So if you don’t have kids or pets in the house there’s a chance it’ll live forever. Between kids and a golden retriever I’m screwed! Lol
Is our EPA short-sighted WRT appliance requirements?
- Thread starter Ashful
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil. -
Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here
So if you don’t have kids or pets in the house there’s a chance it’ll live forever. Between kids and a golden retriever I’m screwed! Lol
I could have told you that before you got them - even unrelated to refrigerators 🤣
I got a GE fridge a couple years ago. It was the first launch with a new refrigerant. I think it was pentane? Iospropane?
My only beef is that the efficiency is not much better than my year 2000 model, (and lost the in door water/ice to achieve the gain). And that is is loud. Like I can hear the compressor in a neighboring room, slightly.
I thought it might be defective due to the noise, but apparently newer models are just noisy.
I got used to it.
My only beef is that the efficiency is not much better than my year 2000 model, (and lost the in door water/ice to achieve the gain). And that is is loud. Like I can hear the compressor in a neighboring room, slightly.
I thought it might be defective due to the noise, but apparently newer models are just noisy.
I got used to it.
I think that is the key - avoid any in-door convenience feature (water dispensing, ice maker/dispenser) and reliability goes way up.
In door features also run into repair stupidity; having to replace a whole door if one plastic piece connected to the switch of the ice maker supply breaks....
I used to always argue that everyone was making their recommendations based on totally irrelevant experience with products a company made 10 years ago. After all, how long does management, engineering, or production staff even stay constant in any appliance manufacturing company? How much does their product of today really have in common with the one you bought in 2012?
However, refrigerators seem to die at such a fast pace today, that my experience is damn near current. We've been in our house 13 years, and we've replaced our kitchen refrigerator no less than 4 times. Honestly, it might be 5... it gets difficult to even keep track, the last one lasted less than two years.
With refrigerators installed in six locations in this house, I'm honestly not sure how many I've bought in the last decade, but definitely double digits. My worst luck has been with Sanyo and LG, I don't think you could convince me to buy those brands again. But we also had a compressor failure on a Kitchenaid at 20 months of age.
Our current main kitchen unit is a GE, and within a month or two of installation, something started rattling in the back when the compressor is running. If this were ten years ago, I'd pull it out, find the problem and fix it. But knowing I'll probably be replacing the damn thing in less than 2 years, I'm not even going to bother.
If the EPA really cared about the environment, you'd think they'd look at the number of refrigerators we're all land-filling and all of the impact of building and replacing major appliances with such frequency, versus our parents generation when these things lasted 30+ years. I have had more than one refrigeration tech tell me that most failures are due to EPA mandates on how much refrigerant a residential refrigerator can carry, essentially causing compressor failures due to dry cavitation of the compressor, if indoor temperature is too low, or if the refrigerator is over-stuffed causing poor airflow to the evaporator, or if a small amount has leaked from the system.
Last edited:
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
And the EPAs solution was to reduce the allowed amount of refrigerant. I guess they could mandate extended warranties like they did with exhaust systems that were failing.
On the other hand I have had mine running here for 7 years and the one in TN for 11 years without issues.
I would point (again) to your power cleanliness (see the LED thread) for your situation, with a failure rate that I think is (anecdotally) not very common...
Likewise, our GE has been running for a dozen years. The only issue happened this year, the ice maker failed. We're back to making ice cubes the old fashioned way, in trays.
The trouble with that theory is that I have four central AC systems in this house, one of which has been running continuously here since 1986, and another since 1995 just replaced recently due to a leaky coil... not compressor failures. If electrical power were the culprit, rather than refrigerant charge, you'd expect the other half-dozen heat pumps I have running on this property to have similar failure rates, not just the refrigerators.
Nothing whole-house. I have some big UPS's and mains filters on some key branch circuits, and some nice power monitoring hardware, but nothing really for whole-house power conditioning.
So, here's the thing... it's only our primary kitchen refrigerators that seem to fail so quickly. I have five others in the house, one as old as 1995, three from 2015, and one from 2018... all still running fine. But they see relatively light usage, less than 5 door openings per day and at least four of them are never overloaded, versus the kitchen refrigerator that probably sees 50+ door openings per day and is often packed to the gills. Oddly enough, one of those 2015 units is a fixed under-counter freezer, and that's pretty much always packed to where you need to lean on the door to close it... yet it still runs fine.
If I recall, you're an empty-nester, so the amount of abuse your refrigerator takes is not going to be comparable to a house hosting a couple of teenagers. That could be part of the trouble, just net run time dictated by how often the door is opened everyday.
My mother still has the refrigerator I grew up with, I think she purchased it ca.1985, installed in her garage. I'm half tempted to take it when she moves next year, install it in my kitchen, and just see how long it lasts! My wife would hate it, small by today's standards and an ugly almond wrinkle finish, but I wouldn't be surprised if the damn thing outlasts all of us.
Unless the older equipment is better able to handle power issues - as was indeed one of your arguments earlier (either here or in the LED thread)...?
More robust, versus more modern (efficient) and less robust...?
We had 2 boys when I got the refrig. and it is always packed to the gills. With a pro chef for a wife, it probably gets opened a bit more than normal, especially during the growing season. We've only been empty nesters since the end of the pandemic. One son was still living with us. Rural power here with fairly high voltage (125vac) and about 2-3 outages a year.So, here's the thing... it's only our primary kitchen refrigerators that seem to fail so quickly. I have five others in the house, one as old as 1995, three from 2015, and one from 2018... all still running fine. But they see relatively light usage, less than 5 door openings per day and at least four of them are never overloaded, versus the kitchen refrigerator that probably sees 50+ door openings per day and is often packed to the gills. Oddly enough, one of those 2015 units is a fixed under-counter freezer, and that's pretty much always packed to where you need to lean on the door to close it... yet it still runs fine.
brenndatomu
Minister of Fire
They don't...it's all about money and power...well, there may be a new guy or two that still cares, but they'll beat that outta them too...
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
I’m an optimist. I think Regan cares. He dealt with the genX dumping down here in a manner that demonstrated to me Al least that he cared. Read his bio.
Michael S. Regan - Wikipedia
I honestly doubt it. In the LED thread, we were talking about two different technologies, comparing incandescent to LED with regard to how well or poorly it handles over-voltage. But that probably doesn't extend to "heat pump versus heat pump". Besides, not all of my HVAC heat pumps are new, they were installed: 1986, 1995, 2012, 2015, 2020, 2023. None have failed, but the 1995 unit was replaced with the 2020 unit, due to a leaky condenser coil.
I've been thinking back thru the failures that I can remember, and they are as follows:
1. 2009 or 2010 vintage KitchenAid side-by-side, compressor failure. The unit was low on refrigerant, and this spurred the compressor failure. Repair tech was confident it was caused by low refrigerant, not power issues.
2. 2011 or 2012 vintage unit, would need to dig to even find the brand. Cause of failure not diagnosed, since it was out of warranty and I was too busy to dick around with it.
3. 2019 unit, maybe Maytag(?). Failure was problematic condensate drain causing frequent flooding on our floor, starting just a few months after installation. Dealt with thawing it and clearing it several times over 3 years, before getting frustrated and just asking dealer to cart it away and landfill it.
4. 2022 LG, seemed like a cooling fan failure. Ultimately not diagnosed, since dealer needed 10 days just to send a warranty repair tech, to tell us if it could be repaired. Predicted another week or two past that to order parts and execute repair, and we just couldn't be without a refrigerator for 3-4 weeks, so trashed it even thought it was still under warranty.
5. 2024 GE, working okay so far, but starting to make some weird noises while running.
So, of these four failures (and one pending), it seems the 2022 unit might be related to power. Possibly even the 2011/12 unit, but unlikely. The others do not appear to have any relation to power quality, but to be fair, probably only the older two were related to refrigerant load.
Also, to be fair, I said "more than one refrigerant tech" told me it was related to the amount of refrigerant loaded into the system, which is only half true. One technician indeed told me that with regard to a failed refrigerator, but the other was actually referring to a failed dehumidifier I had asked them to dispose of, when making the same statement. We run 3 dehumidifiers in our basement, not that it's very wet, but it's broken up into three distinct spaces by thick stone walls. One unit is from the 1990's and might outlive me, but looking at my Amazon purchase history, I can see I'm replacing one of the other two every 2nd year.
Last edited:
I hope so. And I wasn't pretending to know anything about whatever former administration passed the latest mandates impacting refrigerator and/or dehumidifier reliability. But it seems clear to me that any changes that can impact reliability could have unintended consequences, if it increases product replacement frequency.I’m an optimist. I think Regan cares. He dealt with the genX dumping down here in a manner that demonstrated to me Al least that he cared. Read his bio.
Michael S. Regan - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
Mandates and regulations are parameters that present engineering challenges. Companies make decisions and I think this really should fall on them. How much more reliable could the products been if they spent an extra $300 on that aspect. I would have paid it. This is t just an issue for appliances. Why is my new diesel van running 5w-30? It not because it’s the oil that is best for the motor. And if MB has denied warranty claims for not using MB spec oils.
Similar threads
- Poll
