Sydney Henderson - AHAM Consumer Blog

Be Prepared Now for New Refrigerator Standards

You’ve probably seen those yellow EnergyGuide labels when you’ve shopped for an appliance – they tell you how much it will cost to operate the appliance each year. Well, if you’re looking for buy a new refrigerator you’ll notice that the EnergyGuide labels have been redesigned and that might leave you asking why?

Beginning in September, the U.S. Department of Energy’s new mandatory energy efficiency standards for refrigerators will become more stringent, but these new super- efficient models may be available in stores now. The EnergyGuide label has also been redesigned to better reflect the new measurements and an updated nationwide average electricity cost of 12 cents per kWh. So, at first glance, it may appear that that some fridges use more energy than older models, but be assured that they are indeed more efficient and can save you even more money on your utility bills.

AHAM has created a website called CoolEnergySavings.org to explain the efficiency standards and new EnergyGuide labels, answer common questions and provide information on recycling your old refrigerator.

CNET.com’s Megan Wollerton recently wrote an article discussing the new refrigerator energy standards:

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM)'s Vice President of Communications and Marketing, Jill Notini, says that replacing an old fridge is one of the simplest ways to make a difference in your energy bill. The good news is that models with the new energy standards don't seem to cost much more.

Unfortunately, Notini says, a lot of people transfer old fridges to a basement or garage as a backup for grocery overflow. Keeping an old fridge after buying a newer, more efficient model definitely isn't going to help you save money. But, if you actually replace an older model (as long as you aren't going from a small fridge with no ice maker to a very large fridge with an ice maker, or some other extreme) you should see significant savings.

Visit CoolEnergySavings.org today to learn more about how purchasing a new refrigerator can lower your monthly utility bills!

Stay Safe and Warm by Following These Portable Heater Safety Tips

Arctic air has left the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. frozen. In fact, it’s so cold that an escaped inmate in Kentucky turned himself into police just so he could escape the cold air.

Many people will be turning to portable heaters to keep their living rooms and bedrooms warm. When used properly, these heaters do a great job at providing warmth. However, each year a number of unnecessary fires occur because the heater’s instructions were not properly followed.

To keep you safe and warm, AHAM recommends the following safety tips:

Read the manufacturer’s instructions and warning labels before using your portable electric heater.
DO NOT leave operating heater unattended and always unplug heater when not in use.
DO NOT use your heater with a power strip or extension cord. Overheating of a power strip or extension cord could result in a fire.
String out cords on top of area rugs or carpeting. Placing anything, including furniture, on top of the cord may damage it.
Keep combustible materials, such as furniture, pillows, bedding, papers, clothes and curtains at least three feet from the front of the heater and away from the sides and rear. DO NOT block heater’s air intake or exhaust source.

To view more safety tips, visit AHAM’s Heater Safety website. Additionally, you may order copies of AHAM’s Portable Electric Heater Safety brochure by clicking here. Copies are available in both English and Spanish. AHAM also has a variety of other fire safety brochures, including clothes dryer safety and Recipe for Safe Cooking. There is no shipping charge for orders of 250 or less. A nominal shipping fee is charged for larger orders.

Appliance Makers Show Off New Technologies at CES

In case you didn’t catch the news from CES 2014 last week in Last Vegas, appliance manufacturers showed off a lot of interesting appliances that they hope to bring to your home soon. According to the blog, Techlicious, it seems that the buzzword coming out of Las Vegas was “smart?? – as in smart dishwashers, smart refrigerators, smart dishwashers and smart crock pots.

Some of the highlights of the CES Show include dishwashers that will send you texts when the dishes are clean and clothes washers that start upon a command from any device such as a smartphone or laptop.

The entire article is available here.

ABC News was also covering CES and highlights two cool appliances including an interactive induction cooktop that will enable the user to simultaneously cook and bring up recipes to display on the cooktop without burning their hands. Another company has developed a crockpot that can be controlled from your smart phone so you can change the cooking time or temperature without ever leaving the couch.

Finally, CNET provides a rundown of what they saw – including appliances that weren’t “smart,?? but utilize new technologies to get your dishes cleaner and your wine colder.

Can you think of a new technology that you’d like to see incorporated into your home appliance?

FirstEnergy Stadium Helps Turn Food Waste into Energy

If you’ve ever attended an NFL game, you may wonder what happens to all those hotdogs and other concession stand food that doesn’t sell. Well, the operators of the FirstEnergy Stadium, where the Cleveland Browns play, have found an innovative way to give new life to food that would otherwise find its way into the garbage can.

As GreenBiz.com notes, FirstEnergy Stadium installed a Grind2Energy system developed by InSinkErator that grinds up food waste and adds water to create a slurry. The waste is then stored in tanks before being transported to Ohio State University’s Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center where it is then converted to a biogas to make electricity or used as fertilizer.

“The Browns estimate that over the course of the season, uneaten food generates 35 tons of waste. Quasar will add dairy cow manure and potentially other sources of organic waste to the slurry and put it all into the digester. Over the course of weeks, the waste breaks down and produces biogas, which can be siphoned off and burned in a generator for electricity and heat. In a landfill, that food waste quickly would decompose into methane, a potent greenhouse gas. FirstEnergy Stadium estimates that its system will reduce the equivalent of 28,000 pounds of CO2 emissions, and generate enough electricity to power a home for a year and half.??

Read more about InSinkErator’s Grind2Energy system here.

So the next time you’re leaving a stadium and see hotdogs and nachos laying around the concession stand, remember that they very well could be used to power your home one night.

Autumn Rains Are a Good Reason to Purchase an AHAM Verified Dehumidifier

Autumn is here and that could mean a lot of rain depending on the part of the U.S. in which you live. Damp, moldy basements are a problem for many homeowners, and one of the quickest, most cost-effective ways of keeping your basement dry and preventing damage to your possessions is by investing in a dehumidifier.

Dehumidifiers carrying the AHAMVerifide mark are verified through AHAM’s Dehumidifier Verification Program have been tested and verified by an independent laboratory, assuring consumers that the product will perform according to the manufacturer’s product claims for energy consumption and water removal capacity (rated in removal of pints per day).

For units that have earned the ENERGY STAR designation, AHAM’s energy verification of the unit ensures that the product meets ENERGY STAR criteria. AHAM is recognized by the EPA as a Certification Body (CB) and approved to administer verification testing for purposes of the ENERGY STAR program. An online searchable database of dehumidifiers that have the AHAM Verifide can be found here.

This Old House has some maintenance tips to keep your dehumidifier operating safely for years to come:

Be sure the dehumidifier outlet is protected by
a ground-fault circuit interrupter. Avoid using extension cords; spilled water presents a shock hazard.
Place the unit at least 6 in. from any wall so
air flows freely; shut all nearby windows and doors.
For the first few days of use, turn the humidi-stat to the extra-dry setting, which will remove moisture from room furnishings.

Other tips can be found here.

Ideas to Declutter Your Laundry Room

There aren’t very many people who enjoy doing laundry and sometimes that chore can be even more stressful when the laundry room is cluttered and disorganized. Whether you have a big laundry room or just a space big enough to hold your washer, dryer and detergent, you probably don’t have to invest much time or money to make it better organized.

HGTV’s website has some simple tips to help you get
started:

Contain Your Cleaning Supplies: A common source of
frustration in the laundry room (other than endless piles of dirty clothes) is
finding a place for all those cleaning supplies. Solution: Store cleaning
supplies in a carry-all caddy or open-top storage container.
Go Vertical to Dry Clothes: The too-small laundry room often suffers from a serious lack of hanging space, resulting in clothes draped over the dryer, cabinets and doors. Vertical space is often the most overlooked area in these rooms. Install a retractable clothesline or buy an inexpensive freestanding drying rack to reclaim some much-needed space in the laundry room. Imagine, counter space that’s actually used to fold clothes.
Presort Dirty Clothes in Hampers: Cut down on laundry time with an organized method for presorting clothes. If space is available, add three laundry hampers (we love the idea of color-coding or labeling) for whites, lights and darks.

More tips from HGTV can be found here.

Better Homes & Gardens’ website also has additional tips on how to declutter your laundry area to match your style and needs.

Take the Work Out of Vacuuming Your Home with These Tips

Of course you know how to vacuum, right? Well, maybe not, according to Consumer Reports that suggests that if you are vacuuming the wrong way, you may be making more work for yourself.

Consumer Reports magazine has 10 helpful tips that will leave your carpet cleaner and can leave you less worn out after doing a chore that most people would rather not do. Here are three to get you started:

Stick to a schedule, Make multiple passes to clean deeply, and Spot-treat spills. You can read the rest of CR’s tips here.

An editor at Better Homes and Gardens magazine has additional tips in a Tampa Bay Tribune article. He recommends saving vacuuming only after all of the other chores, such as dusting, have been done and move all furniture out of the way.

“Professional house cleaners call this ‘top down cleaning’ —
you start at the top of the room, so particulates settle. Tackle ceiling
corners, window treatments, furniture and finally the floors,?? the article
states.

And after you’ve finished reading those tips, you can see how far vacuum technology has come since the days of this 1950s Singer commercial. And if it weren’t for this Hoover commercial, you may have forgotten how vacuuming in the 1980s was such an exciting experience that you may have worn a mink stole and lace gloves to clean the house!

What are your top tips for vacuuming? Have you discovered anything that makes this chore a bit easier? Share with other readers by commenting below.

Today’s Refrigerator’s Offer Lots of Options

Need a new refrigerator? If you haven’t been to an appliance or big box store lately, you might be surprised by the variety of styles available
now. A recent article on NorthJersey.com
highlights how appliance manufacturers are designing refrigerators to meet consumers’ needs and varying lifestyles.

Refrigerators now come in the following combinations:

Top-mounted freezer with a single refrigerator compartment
Bottom-mounted freezer with a single refrigerator compartment
A side-by-side combination
A French-door combination with two eye-level refrigerator compartments and a bottom-mounted freezer
An Armoire that has four doors made up of two eye-level refrigerator compartments and two bottom compartments, one of which can be used as a freezer or as a third refrigerator compartment used for snacks and drinks

Each combination, of course, has its own pros and cons so it is best to consider your lifestyle and the refrigerator’s use over a long period of time. For example, the bottom mount freezer models might not best for those who might not want to bend over to look for frozen food. Those who would
like all their food at eye-level might choose a side-by-side, especially since
many come equipped with ice and water dispensers, an additional convenience.

Click here to read the full article.

Today’s refrigerators are bigger and more energy efficient than those produced two decades ago. According to AHAM’s Trends in Energy Efficiency, in 1991, for instance, the average refrigerator’s consumed 857 kilowatts per hour (kWh) and those manufactured in 2012 consumed only 454 (kWh) – a decrease of over 50%!

Be sure to visit the AHAM Verifide website to search a directory of refrigerators. Refrigerators, refrigerator-freezers and freezers that are verified through AHAM’s Verification Program have been tested and verified by an independent laboratory, assuring consumers that the product will perform according to the manufacturer’s product claims for energy consumption and internal volume.

Preventing Cooking Fires

National Fire Prevention Week is October 6-12, 2013 and this year’s theme is “Prevent Cooking Fires.?? AHAM is supporting this effort by distributing free copies of its “Recipe for Safer Cooking?? brochure to fire departments, schools and community organizations. In just four weeks, more than 100,000 brochures have been distributed.

In addition to “Recipe for Safer Cooking” AHAM also has several other safety brochures available:

Protect Against Range Tipping
Clothes Dryer Safety
Portable Heater Safety Brochure (English)
Portable Heater Safety Brochure (Spanish)

AHAM will provide1,000 copies of Recipe for Safer Cooking and 250 copies of one other brochure at no cost. However, there will be a nominal shipping charge for larger orders. You can order brochures online or email AHAM
if you have any questions.

Energy Department and AHAM Join Forces on ENERGY STAR Testing for Appliances

The U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) announced today in
a blog posting that it recognizes AHAM
as an ENERGY STAR
certification body for clothes washers, dishwashers, refrigerators,
refrigerator/freezers and freezers.

EPA states: “This agreement is a
reflection of DOE's and AHAM's extensive and long-standing collaborative work
together on verification and represent the kind of creative, public-private
partnership that benefits industry, consumers, and government alike.??

Prior to the agreement, AHAM and
EPA conducted separate appliance verification programs. Working together, AHAM and DOE can conserve
taxpayer dollars and eliminate duplicative testing. Consumers can purchase AHAM Verifide appliances knowing that the federal
testing procedures for measuring an appliance’s energy consumption are trusted
and were developed by the U.S. Department of Energy.

EPA also stated in their post:

“As an EPA-approved certification body, AHAM
will administer verification testing for the ENERGY
STAR program, which includes verifying data and reporting on specifications.
AHAM will continue to follow a
series of stringent testing requirements, holding appliances that are potentially eligible for ENERGY STAR
certification to the highest of standards, helping to ensure that these appliances deliver
significant savings for energy efficiency and quality performance. In addition, AHAM will identify instances of
potential noncompliance with ENERGY STAR requirements
and federal energy conservation standards. AHAM will notify relevant government stakeholders, including
the Energy Department, if an appliance is noncompliant with any program requirement, so that the
appropriate agency can rectify any issues with compliance."

Click
here to read the rest of the blog post. Last year, more than 15 million appliances
were shipped with the AHAM Verifide mark.
To search for appliances that have earned the mark, click here.

In Every Home