Appliances

When buying an appliance, remember that it has two price tags: what you pay to take it home and what you pay for the energy and water it uses. ENERGY STAR qualified appliances incorporate advanced technologies that use 10–50% less energy and water than standard models. The money you save on your utility bills can more than make up for the cost of a more expensive but more efficient ENERGY STAR model.

For top performance, premium features, and energy savings, look for energy-efficient clothes washers, refrigerators, dishwashers, room air conditioners and dehumidifiers that have earned the ENERGY STAR. This mark may appear on the appliance, the packaging or the EnergyGuide label.

Clothes Washers

The average American family washes almost 400 loads of laundry each year. It’s a good thing families can cut their related energy costs by more than a third — and the water costs by more than half — just by purchasing a clothes washer with the ENERGY STAR label.

Over the life of your new ENERGY STAR qualified washer, you’ll save enough money in operating costs to pay for the matching dryer. With your water savings, you could fill three backyard swimming pools.

Is your washer over 10 years old? Replace it with a new ENERGY STAR qualified washer and you could save over $145 each year on your utility bills. That’s like getting your High Efficiency (HE) detergent free year round.

Refrigerators & Freezers

ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerators require about half as much energy as models manufactured before 1993. ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerators provide energy savings without sacrificing the features you want.

Earning the ENERGY STAR

• ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerator models use high efficiency compressors, improved insulation, and more precise temperature and defrost mechanisms to improve energy efficiency.
• ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerator models use at least 20% less energy than required by current federal standards and 40% less energy than the conventional models sold in 2001.
• Many ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerator models include automatic ice-maker and through-the-door ice dispensers. Qualified models are also available with top, bottom, and side-by-side freezers.
• ENERGY STAR qualified freezer models use at least 10% less energy than required by current federal standards. Qualified freezer models are available in three configurations:
  • upright freezers with automatic defrost
  • upright freezers with manual defrost
  • chest freezers with manual defrost only
• ENERGY STAR compact refrigerators and freezers use at least 20% less energy than required by current federal standards. Compacts are models with volumes less than 7.75 cubic feet.

Remember, saving energy prevents pollution. In most households, the refrigerator is the single biggest energy consuming kitchen appliance. Replacing a refrigerator bought in 1990 with a new ENERGY STAR qualified model would save enough energy to light the average household for nearly four months.

You may also be interested to know that you can reduce the amount of energy your refrigerator or freezer uses, whether with a standard or an ENERGY STAR qualified model:

• Position your refrigerator away from a heat source such as an oven, a dishwasher, or direct sunlight from a window.
• To allow air to circulate around the condenser coils, leave a space between the wall or cabinets and the refrigerator or freezer and keep the coils clean.
• Make sure the door seals are airtight.
• Keep your refrigerator between 35 and 38 degrees Fahrenheit and your freezer at 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Minimize the amount of time the refrigerator door is open.
• Recycle older or second refrigerators.

Make a Cool Change Campaign

U.S. households have 44.5 million fridges over 10 years old, 12.7 million of which are secondary units, often in basements and garages. And almost a quarter of these fridges are at least 20 years old! Fridges made before 1993 use more than twice the energy of a new ENERGY STAR qualified model. The ENERGY STAR Make a Cool Change: Recycle Your Old Fridge (or Freezer), brought to you by the U.S. Department of Energy, encourages every American who owns an old, inefficient refrigerator or freezer to take another step — to save money, energy and the environment by properly recycling that old fridge or freezer. And if a replacement is needed, you can save when you buy a new ENERGY STAR qualified model.

Dishwashers

Replacing a dishwasher manufactured before 1994 with an ENERGY STAR qualified dishwasher can save you more than $30 a year in utility costs.

. Earning the ENERGY STAR means a product meets strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy.

• ENERGY STAR qualified dishwashers use at least 41 percent less energy than the federal minimum standard for energy consumption.
• ENERGY STAR qualified dishwashers use much less water than conventional models. Saving water helps protect our nation’s water supplies.
• Because they use less hot water compared to new conventional models, an ENERGY STAR qualified dishwasher saves about $90 over its lifetime.

Remember, saving energy prevents pollution. By choosing ENERGY STAR, you are helping prevent global warming and promote cleaner air without sacrificing the product quality and performance you expect.

You may also be interested to know that you can save extra energy while washing dishes, whether with a standard or an ENERGY STAR model:

• Run your dishwasher with a full load. Most of the energy used by a dishwasher goes to heat water. Since you can’t decrease the amount of water used per cycle, fill your dishwasher to get the most from the energy used to run it.
• Avoid using the heat-dry, rinse-hold and pre-rinse features. Instead use your dishwasher’s air-dry option.