Looking for an energy efficient fridge

[maud gonne]

I'm going to sell my propane/electric refrigerator and want to purchase locally, new or slightly used, a "green," smaller type, no frills model that pulls minimum KW. We just went solar with helco back up and the fridge is pulling an inordinate amount of energy. I'm lost in the energy ratings info world, and would love some tips.

[Little Bill]

Look at Home Depot. They may have the same one that we bought and brought with us from the mainland. Ours is a hotpoint, and it uses less than one kilowatt a day. It cost around $400. Ice maker added about $80.
Its either 14 or 16 cu. ft. The same refer is offered with other manufactures name on it as well.

[maud gonne]

Thank you for the tip LittleBill! I will definitely look at Home Depot - the one you described sounds just up my alley, price-wise, size-wise, and especially energy-wise. I think my Dometic uses close to 4000 watt/hours a day (!)(i.e. 4 KW) if my calculations are correct. Our small solar system is unable to carry it.

[missydog1]

I went into Home Depot looking to replace an appliance and found out that they stock very little. The wait time was long, from the mainland, not Oahu. So, if you are lucky and they have what you want, all is good. If you have to order, get it going before you sell, I guess.

Sears is much faster, so I ultimately bought from them. They have a lot of stock on Oahu, which meant 4-5 days for an order vs 1-3 months.

Best of luck ... that sure sounds nice to have the frig draw so little power!

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[David M]

Go to sears.com and research . Tons of info on many brands and models. Sometimes not blatantly obvious, but can usually find the kwh usage. We are quite happy with our Kenmore bought in 2006. We are totally off grid. We did have a service call early on, but the tech knew exactly the cause of the problem and made the change for our environment and trouble free ever since.

David


Ninole Resident
Please visit vacation.ninolehawaii.com

[terracore]

quote:

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Originally posted by maud gonne

I'm going to sell my propane/electric refrigerator and want to purchase locally, new or slightly used, a "green," smaller type, no frills model that pulls minimum KW. We just went solar with helco back up and the fridge is pulling an inordinate amount of energy. I'm lost in the energy ratings info world, and would love some tips.

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Would love to hear more about your solar system.

[peteadams]

Did some wattmeter testing on our three year old Kenmore 18 cu ft refrigerator last December and got some fairly consistent results over several time intervals of 650-700 watts per day. The sales guy at Sears touted it as a model chosen by off grid people. Couldn't find the model number (253.68972801) on the Sears site except for parts, undoubtedly superseded. The sticker inside does not list energy usage, but does note a 4.5 amp current draw at 115 volts.

[Kelena]

And what would be considered a good draw per day for a refrigerator? Mine came with the house and huffs like a choo-choo train night and day. It is stainless steel and only a little beat up ( a couple dents, some rust, the ice maker, who knows what happened there), but beneath that otherwise nice exterior, is a huffing puffing appliance. Is that normal around here? Is there something I can clean to make it breath a little less heavy? It's about 8 years old.

[Bullwinkle]

'been thinkin along the same lines - have come to the decision that when the current fridge dies i will replace it with a small top loading freezer for the laundry area and a dorm style mini fridge in the kitchen with a cutting board on top.....

[KeaauRich]

Kelena...pull it out from the wall and vacuum all the crevices and coils in back and underneath.