You actually can use less energy and have more convenience in your home.
Are you ready to defend the honor of your dishwasher? Are you prepared to fight for your stove? Are you stockpiling light bulbs?
Because according to many Republicans, your kitchen, your laundry room, your bathroom, and more are now battlefronts in the Biden administration’s “war on appliances.”
“First it was gas stoves and then it was water heaters and now it’s icemakers,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) said on the floor of the House last year.
“Overreaching, burdensome regulations from the Energy Department, like those on gas stoves, ceiling fans, and refrigerators, force our job creators to play defense and take time away from their core mission,” said Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX), who chairs the House Committee on Small Business. In the past year, House Republicans introduced bills to limit the government’s ability to set new efficiency standards and block a ban on gas stoves. Fox News even made a custom splash screen for its ongoing conflict coverage.
Where is this coming from? The Department of Energy does set efficiency standards for more than 60 categories of appliances ranging from home ceiling fans to commercial vending machines. It has also been raising the bar for things like stoves and refrigerators in recent months as part of a suite of new, climate-friendly regulations (the agency also said claims that it was banning gas stoves are “absurd”). But a war?
Of all the things that get people worked up, it is a bit surprising at first glance that home appliances and fixtures can get people so heated.
But it makes sense: These are the devices and products we encounter every day. They make a direct impact on our lives, saving us time and effort when they work well — and causing grief and frustration when they don’t. And when the government gets involved, suddenly laundry day has political stakes.
At the same time, appliances and fixtures are a direct way individuals encounter policies to address climate change. Our domestic tools contribute to a significant share of world energy use. Residential appliances account for about 15 percent of global electricity demand, and that doesn’t include furnaces and air conditioners, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The energy intensity — the amount of energy used per device — has grown on average by more than 10 percent between 2000 and 2018 in the 31 IEA member countries. And globally, that need is growing as more parts of the world seek out essential functions like cooling and conveniences like cleaning.
In the US, about half of household energy use on average goes toward heating and cooling while roughly a quarter powers things like microwaves, televisions, and personal electronics. The average US family also uses 300 gallons of water per day at home, more than half through bathroom fixtures like toilets, faucets, and showerheads.
But the flip side is that small improvements in electricity and water consumption across home appliances can add up to big benefits for the environment. Doing more with less is one of the most important and cheapest tactics for limiting climate change, but it’s easily overlooked. Energy efficiency across the economy — not just in appliances, but in vehicles, factories, and grid infrastructure — could get the US halfway to its climate goals by 2050, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit research group. But the pace has to speed up. The IEA estimates that in order to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, the rate of energy efficiency improvement must triple this decade compared to the rate over the past 20 years.
So it makes sense that having appliances use less water and electricity is a key plank in the White House’s strategy to limit global warming through the Inflation Reduction Act, including up to $8.8 billion in rebates to help families buy more efficient appliances.
There are lasting benefits for buyers too: Efficiency also saves money, for businesses, governments, and individuals. Since 1980, the energy intensity of the US economy has been cut in half because of increasing efficiency, delivering more than $2,000 in savings per person. The Energy Department said the regulations it announced last year will save Americans $652 million per year when they go into effect.
“At the end of the day, something that’s more energy efficient is more efficient for your wallet,” said Shanika Whitehurst, associate director for product sustainability, research, and testing at Consumer Reports.
So on paper, the case for more efficiency is compelling. Yet in practice, it can be a tough sell, especially when manufacturers overpromise and underdeliver. There are definite trade-offs in some cases, and some new machines have indeed been letdowns, which is why some people are reluctant to let go of their old showerheads, toilets, and stoves. That’s what makes it so personal. It’s one thing to impose tougher pollution limits on a power plant miles away, but if your dishwasher takes longer than you’d like or the compressor in your fridge breaks down, it can feel like quite the intrusion.
Is it then possible to live in a more comfortable, cost-effective home that’s also better for the environment? Yes, but it requires thinking carefully about priorities and sorting out what’s an upgrade and what’s just another thing that can break.
In a world where lots of things are getting worse, we’re living in a Golden Age of efficiency
The products we encounter like clothes and electronics have generally become more affordable over time, but in many cases quality has declined as the companies that make them look to cut costs and turn around new product lines.
However, appliances and home fixtures have become measurably better in key metrics as technologies have advanced and regulations have tightened. The LED light bulb, for example, uses 90 percent less electricity and lasts 25 times longer than the incandescent bulbs that reigned for a century prior. The size of the average washing machine tub has increased by almost 50 percent since the 1980s, yet the machines use a quarter of the electricity and water per cycle. Heat pumps are more than four times as efficient as gas heaters. In the 1970s, refrigerators used 75 percent more electricity to cool 20 percent less storage space than those in showrooms today.
The US government has been advancing its efficiency goals through mandatory regulations, which affect every product on the market, as well as voluntary certifications, like the Energy Star program launched by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 to highlight top performers. For instance, a new dishwasher with an Energy Star certification uses half the energy of washing dishes by hand and saves 8,400 gallons of water per year.
Many of these appliances are also doing their jobs better. More efficient clothes washers tend to be better at cleaning and less damaging to apparel. That has helped drive down costs too. “We also find that much of the price index decline can be attributed to standards-induced innovation,” wrote the authors of a 2019 study on the impact of efficiency standards published in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
“What we’ve seen over time is that as products have gotten more efficient, product performance has generally stayed the same or improved as manufacturers continue to offer new features to consumers,” said Joanna Mauer, deputy director at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.
Take air conditioners, for example. “The vast majority of Energy Star-certified room air conditioner models now feature a variable speed compressor, which means they are not only much more efficient, but much quieter,” EPA spokesperson Remmington Belford said in an email. The program recently raised its benchmarks so ACs with the Energy Star label are up to 35 percent more efficient than those without the certification. “This means Energy Star models for sale this summer will provide double or triple the energy and cost savings from Energy Star room air conditioners that were available last summer,” Belford said.
As technology advances, these devices are poised to consume even less electricity and water.
There are trade-offs, however
Changing how devices use electricity and water does require changing how they work, and that’s where some homeowners and apartment dwellers have run into trouble.
Tim Carll, owner and head technician of Presidential Appliance Repair in Northern Virginia, noted that the new generation of appliances has become more affordable, making them more common, but that in his experience, washing machines, refrigerators, and stoves break down more often, don’t last as long, and are often more complicated to repair because of all the electronics needed to optimize energy and water use. Older devices were much simpler, using mechanical timers and switches that were more durable as well as easier to diagnose and repair.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard someone say, ‘Oh God, I just love this new energy-efficient appliance that I got,’” Carll said. “It’s usually like, ‘This washer doesn’t use enough water, some of my clothes come out, and they’re not even wet’ or ‘My dishwasher runs for three or four hours now.’”
Add to that features like touchscreen interfaces on refrigerators or Bluetooth connectivity in stoves and you have more things that can go wrong. It isn’t uncommon to see devices that once lasted 20 to 30 years start to break down in less than 10 due to these small problems rather than something catastrophic. “It’s all these breaks throughout the years. I think in the first 10 years it’s pretty normal to have at least three repairs on almost any appliance you buy. At $200 or $300 minimum for repair, you’re putting several hundred dollars into a machine in the lifespan of it.”
And when new efficiency regulations go into effect, appliance repair technicians start getting ready for more repair calls. Carll said he’s part of a closed Facebook group where repair pros chat (the question you have to answer to join: “What appliances use 220VAC and what is the part number for the most popular dryer belt ever?”), and whenever someone posts an article about new efficiency standards, the replies are filled with eye-rolling emojis as they anticipate more breakdowns in newer devices. “From our professional standpoint, most of us just look at it like [appliances] are going to get worse,” Carll said.
For owners, there’s also often a learning and expectation curve. Using less water and electricity often means machine cycles take longer, but it also means they need a lot less detergent to do their work. Many users often add too much to high-efficiency washing machines and dishwashers, which can clog ports and impair cleaning performance. They might not realize that they don’t need to pre-rinse their dishes, or that garments will come out just as clean in cooler water. With electric stoves, manufacturers are trying to counter decades of advertising that extolled the virtues of cooking with gas.
“From 2008 to 2013, I owned and operated an appliance retail store, and I can’t count the number of times a customer would purchase a high-efficiency washing machine only to return a week later to complain that the drum would not fill to the top with water,” Dustin Steward, global industry director in the appliances, HVAC and lighting group at UL Solutions, which tests and certifies products for safety and performance, said in an email. “They were skeptical that their clothes could be cleaned with such a small amount of water.”
Users are also demanding more from their devices. It’s not enough for a refrigerator to cool your food; it must also dispense water and ice, defrost itself, and not make too much noise.
Price is another factor. Appliances have generally fallen in price over the decades, and efficiency regulations are part of why. The IEA notes that countries with energy efficiency regulations generally see the average prices of appliances fall 2 to 3 percent per year. But the laws of supply and demand are at work too. The supply chain snarls during the Covid-19 pandemic caused major appliance prices to spike and made it harder to find more affordable machines. Higher-end refrigerators and washing machines often use less water and power, but it takes longer for those savings to offset the higher upfront costs. Yet because of their shorter lifecycles, people can end up paying more over time for cheaper appliances.
As for the benefits, people can easily see how clean their clothes get or how long a wash cycle lasts. It’s harder to pick up on the benefits of efficiency. A more fuel-efficient car flexes every time you fill up its gas tank or juice up its battery, but the dividends from fans and lights that use less power are buried in your monthly bills.
More efficient appliances can also have a rebound effect. If an AC is cheaper to run, you might run it longer or at a higher setting. Devices like refrigerators and washers have grown in size too, eating into their performance gains.
Manufacturers also appear to be cutting corners, not due to efficiency, but competition and a business strategy that favors replacement over repair. So the calculation behind the decision to switch to a newer, leaner device isn’t always straightforward.
How to smooth the transition to a more comfortable, efficient home
It’s normal for newer technologies to hit some bumps on the road to widespread adoption and that goes for devices trying to hit new efficiency goalposts. Still, few homeowners scout appliance showrooms with their electricity and water bills as the highest priority.
“Most people do not buy technology for technology’s sake; they are looking to solve a problem,” Steward said. “Thinking about reducing energy, saving water, or minimizing gas usage may or may not be a priority in every household.”
But there are good options out there that deliver more convenience and comfort at a lower cost to the climate. One strategy is to look for devices that deliver the most measurable benefits over their lifetime, often labeled on a sticker on showroom models. Look for more durable materials, a robust warranty, and simpler interfaces. There are also tools to help sort the worst and best performers, like Consumer Reports’ recently updated appliance reliability guide, ranking brands in different categories based on their testing and surveys.
Often, the more feature-packed device isn’t the better one over the long term. The Energy Department, for instance, advises consumers to pick refrigerators with fewer doors and the freezer on top, and to not necessarily spring for the biggest model in the budget.
Efficiency and comfort in the home aren’t just about machines either. Better insulation, improved door seals, adequate ventilation, and sufficient plumbing bring out the best in appliances and make homes more livable, efficient, and better for the environment.
But it’s also important to be realistic about what we can accomplish just with what we buy for our kitchens, bedrooms, and bathrooms. Even the most efficient appliance still needs energy, and the sources of that energy need to zero out their greenhouse gas emissions.
“There’s a lot of reports on the decarbonization of the home and full electrification in the home, [but] we have to get these electrical grids right,” Whitehurst said. Particularly with the shift away from gas appliances toward those that run on electricity, there are mounting demands on power networks. It will take careful planning to ensure there’s enough power and policies to make sure the new capacity doesn’t make climate change any worse.
It’s only when all these parts fit together that we’ll stay at a comfortable temperature on our home planet.
