Trump's plan to eliminate Energy Star could raise utility bills for American families, experts say

[nismo91]

Personally it's nice to have a product with energy-star but not a must.

I agree with everyone here, I'd pay more for idle consumption than early replacement. my biggest beef is with the obsession of inverter in pretty much everything. used to be, only the expensive fridge are inverter based. used to be, only the expensive washers are inverter based.

after years of using them, I've came to the conclusion that the first thing to break will be the motherboard itself. the manufacturer claims it's a power supply issue. where I live the grid must've not been "dirty". but it's not just one or two appliances and it's not just me. friends and family reported the same thing.

problem is, these inverter based appliances have many boards that costs a lot to both diagnose and replace. so once I got a 3yo fridge broken down, and the official tech says, you gotta replace this board. but then there's still a chance the other board is broken too. if you want to be 100% sure you gotta replace 3 parts and that's the same cost as buying a new one.

anyway about 12 years ago me and cousin each bought a fancy samsung washer with an LCD screen. mind you a literal color screen with language you can select. people would've bet the LCD will be the first thing to break. nope. both our machines had the motherboard replaced in just over 5 years. meanwhile the screen is still good for the first 10 years, before polarizer damage (sunburn) occurs.

so manufacturer can somehow make a motherboard that fails earlier than the screen itself. amazing.

 

[VectorVortec]

In my experience, energy star has become a warning label that means the appliance won't be able to do its job, because some bureaucrat (not appliance engineer) is making very poor decisions. For example, the washer doesn't use enough water to get your clothes clean, because we are running out of water. To compensate for the lack of water, the settings should be turned up one notch higher than needed. Or the window AC has 20% less cooling capacity, because that made sense to some bureaucrat, so you need to run it longer to get the same amount of cooling. But none of this means anything to the bureaucrats who push numbers to justify their jobs. We should let engineers design appliances. Then let the best appliance win.

 

[jeffbert]

I spent days researching refrigerators before buying one, whose water & ice dispenser failed within 6 months. I read Consumer's reports, read many opinions on Cnet, etc., Bought an American-made one, cannot recall the brand. Sometimes you just get a turkey. All that time spent researching, & that is the result.

It seems to me that manufacturers might just want their reputations to be good, at the very least. For every brand whose customers' reviews I examined, there was at least one very negative review, guy would swear to never buy anything made by this company again, while most reviews were at least positive.

I was looking at models between $1.5k & 2k. Similar for the washer & dryer, but much lower price range. Neither of these failed within 6 months; which was the time I lived in that town house. Sad situation- don't ask.

I agree, at least with the theory that the desire to use less & yield the same result may be a bad idea. When I was taking algebra, there were these dreaded word problems; but they did teach me that to solve the problem, you need at least two equations. For instance what fuel economy standards should we use? Without that 2nd equation, it is just an arbitrary choice. With that 2nd equation, say occupant safety Vs. weight, etc., we can now find the optimum for both equations. It has been over 20 years since algebra, & this is my best recollection. I hope it makes sense.

But, the govt. does not bother with these things, it just declares a new standard. That applies to cars. Should also apply to appliances, washing machines, water use vs. time to wash 1 load (And thus energy per consumed per minute).

Thus they can, if so desired, find the right compromise n between water used, & time to finish, etc. figuring out the size of ball bearings may not be so simple, but I think the system applies.