How to buy a super model - The Healthiest Home Appliances

Natural Health, March, 2002 by Melissa Nachatelo

YOU MAY THINK THAT YOUR HOME appliances work just fine, but can they lower environmental pollution, save you money, and reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals? Thanks to stricter government standards and technological innovations, new models can. Here's how to buy the best refrigerators, clothes washers, and dishwashers on the market.

RELATED ARTICLE: Ozone-friendly refrigerators.

A REFRIGERATOR SITTING IN YOUR kitchen to keep your food fresh seems innocent enough. But a refrigerator drains more electric power than any other home appliance. An older fridge can expend 1,700 kilowatt-hours (kWh) or more of electricity a year, the equivalent of powering 28,300 60-watt light bulbs for one hour. The fossil fuels burned to produce the electricity needed to run refrigerators release carbon dioxide, a polluting gas that contributes to global warming. Refrigerator models made before 1994 may be insulated with chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which also damage the earth's atmosphere. And because refrigerators run for 24 hours a day, they're unkind to your wallet, ringing up 15 percent of your home's energy bill.

Incredibly, a regular new fridge runs on 70 percent less energy (650 kwh per year) than a '70s appliance, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. If you buy a machine to replace a 20-year-old refrigerator, it can lower the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment by about one ton per year, and it doesn't use ozone-depleting CFCs. Credit better compressors, heat exchangers, and insulating materials for these improvements, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Star program in Washington, D.C. (The Energy Star label identifies home appliances that are considered to be the most efficient of their kind by the U.S. government.)

Stricter energy and safety standards enacted last year by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) require all new fridges to improve upon the old. But the degree of efficiency varies, so keep the following rules of thumb in mind: Models larger than 20 cubic feet burn more energy than smaller ones. (The trade-off is worth it for families of four or more.) Bottom-freezer versions have an edge, because your kitchen floor and the refrigerator on top insulate the frigid air. Top-freezer fridges rate second, and side-by-side refrigerator-freezers are the least efficient. Their doors' large perimeters leak significant amounts of cool air every time you open them. Avoid water dispensers, which add to the amount of electricity and water your fridge consumes. Ice-makers also use more energy.

Most high-quality energy-efficient 18-cubic-foot refrigerators cost between $550 and $1,000. A new model could pay for itself in about nine years by reducing your energy bills by up to $80 per year, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a nonprofit energy efficiency organization in Snowmass, Colo.

RELATED ARTICLE: No-waste clothes washers.

IMAGINE A STORE SHELF LOADED WITH 35 to 48 one-gallon water jugs. That's how much water gushes through a typical top-loading washing machine every time you run an extra-large load. Fortunately, new efficiency standards for clothes washers go into effect in January 2004. They will require washers to be 22 percent more efficient than today's models. In the meantime, companies like Kenmore, Maytag, and Whirlpool are offering high-tech machines that cut water use by at least 40 percent and energy use by up to 67 percent.

Some of the most innovative washing machines are literally turning laundry on its side. Also known as horizontal-axis washers, these front-loading machines (Asko is one brand) use much less water than top loaders. Their wash basins spin like a Ferris wheel through a trough of water, so that the machine needs only 5.7 to 21 gallons of water for the entire cycle. (Top-loading washers fill up completely with water, so they use much

Energy-Defying Dishwashers

EIGHTY PERCENT OF A DISHWASHER'S energy consumption comes from firing up your water heater, reports the DOE. An older dishwasher may go through up to 18 gallons of heated water in a normal cycle.

The good news is that now there are much smarter dishwashers on the market. Some need an average of only 4.5 gallons of water per cycle. Many efficient models conserve the energy used to heat water with a special booster inside the machine, which heats just a small volume of water to sanitize your dishes. New models also reduce your need for detergent, which usually contains phosphates that can ultimately pollute drinking water. They clean your dishes with as little as one tablespoon.

Sensors in some machines tailor the number of wash cycles needed to clean based on the amount of dirt and soil in the rinse water. Also look for a no-heat drying cycle that circulates air from the room instead of heating the air in the dishwasher. And nearly all energy-efficient brands reduce noise pollution in your home. They use rubber hoses as buffers rather than connecting pumps directly to the motor, and they insulate with heavy felt pads rather than fiberglass. Thanks to these measures, some new models lower noise levels from the older models' 100 decibels down to 51 decibels, the volume equivalent of leaving a highway full of tractor-trailers for residential street.