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EnerGuide Appliance Directory 2005
Consider the Second Price Tag
Everyone is familiar with an appliance's first price tag: the sticker price, which indicates the cost of buying an appliance. In some cases, you'll find the most energy-efficient appliances have higher sticker prices. But before you make your purchase decision, consider the second price tag – an appliance's electricity costs. Over time, not only will the most energy-efficient appliances save you money by dramatically reducing your energy costs, but these units will also help protect the environment by cutting your energy consumption.
Calculating the second price tag is easy. Simply multiply the appliance's estimated annual energy consumption (the large number on the EnerGuide label) by your local cost of electricity – which is on your utility bill – to estimate quickly how much it will cost to operate the appliance for one year:
EnerGuide rating
(kWh/year)
|
X |
local electricity costs
($/kWh)
|
 |
| = ANNUAL ELECTRICITY COST |
Now multiply your annual electricity cost by the estimated life expectancy of your appliance (see the following table) to calculate the estimated total operating cost for the appliance.
Annual electricity cost
($/year)
|
X |
appliance life
(years)
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|
| = LIFETIME ELECTRICITY COST |
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Life expectancies of major appliances (in years)
Note: These numbers are industry averages only.
What's a kilowatt-hour?
Your power utility measures electricity use in kilowatt-hours, which is calculated by multiplying the wattage of a product by the number of hours it's in use. For example:
A 100-watt light bulb × 10 hours of use = 1000 watt hours, or 1 kWh
You'll also use approximately 1 kWh of energy by running a hot shower for three minutes.
Saving 50 kWh is enough to run your dishwasher 20 times; saving 100 kWh could run your clothes washer 50 times – that's almost a free load of laundry every week for a year!
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