Explorer Products? [RE-wrenches]

[Travis Creswell]

Bill,

I've never heard that a bottom freezer uses more but I'm like you in that I
really prefer the freezer on the bottom.  A customer emailed Maytag about
the Neptune front loading washer.  They replied that it uses .096 kWh per
load.  Of course Maytag might not be too happy if they found it was on a RE
system.  During a phone call to Amana about my fridge they told me that they
do not recommend that their appliances be hooked up to "Solar Panels".  I
was curious about disabling the self defrost feature which seems to use
around .25kWh per day.

Does anyone get the "Doug Rye" Show?  He has a great talk show on one of the
Local AM stations around here on Saturday mornings but he is always
welcoming new stations to his show.  It's a call in show where he helps
people figure out how to cut their energy bills.  He describes himself as
the "King of Caulk and Talk".  He is really pretty good even if he spends
most of his time pushing ground source heat pumps and all electric houses. 
This is understandable since his sponsors are the Local Electric CO-OP. 
Anyway, the point I am trying to get to leads into to what you are talking
about. According to him, something like 95% of all new houses are built with
the lowest efficiency appliances available!

Until Later
Travis Creswell
Ozark Solar
Neosho, MO
----------
>From: bill loesch <bill_loesch at compuserve.com>
>To: "INTERNET:RE-wrenches at topica.com" <RE-wrenches at topica.com>
>Subject: Re: Explorer Products? [RE-wrenches]
>Date: Wed, Mar 22, 2000, 7:28 AM
>

>>
>We steer people towards the new generation of Energy Star Appliances.  At
>our grid connected house we have a Amana 20.5 cu. ft with bottom freezer
>that uses around 1.2 - 1.5 kWh per day depending on the season.<
>
>Hi Travis,
>
>Glad to hear you were able to better the yellow sticker (EPA?, DOE?)
>rating. 
>Please refresh my memory, doesn't the bottom freezer inherently use a bit
>more power?
>I personally would much prefer the more ergonomically efficient bottom
>freezer. In almost 50 years on this earth, I've never had the need to buy a
>new fridge. Both houses came "fridge furnished" and the current one a 21cu
>ft 1.9 kWh (winter) daily user is still ticking. The meter was a Watts Up
>unit introduced to me by a future customer, reportedly $100 at RealGoods, I
>have no experience, yet, with the Brand product. 
>
>In a former life, I performed energy efficiency testing on storage hot
>water heaters to verify the yellow sticker ratings. During meetings with my
>coharts in other industries, I discovered that a huge fraction of the
>lifetime residential energy budget went to the refrigerator since the
>builder uses the cheapest (and most likely low efficiency) unit he can
>find. Moreover, the refrigerator can outlast the HWH and because of the
>parts count, the fridge is oftentimes economically repairable. One proposal
>in the 70's was to mandate energy efficiency numbers much like is done with
>cars. As you see it never happened.
>
>Bill Loesch
>bill_loesch at compuserve.com
>314 631 1094
>St Louis Solar
>St Louis MO
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_________________________________________________________
Enlighten your in-box.         http://www.topica.com/t/15