This post will give a brief overview of different appliances we use every day, often without thinking about how much electricity they consume and how significant savings can be achieved. That is until we get an inexplicably big electricity bill! However, this topic is undoubtedly attracting more and more attention. The home appliance industry has rightly taken its task seriously, improving these appliances dramatically over the recent period. The job of us architects is to inform our clients about these issues, so they can use home appliances more responsibly.
Home appliances occupy a central place when domestic electricity consumption is concerned. Like with lighting, by using home appliances responsibly, we can make significant savings. Often, users are focused on their jobs using specific devices that neglect to take care of the electricity consumed during the process. Because of this insensitivity towards energy use, ordinary domestic activities result in significantly higher energy consumption than they should have. Again, like with lighting, the golden rule is that electric appliances should be switched entirely off when unused!
Unfortunately, a TV or radio is often on in some homes even though nobody is watching or listening to it, etc. With the responsible behavior of users, these absolutely unnecessary costs can be eliminated entirely.
Furthermore, replacing old and worn-out devices with new ones should pay attention to their declared energy consumption, i.e., energy efficiency class. By choosing a device of the appropriate class, a return on initially higher investment is received during its lifespan. Again, it is necessary to be careful to select the correct size and power of the appliance. Namely, it doesn’t make much sense to buy a device three times bigger and more powerful than the actual needs, even if it has a higher energy efficiency class.
By increasing the energy efficiency of a device, less energy is consumed for the same or higher level of service, contributing thus to energy and money savings.
Standardization of energy labels and independent testing of appliances has introduced an additional mechanism to protect customers against false claims by manufacturers or retailers about energy consumption. Energy labels inform the customer about energy consumption, price, and environmental impact of the appliance they intend to buy. The customer is given accurate information about the appliance’s energy consumption, which makes his decision to buy it more rational because the information includes the price of energy consumed during the appliance’s lifespan. Energy standards bind appliance manufacturers to deliver only those appliances that meet the minimum level of energy efficiency.
The price of an appliance is greatly influenced by its design. When calculating the cost-effectiveness of investing in more energy-efficient appliances, their physical characteristics should be considered in addition to technical ones because the price difference is often due to design rather than technical features. However, it can be concluded that it pays off to buy more energy-efficient electric appliances and that energy labels help make the right choice.
We’ll only add that, like buildings, appliances are awarded a class according to their consumption, as you already know. The most famous system for the certification of appliances is Energy Star.
Energy Star is a program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that promotes energy efficiency. The program provides information on the energy consumption of products and devices using different standardized methods. The Energy Star label is found on more than 75 certified product categories, homes, commercial buildings, and industrial plants.
Most countries have already regulated this area through legislation by binding manufacturers to clearly indicate the energy efficiency class of products.
