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Saving Electricity (1998 – 2023)
- simonebrunozzi 3y ago> Front-loading washers use 40-75% less water and 30-85% less energy than typical top-loaders. It's not clear to me why front-loading washers are more efficient than top-loaders. Is there something inherent in the design? Or is it simply that top-loaders are "old"?
- ggm 3y agoFront loading washers churn the washed material through a trough of water in the bottom 1/4 to 1/3 Top loaders churn them around in a bath of water. Designing a top loader to cycle water over churning clothes would probably demand more complexity and energy than tumbling in a horizontal drum. Tl;Dr less water has to exist to pass clothes through it if it's a horizontal rotating cylinder of clothes. Plus the tumbling is mechanically beneficial to cleaning. Top loaders are being scraped and agitated, front loaders tumble. OTOH top loaders can take larger loads. At a cost of more water. I believe the spin cycle may also distribute better horizontally. Less likely to become a disc around the centre so more efficient centrifuging. (Have had both btw. Currently a front loader from LG which plays a typically korean perky "I'm done here" tune at the end)
- cantrevealname 3y agoI presume they use less water because a front-loading washer can saturate all the clothes with a shallow pool of water in a sideways rotating drum whereas a top loader could not possibly soak all the clothes in a vertical drum unless it fills completely with water. I assume that less hot water means less water to heat, so less energy used. (Heating water uses much more energy than a motor, so the motor running longer in a front loader isn't a big factor in energy usage.) But no matter how efficient they are, I hate front-loading washers. A top loader can wash a load in 20 minutes; front loaders takes hours. That means extra noise for many hours and inability to do multiple loads quickly. And usually front loaders have a much smaller capacity than top loaders. Furthermore, once a front loader starts, it locks the door to prevent water spillage, but this prevents you from throwing in extra items that you found or taking items out part way through. And front loaders cost more, are harder to repair, and end up smelling bad (probably because of the rubber gasket--needed to waterproof the door--that accumulates gunk).
- rzzzt 3y agoWhat is the name of those "top loaders" that also have a horizontal drum with a locking escape hatch on the side? My mind went immediately to those when seeing the word.
- b112 3y agoHow could it be a top loader, if the drum isn't open at te top?
- fabioborellini 3y agoThat’s exactly and literally what top loaders are in Europe. The drum has a hatch and the machine tries to position it next to the outer hatch for unloading.
- rzzzt 3y agoThere is a section of the drum that opens and closes. You rotate the drum to align the opening of the outer shell on the top, also protected by a door.
- Rygian 3y agoHere's a pic: https://ibb.co/QcMwqnm https://ibb.co/QcMwqnm
- kelnos 3y ago> A top loader can wash a load in 20 minutes; front loaders takes hours. This doesn't seem accurate. The regular permanent press cycle on my front loader completes in about 40 minutes. There's also a "quick wash" cycle that takes about 20 minutes. The last top loader I used also took quite a bit more time than 20 minutes. This was a good 25 years ago, so maybe they were just slower then.
- LUmBULtERA 3y agoI agree, this doesn't match my experience at all. I recently replaced a top loader that took about 30-45 minutes a load with a front loader of similar capacity. The front loader does all loads in about 30 to 35 minutes.
- winrid 3y agoFront loaders also have more maintenance on average... If we're talking cost not sure you'll save that much once first repair comes.
- tralarpa 3y agoWhat kind of maintenance do they need? Maybe I'm doing something wrong :)
- wrp 3y agoThe front-loaders I've encountered seemed to have more electronics to fail and had less sturdy load-bearing parts.
- rzzzt 3y agoThe main bearing has an unfortunate position in that it has to hold up the weight of the drum + clothes on one side and so experiences uneven wear.
- tralarpa 3y agoHow does that manifest itself? I'm asking because I'm pretty sure that no washing machine in my extended family (parents, siblings, etc.) has broken down because of this in the last 45 years. All but one have made it well over 12 years. Three had problems during their lifetime: One needed a new control board, two needed a new waste water pump. (I know all this because I recently had to replace our 17-year-old washing machine and I wanted to know which brand to buy)
- rzzzt 3y agoIt should get noisy and rotate less freely then ultimately seize up. From there it depends on the drive type, in direct drives the motor burns, in belt drives the belt gets worn.
- jimhefferon 3y agoWe have several times experienced having to change the electronic board. It cost more than buying a new washer. The electronics does many many options, almost none of which we care about. I would just like a button or dial, and just press go but there are no units like that on the market.
- wrp 3y agoI wonder about real total savings. When I use a front-loader, I generally have to run the rinse cycle twice to get the detergent out. I also have to distribute the clothes into more and smaller loads.
- Retric 3y agoUse less detergent in your front loader. Less water takes less energy to heat and less detergent to have the same concentration.
- wrp 3y agoI have through trial and error determined how much detergent is required to get clothes clean in a particular machine. A front-loader does require less detergent since it uses less water and has the clothes sit longer, but that does not resolve the problem of rinsing. It is the rinse cycle, not the wash cycle, that needs to be run twice.
- b112 3y agoUse 1/2 a cup of vinegar in the rinse, as an acid, it neutralizes the soap. It also help remove smells. Front loaders get mold too, fun fact, mold eats soap. So vinegar helps here too. Downside? Clothes wear and fade faster.
- switch007 3y agoIndeed. Here in the EU we’re basically gaslit over this kind of eco stuff. To me, clothes just don’t come out as clean as they used to. I always use the extra rinse button on my front loader and a temperature of 60C to approach the kind of washes we had the 90s and 00s
- amelius 3y agoDo clothes really need to be 100% clean? I know people who never wash their jeans to reduce wear, and they seem to have no problem with it. (They do occasionally put their jeans in the freezer overnight to kill germs).
- tobylane 3y agoI see only front-loaders in Europe, and a mix favouring top-loaders in North America. Could it be that Europe (consumers or the EU) has encouraged efficiency more?
- Reason077 3y agoYes, energy efficiency requirements are definitely the driver behind front-loaders becoming universal in Europe. But in recent years, they've also come to dominate the market in many other countries that aren't bound by those requirements.
- nottorp 3y agoDepending on your local climate, I'm not sure the ceiling fan advice works any more. Not on 39-40 C summer days.
- 10u152 3y agoYeah agreed. Especially in humid climates. Like saying turn off all the lights and use a head torch. Like yes it will save energy. Also very uncomfortable and inconvenient.
- nottorp 3y agoAt 40 outside we're going beyond uncomfortable towards health threatening.
- richrichie 3y agoIt does for a billion+ people who cannot afford aircon and use ceiling fans.
- nottorp 3y agoI don't think it "works". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Asia_heat_wave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Asia_heat_wave ~200 deaths and ~450 hospitalizations is "works"?
- throwaway40470 3y agoWhy are you assuming those hospitalizations and deaths happened indoor and inside homes where ceiling fans are installed?
- switch007 3y agoThe article details closed schools etc. Presumably many of the places closed also had ceiling fans and therefore deemed insufficient to counteract the health crisis
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- nonrandomstring 3y agoBookmarked this amazing collection of resources! Would love to see more on e-waste minimisation too, as I was shocked to read how much electricity (and potable water) goes into manufacturing and disposing of devices.
- schiffern 3y agoTwo things I never see mentioned as being 'green,' even though they incontrovertibly are: * Use a good ad blocker, eg uBlock Origin. Consider enabling Medium or Hard Mode.[0] Ad & analytics servers use electricity too, so the fewer connections the greener! * Watch videos at (gasp) lower resolution. Even with CDNs, mostly your internet electricity footprint is just a function of the total data transferred. I find videos are perfectly watchable at 360-380p resolution, and I'll only occasionally switch to HD if there's very small text. Of course both tips help make the most of older hardware, which extends device longevity. [0] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Blocking-mode
- nefrix 3y agoThanks for sharing. Really interesting website
- sunshine_reggae 3y ago[dead]
- Johnny555 3y agoAvoid using energy-hungry appliances during peak hours.... ovens/stoves We've gotten pretty good at shifting most of our use out of peak hours, but when peak runs from 4pm-9pm, it's hard to avoid cooking during that period (which, I suppose, is one reason that's the peak). Though we have shifted most of our oven cooking to a small convection toaster oven, which should save at least some electricity.
- oliwarner 3y agoA few KWh battery storage helps no end here. We've shifted all our usage out of peak, even selling energy back at a higher price when we have spare.
- Johnny555 3y agoI couldn't make the math work on home battery storage. The difference between peak and non-peak is 37 cents, so if I shift 5KW of usage from peak to non-peak, that's $675/year in power savings, but the cost to install a whole house system that could shift my home's peak usage would be in the $10,000 range. If my next EV can act as a battery for the house, that may shift the economics since I'd have a "free" 80KWh+ battery (and inverter? Not sure if the car acts as an inverter too), so would only be paying for the wiring. As far as I know, my utility won't buy back power at peak rates, the best I could get is a credit to offset my power usage, which only makes sense if I have solar (which is not simple since I live in a condo without a lot of roof area even if I could get permission for solar)
- oliwarner 3y agoYeah, having a functional energy market definitely helps make these things make sense. We have half-hourly, bidirectional metering, and being able to save solar and sell it at a good rate means the payback period is looking like 7 years for us. Our grid is also experimenting with paying people to borrow their batteries for predicted high usage events, up to £25 for one event. I guess this means nothing if you can't access it but hopefully it's a model that spreads.
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- Franscoben 3y ago[dead]
- steren 3y agoDon't save electricity. Switch to high efficiency electrical appliances (notably heat pump heating, cooling, water heating) Add home battery to store electrical energy when cheap (potentially from your own solar panel) and use when expensive. Then let your country / state lower the electricity carbon intensity. We must electrify
- occz 3y ago>Don't save electricity. Switch to high efficiency electrical appliances (notably heat pump heating, cooling, water heating) We can do both - switch everything to electric, and simultaneously adopt habits that limit waste of these. Obviously, don't save electricity by using carbon intensive energy sources, that'd be counterproductive. I agree with the rest of your comment.
- tuatoru 3y ago> Switch to ... heat pump ... water heating Given that where I live installing a heat pump water heater costs over 20 years' water heating electricity consumption for me, and it would still use some electricity, so the payback period would be even longer: no, thank you. Every so often I do the calculation to see if replacing my fridge would be worth it. The payback period is about 15 to 18 years for that. A new fridge would have more even temperatures throughout the cabinet and better temperature control, and be quieter, so I still review it every now and then. Obviously my internal discount rate for investments is over 6.7%.
- nostrademons 3y agoSome of these seem a little out-of-date given technology improvements since 1998 - it looks like he updated the numbers & notes but not the conclusions. Lighting is almost never a major household energy user since the development of modern LED lights. Their efficiency increased so dramatically in the incandescent -> flourescent -> compact flourescent -> LED transition that you can leave a whole household of lights going all day and it'll take less energy than one clothes dryer load. Same goes for refrigeration - modern refrigerators and chest freezers are extremely well-insulated, and use negligible electricity amortized over a day. This also has implications for power outages - many folks don't realize that you can get one of those portable emergency battery backs and it'll power your fridge for days, so if you're prepared it's relatively easy to avoid having your food spoil in a power outage. Washing machines, other mechanical appliances like dishwashers, and even heat pump water heaters are also not huge contributors - advances in electric motors have made them very efficient. The biggest remaining culprits are HVAC, EVs, clothes dryers, electric ovens, and anything with a heating element. This is largely inherent in the thermodynamics - 1 kwh of electricity is only 3412 BTUs, so mimicking the 15,000 - 25,000 BTUs of a gas range is around 5 kwh. Heat pumps can help a little for large-volume heating, but current technology has a max efficiency of about 400%, and a theoretical thermodynamic max for reasonably safe evaporator & condenser temperatures is about 700-800%. The secret to higher efficiency with electric heating is to heat less volume, which is the principal behind induction cooktops (heat just the pan instead of the whole stove), electric kettles (heat just the water instead of the whole stove), and toaster ovens (heat 1-2 cf instead of 5-6cf). If you can, replacing a clothes dryer with a drying rack can yield very big dividends. A single full-size dryer load is about 5 kwh; a clothesline is free. In our family-with-young-children-and-gas-heat before getting an EV, the clothes dryer was about 40-50% of our household energy usage all by itself.
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago> In our family-with-young-children-and-gas-heat before getting an EV, the clothes dryer was about 40-50% of our household energy usage all by itself. A decade ago when I still had young babies and were cloth diapering, we hung dried as much as possible so I definitely concur. However unless you live in phoenix az, it's not a year round solution, and you end up using the Dryer a lot no matter what. The biggest culprit IMO is that humans aren't building housing based around the ecological area because it's "too expensive" for property developers to do the architectural and environmental planning necessary for 100+ year multi-generation, multi-family homes. We generally raze an area, and then build what is basically an ecologically dead zone for up to 5 people with imported non-native grasses (lawn) and plants that aren't built for the ecology of the area to last a maximum of 30-50 years [1][2] Said another way, everything you write is correct, but it's basically moot because human society building and growing in such a way that it is mathematically impossible to be ecologically sustainable. [1]https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl... [2]https://mosbybuildingarts.com/from-boom-to-break-down-the-problems-of-homes-built-between-1997-and-2007/ https://mosbybuildingarts.com/from-boom-to-break-down-the-pr...
- hscontinuity 3y agoThere are some things that make sense and others that will not. Changing light bulbs to all LED is simple and economical. Buying a new car that gets better gas mileage and/or moving to an EV or EVH doesn't actually make sense unless you intend to use that car over a period of time that actually amortizes it. That's why it is generally not a great idea to lease a vehicle. But this is contrary to popular belief because there is no catch-all for everyone. I have a 30 mile commute. If I maintain my vehicle and add in fuel costs, it is cheaper to maintain an older vehicle and fuel it than it is to try and amortize the cost of a new vehicle over it's span. That is, in my humble opinion. If I apply the same techniques here, you have to make decisions about how you live your life in the domicle you've chosen. You'd think it... common sense not to leave the lights on, radio (or BT speaker, whatever 2024), fridge doors open, preheating your stove or oven unintentionally or without focus (preheating and being distracted, wasteful). Ultimately technology won't save us. Hopefully common sense will. Hopefully. But we know how hopeful things go.
- SillyUsername 3y agoAs somebody who has just received an £450 ($600 USD) quarterly electric bill this article was relevant. Unfortunately I'm doing everything already it suggests and I'm still using 4000kWh yearly.
- KTibow 3y agoDid I do my math wrong or is your price per KWh 12 times what it is in the States?
- leobg 3y agoGermany is about 50 cents per kWh. It’s bonkers.
- SillyUsername 3y ago~£0.29 per KWh (around 25c per KWh)
- uconnectlol 3y agoyou live in a bubble on the web. LEDs - flicker, CRI, incompatible dimmers and/or dc converters. $50USD min price per bulb if you want anything near quality (of just a $1 incandescent bulb). the problem is the price of power, not the product. "modern" dishwashers - after 1995 or so they don't actually clean your dishes. i used 20. i clean the filter / chopper regularly. i rinse off my dishes which are already barely soiled to begin with since i don't eat fast food. no matter how you place the dishes, there will always be a few with food stuck on them. fucking disgusting. ac - it exists for a reason, you are more productive as an obvious corollary to being less lethargic. although it is true that lots of people are oblivious and don't just open the window on a nice day. you also need it to prevent moisture build up (to avoid rotting wood, mold) and stagnant air. while we're at it we have to talk about heating: i don't know the numbers but i'd say in winter you need it at 16C-17C at all times to avoid mold / condensation / rotting wood. front loading laundry - i used 5. they mold in the front after 1 use. you have to leave the door open all the time, not even for just half an hour. and you need a fan in front of it. they construe the fact that it uses "almost no water" as "it's using super advanced methods". given the general incompetence of the tech industry, one with common sense takes this as "it doesn't clean your laundry". the gasket on the front of each and every single one has a unique and overpowering smell if you go anywhere near it that feels like breathing in knockout gas, and it doesn't go away even years after purchase. to put it into perspective, it's like 10x stronger than what comes out of annoying kids' vapes. clothes line - your clothes will have germs (the dryer is the part that kills them, not the washer) and mold on days when it's not hot and arid. you require a cell phone to do basic banking stuff and security theater that has to be replaced every 4 years at the bare minimum due to bitrot. and requires being smart for covid or school shit. it still takes 30 sec to load a web page that uses 100% cpu. you're not allowed to talk about being efficient, stop making me pay more for what little tech actually works. > And if you really want to lessen your carbon footprint, you'll also want to look into eating less meat and driving less. that's great, i do both of those things more than you, from the looks of your profile picture. now stop charging me (you are responsible as a voter) for the modern versions of basic human needs.
- wolverine876 3y ago> Almost no manufacturer whose products are sold in the U.S. bothers to publish energy and water use per load specs in their user manuals or on their websites. They also don't tell you the temperature they use for Hot and Warm settings. That has been a problem for me too, and I've even contacted the manufacturer. How much energy do I save using cycle A over cycle B? It would be nice to make an informed choice. Edit: It applies to clothes washers, clothes dryers, and to dishwashers. For dryers: I don't grasp how the cycles differ in energy consumption. Evaporating away that mass of water will require a certain amount of energy. I see (non-physics-informed) people who advocate running dryers on a cooler cycle, but does that help? Doesn't it use the same amount of heat energy but spread out over a longer time, which would increase the drum-spinning energy required? I could imagine that somehow the cooler cycle is more efficient due to convection rate or something similar, but is it?
- tuatoru 3y agoThe traditional approach to quantifying these things is to buy a Kill-a-watt[1]. Manufacturers don't know about the electricity supply situation (brownouts/sag, line condition, etc.) in your area so the best they could do is ideal numbers. Yours might be 20% worse. Welcome to the rabbit hole of home energy use monitoring! 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_A_Watt
- wolverine876 3y agoI own a Kill-a-watt, somewhere. Question: Why do you trust its numbers? I've seen similar consumer tech - step counters, etc. - fail when validated.