Top-10 just launched!

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Permalink Reply by J.C. Martel on November 11, 2010 at 10:23am

Thanks for posting this! It's most helpful when the prices are posted alongside the rankings. Then it's easy to match my price point with effciency.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Kaiser on November 11, 2010 at 1:10pm

I saw this earlier today and while I was excited at first, I'm not so excited after actually looking at the site. Take 2 examples:

Dishwashers - Out of a ranking of 10, there are only 2 manufacturers, Bosh and Asko, and many of the descriptions say "multiple models". It lists how much water each dishwasher uses per cycle, but how do we know the load size is the same?

TVs - Out of a ranking of 10, they rank three different sizes, from 46" to 60". YOU CANT COMPARE THE ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF THREE DIFFERENT SIZES BECAUSE YOU ARENT EQUALIZING THE DATA.

I appreciate the effort behind this tool, but overall I say the site has a long, long way to go before it can really help consumers. The developers need to give users much more input over the type of appliances they are consuming, to make sure everything is apples - apples. As it stands now it isn't apples to apples, and is actually misleading consumers. The internet is chock full of information, we just need to make sure it is good information.

I'll write a blog post expanding on my thoughts next week.

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Permalink Reply by Evan Mills on November 11, 2010 at 1:18pm

I very much agree with Chris that comparisons need to be made for at least loosely comparable service levels or functionality. I appreciated seeing that at least these attributes are disclosed (you don't always get that on other lists!). Defining apples-and-apples groupings is always an imperfect science, , but clearly improvements could be made here.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Waclo on November 12, 2010 at 1:39pm

Evan:

Thanks for the link!

Curious that no plasma sets appear in the top 10. I thought engineers had made substantial strides lowering k'Wh usage in that category...guess they had so far to come down that LED sets sprinted ahead anyway.

Regarding dishwashers, while I'm all for using less H2O, it appears reduced water usage is what qualifies these units for the list, and as we all know water is inexpensive (way too inexpensive, but that's another story) in most areas. Of course the water needs to be heated, so perhaps that factors in as well. I'm running DHW @ about 115 (natural gas) and using the electric heat option in the DW to bring the H2O up to nominal operating temp. Is that still the recommended technique? And man are those marvelous Bosche dishwashers expensive! Suspect that more discipline in DW operation (full loads, air dry, etc) would save many $$.

Still awaiting a roster of high efficiency garbage disposals and toasters :-).

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Permalink Reply by J.C. Martel on November 15, 2010 at 10:08am

Steve - i'm surprised at the technique to use electricity to reduce energy use for anything, unless it's generated by renewables. Electricity has such a higher carbon factor than natural gas. For Xcel Energy in Colorado, it's 11+ lbCO2e for electricity and only 2 something for natural gas.

Those dishwashers are expensive....I need to replace mine and not looking forward to it.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Waclo on November 15, 2010 at 10:34am

JC:

"I'm surprised at the technique to use electricity to reduce energy use for anything, unless it's generated by renewables. Electricity has such a higher carbon factor than natural gas. "

As usual, nothing is never really simple if looked at hard enough, and perhaps I'm confusing saving energy with saving $$. The option to not use electric heat in the DW is cranking DHW up to the appropriate temp for washing dishes, with subsequent higher stand-by losses associated with storing H2O at the higher temp. Even with a supplementary blanket of insulation, I wonder if the long term use of more natural gas would offset the alternative of a lower storage temp and supplementary electric heat in the DW. Also, I'm not too keen about high DHW supply temps at the faucets.

Anyone ever taken a really hard look at this?

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Permalink Reply by J.C. Martel on November 15, 2010 at 10:44am

I don't know of any studies off hand but the national labs probably have something. The DOE and EPA might too since i've seen recommendations from those groups to use a DW rather than handwashing so of course they've crunched the numbers and probably modeled different scenarios. Do you set your DHW at 115 or lower? Did you insulate your pipes coming off the DHW tank?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Waclo on November 15, 2010 at 10:55am

JC:

Was doing some searching while awaiting your response, and a DOE site I located said set the DHW temp back and use the supplementary heat option on the DW. More sophisticated units heat the supply water to 140 for routine washing (optional) and then, as in commercial units, take it all the way to 160 for a final sanitization (!). All of this with electric heat, of course.

Yes, my accessable HW sypply plumbing in the unheated garage is covered with the split tube type insulation and the H2O temp is back around 110-115. We do the sheets weekly @ max DHW temp to kill those little critters (not bed bugs) that I saw a photo of once (and did not sleep well for weeks :-).

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Permalink Reply by J.C. Martel on November 15, 2010 at 3:55pm

can you find the web link for that DOE site? i'm curious.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Waclo on November 15, 2010 at 4:32pm

JC:

Just scroll down a bit after loading this link:

http://www.energysavers.gov/your_home/water_heating/index.cfm/mytop...

You've got me wondering what more sophisticated energy modeling programs have to say on this subject.

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Permalink Reply by J.C. Martel on November 16, 2010 at 9:59am

Steve - i went to the page but didn't see any reference to best practices for operating the dishwasher. Can you copy and paste into a post? The national labs certainly have sophisticed energy modeling programs. I know a guy who does his research on Solar Domestic Hot Water but he might have connections who model dishwasher applications.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Waclo on November 16, 2010 at 10:09am

JC:

Here it is. Also, I like your idea about getting your associate ,who does modeling, involved. This may seem to be a "small potatoes" issue, but nationally, we're certainly talking major implications...which also makes me think this field has been
plowed many times over. How do we get input from more of our homies on the site? You want to start an new topic on the main page? Thoughts?

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