Is Your Old Freezer Costing You Money?

Our home used to have terribly high power bills, much higher than any of our other friends who also live in older homes. We couldn't quite figure out where the electricity was going since we were pretty careful with our energy use. It wasn't until we had the power company do an energy test on our home that we finally learned the cause of our high power bill. The culprit was Grandma's 1960s 18 cubit foot upright freezer.

Older is not always better

In most cases, living frugally by making do with Grandma's old stuff can save a family lots of money. This kind of depression era thriftiness allows a family to spend their hard earned cash on more important things like food, shelter, and clothing. However when it comes to using Grandma's old kitchen appliances, the smarter financial move is to replace those vintage appliances with modern energy efficient units. In our case, the power company discovered that Grandma's freezer was responsible for 1/3 of our power bill.

Not only was her old GE upright built in a time when energy was cheap, the seals were also cracked in five different places. The cracked seals meant heavier frost buildups which also contributed to the freezer running almost constantly. The cost of our Yankee thriftiness amount to nearly $40 a month in wasted energy.

Is it time to replace your freezer?

If your freezer is more than 15 years old, has cracked seals, or is in need of repairs, a family is better off to replace it with an new Energy Star rated freezer instead. Energy Star freezers require about half the energy as models built before 1993 and use 10% less energy than what is required by current federal standards. We replaced Grandma's old freezer with an Energy Star rated compact chest freezer and watched our power bill drop.

Is it time to replace your old freezer? The Energy Star home site has a nifty energy use calculator for old refrigerators and freezers that can tell you exactly how much electricity that old freezer of yours is really using. The link can be found here.

While you might think that the cost of a new freezer may not be in your budget, chances are that a high power bill might not either. Replacing Grandma's old upright with a new Energy Star compact chest cost us much less than we thought. We financed it for 12 months, but paid it off in less than four months using the money saved from our power bill. With a savings like that, it's hard to not to justify buying a newer model.

Many cities offer recycling programs for old freezers with cash incentives that can be applied to a new unit. Your local appliance dealer or City Hall can tell you where these programs may be offered in your community.