On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:07:27 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Jun 28, 8:50*am, "Edwin Pawlowski" wrote:
wrote in message
. But don't believe the hype about it paying for itself in 5
years.

Why not?

.



I'm not generalizing. I'm pointing out that my case demonstrated
that the EPA energy star savings claimed are wrong. Proving it wrong
in one straightforward case is enough to suggest that people should
NOT just believe the stated hype.

You made the above statement: "Don't believe the hype about paying for
itself in 5 years"

My findings say mine repaid itself in 4 years.


I had asked exactly how you determined this. Did you put a Killowatt
meter or similar on it and actually measure it like I did?





*I don't doubt that in your
case things may be different, but every case is different.

I seriously doubt that individual Frigidaire refrigerators that are
the same exact model are going to vary so much in energy usage so as
to be off 44% from the EPA estimate. It's a whopping big difference
between $327 and $185 per year to operate. Especially since the EPA
estimate for the new refrigerator was spot on to what I measured over
a couple of days.




*The payback
depends on electric rates, cost of the appliance, efficiency of the old one,
and a few other variables. *All of that adds up to the fact that you will be
wrong in many cases. *You cannot make a blanket statement based on one set
of circumstances where variables affect the outcome.

The payback was not based on some generic information that did not
take the above into account. It was based on the savings calculator
on the EPA website. Have you been there? It has you enter not only
your cost of electricity, but the exact model of the old
refrigerator. That's what it used to come up with the $327 a year
cost to operate and the $1100 savings in 5 years, which it turns out
is off by over 2X from what I measured.





I agree that people should not take every statement as hard fact, but let
their circumstances decide what is best for them. *Had I bought a more
expensive model like I want in the kitchen, the payback would be a lot
longer. *You just need to clarify that your statement fits your
circumstances and other's will be different.


All I said was not to believe the hype from the EPA calculator about a
new energy star refrigerator paying for itself in 5 years, because the
numbers I got out of it are highly suspect.

Maybe your frig is highly suspect, or your meter is highly suspect.
One incident against a whole bunch of testing, I know which I'd trust.