American's energy gluttony extends to homes

[Snax]

All TVs start sucking significant wattage as size is increased, but in order of worst to best, I believe it goes CRT, Plasma, LCD.

I think it would be epitomy of geekdom to bring a watt meter along while shopping for one. (And probably what I'll do.)

[thisisntjared]

good cus i am thinking about buying a 40in lcd tv

[Telco]

40 inch is good, but a 52 inch wouldn't burn that much more juice. This will be one area where I spend some cash, is on a decent TV. Everything else will be as efficient as possible, but I want a good TV for watching movies on. Just waiting for the Sharp 52 incher I want to go below 1000 bucks.

[thisisntjared]

realistically that will probably happen in 9-10 months.

i was looking to get a 32in tv for 1g in january, but i held out and procrastinated on doing solid research. now i can get a 40in tv of much higher quality for 1g... its ridiculous how much prices have been dropping recently.

[WisJim]

Energy consumption of TVs:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-3.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0616/p13s02-stct.html

[jwxr7]

I'm trying to conserve electricity even more now. I bought a clothesline and dried a load outside yesterday. Conditions were great for it and I think it was just as fast if not faster than my electric dryer . I would like to do at least one load a week outside (we do 2-3 loads a week). Just gotta keep the japanese beetles off things.

[Snax]

Nice find Jim.

From the CSM: "One 50-inch plasma high-definition TV (HDTV) was estimated to use 679 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. A 32-inch liquid-crystal display with HDTV capability was pegged at 387 kWh per year. By contrast, an older analog 34-inch TV was estimated to use just 209 kWh per year, NRDC tests found."

Looks like I got the part about CRTs totally wrong! The Cnet review is very enlightening however. Obviously there are huge dispartities in how much a TV uses while on and off. Seems to me that a person would be well advised to bring a watt meter along while shopping.

[Mentalic]

Last week our clothes washer died. It was an old Maytag that we were not really happy with how well it had worked anyway. So its a good reason to ditch it. After a bit of research I went and bought a Fisher & Paykel model that should use less than half the electricity, about half the water, and spin drys at 1000rpm for darn near dry clothes before using the dryer to finish drying and get rid of the wrinkles.
So far we really like it and it washes way better than what we had. I really like the fact that you can re-program the wash cycles a good bit to work the way YOU want it to, and even save your settings. It definitely is taking much less time in the dryer as well so were saving there too.
Its a funny sounding machine, first time it did the 1000rpm spin I though the mother ship had landed in the utility room! Its not loud, we just had the door open on the utility room.

[Snax]

That's a front loader too isn't it?

It irks me that most of the emphasis on the energy efficient washers centers around them being front loading when the reality is that spin speed is probably the most important factor to saving energy. Sure, a front loader may save several gallons of hot water, but my dryer running for 20-30 minutes vs. 40-60 would certainly save allot more.

I've read nothing but good stuff about the F&P stuff FWIW.

[skewbe]

The front loader is more efficient at what it does, using less energy and water, and a closeline can reduce drying energy costs significantly.