mike wrote:
My refrigerator is 36 years old. Still going strong, but
if you believe published efficiency numbers, it's costing
me a hundred bux a year more than it would for a new one.
Payback calculations depend on your assumptions for the
time value of money and inflation in energy cost. Just looking
at the cash flow, the break even point is 7 years or so.
Looks marginal, but let's save the planet. Off
I went to look at refrigerators.

While chatting with the guy at Sears, he "disclosed" that
the smaller compressors run much longer at higher pressure
and they only
last 6 to 7 years. If true, that negates all the savings.

Is there any relevant data relating to service life of the
newer, high-efficiency home refrigerators?
mike

I saw a little dorm room refrigerator
at Wal-Mart the other day that has no
compressor. It's the first solid state
refrigerator I've seen on the mass market
that runs off regular line current. It
uses a Peltier cooling device. The only
moving part is the fan. It will be quite
interesting to see if the technology is
ever scaled up to the size of your typical
kitchen refrigerator.

[8~{} Uncle Monster