and at twenty bucks, it should pay for itself in no time. It's very simple to operate: plug it into the wall, plug whatever you're measuring into the other side, then walk away for a day or two. When you come back, push the button corresponding to the information you want to see and it appears on the screen. Write it down or record it in a spreadsheet. If you're wanting to see how much it costs to run the thing you're measuring, you'll want two pieces of information: kilowatt-hours (kWh) and time. You'll also need to know how much you pay per killowatt-hour.
Here I've got two readings: 2.76 kWh over a period of 48 hours 21 minutes. These are the actual measurements of a Whirlpool upright freezer, model number EEV163FG0, from late 1979 — and please excuse the picture quality, the freezer is in my poorly-lit garage. This freezer is so old Whirlpool doesn't even have a manual for it online. I'm surprised the thing runs at all. Lately I've been thinking of this old dinosaur sitting in the garage, slurping up electricity, and I've been pretty sure it would be the next victim in my quest to push household electrical usage down.
Conventional wisdom says freezers and refrigerators made before 1992 should be replaced with energy-efficient models. I'll buy that theory, in theory. The US EPA even provides a handy refrigerator retirement calculator where you can plug in the numbers to see how much you'll save each year. According to the calculator, "Freezersaurus" out in the garage should cost $167 to run each year.
But not so fast. According to my measurements, the freezer uses 1.37 kWh each day. I know I'm paying 10 cents per kWh based on prior calculations, so this old freezer from 1979 is only costing me 13.7 cents per day to operate. That comes to around $50 per year — and while that's about 7% of the total electric bill, it's nowhere near the $167 the EPA claims.
The EPA calculator goes on to say a new Energy Star model would cost $37 to run each year. I'm just about at that point now with the old 1979 clunker, so clearly something isn't right. One thing that comes to mind is taking these measurements in January. Though it's been a very mild winter so far (huzzah!), the days when I gathered the data were fairly typical for January in Charleston, meaning: the freezer may not have needed to work as hard to keep everything cold. So I'm going to take another look in July and August (provided it's still running) and see if I get different measurements.
Beyond that, though, I have no idea. A freezer from 1979 almost as efficient as modern ones, and still running after 32 years of service? As tempting as it is to say they don't make them like they used to, I think even this is an oddity... which means it fits in just fine around here.