New Appliances Can Save You Money

molerat

I know you will all say "of course it will" but here is my real world experience.

For the past few years my average daily consumption has been 8.5 to 9.5 kWh, pretty consistent all year round with the Christmas decorations pushing December to around 10 kWh.

Late April the washing machine decided it was unhappy so time for a new one.  My April average was 8.3 kWh with only using the new machine for a week, pretty much an all time low.  May average, using the machine for a whole month, went down to 8.1 kWh.

Near the end of June the 140 litre upright freezer decided to die.  We bought an emergency 100 litre chest freezer and with only one week of use the June average was down to 8.0 kWh.  The new replacement 270 litre upright freezer arrived 1st July and so far this month the daily average is down to 7.2 kWh.

No lifestyle changes have happened, just the new appliances are using less energy and am looking at around a 15% reduction just with these 2 new items.

Dolor

It is not quite that simple. You need to consider not just the cost of the energy saved but also the cost of depreciation on the new white goods, plus the loss of interest on capital.

It is the case, for the  reasons above, that it is better to stick with an inefficient 15 year old gas boiler than to buy a new one. That said, we all do it and then use ‘man maths’ to justify the expenditure.

molerat

Where in my post did I suggest going out and buying new appliances just to save on energy costs ?

MattMattMattUK

molerat said:

I know you will all say "of course it will" but here is my real world experience.

For the past few years my average daily consumption has been 8.5 to 9.5 kWh, pretty consistent all year round with the Christmas decorations pushing December to around 10 kWh.

Late April the washing machine decided it was unhappy so time for a new one.  My April average was 8.3 kWh with only using the new machine for a week, pretty much an all time low.  May average, using the machine for a whole month, went down to 8.1 kWh.

Near the end of June the 140 litre upright freezer decided to die.  We bought an emergency 100 litre chest freezer and with only one week of use the June average was down to 8.0 kWh.  The new replacement 270 litre upright freezer arrived 1st July and so far this month the daily average is down to 7.2 kWh.

No lifestyle changes have happened, just the new appliances are using less energy and am looking at around a 15% reduction just with these 2 new items.

There can be huge differences between older, especially potentially failing products, eg. most fridges lose some efficiency as they start to fail due to loss of coolant, so they might be running less efficiently than they are rated even before they finally fail and need to be replaced. A modern F rated fridge/freezer (which was in the old A+++ category) will use 288kWh pa, a rough cost of £86.40 pa. and has a cost of £779, the higher efficiency, but comparable in all other ways model (from the same brand) costs £899 but only uses 185kWh pa, so a cost of £55.50 pa. That makes a saving of £30.90 per year which means the break even point between the two models is 39 months (ignoring inflation). Over the expected ten year life of the fridge/freezer the more expensive model would work out over £200 cheaper. Your example represents around £120 pa in energy savings so your break even point is going to be a few years away, but well within the expected product life and a very good example of real world savings. 

This is the same with many things and why many of us look at TCO not just initial cost, often a greater initial outlay saves more in the long run (Same Vimes "Boots" theory / false economy), both in terms of running costs, repairs and longer product life. One of the biggest differences when comparing TCO currently appears to be EVs where the TCO is considerably lower for most based on current operating costs and depreciation. More people really should look at the TCO when buying new products, TCO has lead in business procurement for years, but in their personal lives most people ignore it entirely. 

DullGreyGuy

molerat said:

Where in my post did I suggest going out and buying new appliances just to save on energy costs ?

The title... 

New Appliances Can Save You Money

Pretty much says that.

New appliances can reduce your daily running costs, but if they can save you money you have to consider the acquisition, maintenance, loss of capital etc. There it becomes much harder to say on a net present value basis

EssexHebridean

Particularly on the washing machine there is another factor at play too I suspect - modern machines have a tendency to be larger than older ones, so less loads are needed for the same amount of washing. That in turn will also help to drive down costs. 

molerat

EssexHebridean said:

Particularly on the washing machine there is another factor at play too I suspect - modern machines have a tendency to be larger than older ones, so less loads are needed for the same amount of washing. That in turn will also help to drive down costs. 

The washing machine is no bigger than the old one but it is much cleverer.  It used to take up to 2.5 hours for some of the washes, now generally under 1.5 hours.  It weighs the load and adds the water / adjusts the time as necessary.  The spin also times according to how much water is coming out, if no water coming out no point spinning any longer and with an 800w motor can make a fair difference to the cost. Also the spin speed, which varies the energy used, does not go flat out but increases with the reduction in water coming out.

CSI_Yorkshire

DullGreyGuy said:

molerat said:

Where in my post did I suggest going out and buying new appliances just to save on energy costs ?

The title... 

New Appliances Can Save You Money

Pretty much says that.

New appliances can reduce your daily running costs, but if they can save you money you have to consider the acquisition, maintenance, loss of capital etc. There it becomes much harder to say on a net present value basis

"Buying a new appliance when your old one breaks might result in lower ongoing operating costs" would have been a more accurate yet cumbersome title based on the rest of the opening post. 

Dolor

The washing machine is no bigger than the old one but it is much cleverer.

Time isn’t everything. We replaced our old tumble dryer with a heat pump version (A+++ as it then was) two years ago. The old tumble dryer dried clothes in just over an hour using about 2.3kWh of electricity. Our heat pump tumble dryer takes 3hr+ and uses an average of 1.1kWh with a maximum power input of 550W.