AHAM's Blog

Give the air in your home a spring cleaning

With memories of massive snowfalls still fresh in the minds of many, it’s easy to forget that spring allergy season is just about here. When the first sniffles of spring strike, allergy sufferers may be tempted to hole up and avoid the outdoors. But the air inside may be just as bad or even worse, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA estimates that indoor air may contain double to five times as many pollutants as the air outside.

There are four main sources of indoor air pollution: pollen tracked in or blown in from outside; animal dander; mold and mildew; and tobacco smoke. All can make your allergies worse. But there are some steps you can take to fight back, and your appliances can help you get the upper hand on allergens:

Invest in a room air cleaner: If you decide to buy a room air cleaner, look on the packaging for the AHAM Verifide Label, which will list Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR) numbers for tobacco smoke, dust and pollen. The higher the numbers, the faster the air cleaner will clean the air. Buy a room air cleaner appropriate for the size of the room in which it will be used.

Suck it up: Your vacuum is one of your best tools in the quest to rid your home of allergens. Vacuum your carpet and rugs at least once a week, and twice a week in high-traffic areas. Vacuum your upholstered furniture, mattresses and drapes regularly. Consider doing a deep clean with solutions made to loosen and extract allergens.

Wash it away: Wash your bedding in hot water—at least 130 degrees Fahrenheit—to remove allergens from sheets and blankets and the kids’ stuffed animals.

Learn more about how AHAM’s Clean Air Delivery Rate program for room air cleaners, and how you can find AHAM Verifide Products. 

Save Money and Help the Environment with these Energy Saving Tips

Everyone would like to use less energy and reduce their monthly electricity bill. AHAM has assembled some quick and easy tips to help you reduce the amount of energy your appliances use. Every bit adds up.

• If you are replacing your refrigerator, do not use the old refrigerator as a second refrigerator because it won’t yield energy savings. Properly recycle the appliance. The store where you purchased the new refrigerator likely will pick up and dispose of your old one for no charge.  You can also visit the ENERGY STAR website for information about their Responsible Appliance Disposal program.

• Allow hot foods to cool before placing them in the refrigerator, and always cover foods that may release moisture in the refrigerator.

• Limit opening the refrigerator and freezer doors.  Label foods or use clear food storage bags to easily identify foods.

• Scrape, but do not pre-rinse, dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.  Dishwashers do a great job of cleaning soiled dishes. 

• Take advantage of your dishwasher’s “eco” option that reduces water use, or use the no-heat air dry feature.

• Use the proper load size setting for each load of laundry or use the automatic setting if your clothes washer has it to ensure you’re not using more water than necessary. Also, use cold water settings whenever possible.

• Always clean the lint filter on the clothes dryer after each use.  A clogged filter will reduce dryer performance. 

How do you save energy at home?  If you have energy saving tips, share them with us! 

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.

Lower Your Utility Bill by Choosing an AHAM Verifide Clothes Washer

The most helpful household appliance, at least when it comes to saving time and backbreaking work, has to be the clothes washer. Clothes washers have come a long way over the decades, and they’re now more energy efficient than ever—even while the average tub size has grown. In fact, a clothes washer manufactured in 2011 uses over 75 percent less energy than  one manufactured in 1991. Those savings really add up over the years.

Thankfully, when consumers are looking to purchase a new clothes washer, they can rely on those models that carry the AHAM Verifide mark which signifies that it has been verified by an independent laboratory to perform to the manufacturer’s product claims for energy consumption and water use. Additionally, for those clothes washers that have earned ENERGY STAR designation, AHAM’s energy verification of the unit ensures that the product meets ENERGY STAR criteria.

Ralph Hudnall, AHAM’s Director, Product Certification and Verification, explains that the independent laboratory randomly selects units from a list of models when they visit the manufacturers’ warehouses. When the units are taken back to the lab, technicians determine the capacity of the tub volume by measuring how much water and how many pounds of clothes it can hold. Special “test cloths” are used for these tests. These test cloths,  are produced according to an industry standard so that water absorption and weight are the same across all samples, thereby ensuring accuracy. Additionally, the annual energy use is determined by calculating the amount of energy used per wash cycle and then multiplied by the total number of loads of laundry the average household does each year.

“The great thing about the AHAM Verifide program is that consumers can trust the numbers they see on the yellow energy labels because this program has verified them. They’re not just random numbers the manufacturer has put on there. Particularly in households that have a lot of laundry, choosing the most energy efficient model can be the top priority,” Ralph says.

Click here to search for AHAM Verifide clothes washers and you can find out more about identifying AHAM Verifide products here.

AHAM President Joe McGuire Discusses New Clothes Washer Sustainability Standard

In a July column in Appliance Design magazine, AHAM President Joe McGuire highlights the first-ever sustainability standard for clothes washers developed jointly by AHAM, CSA Group and Underwriters Laboratories.

McGuire writes, “The goal of this standard is to provide meaningful environmental performance information to manufacturers, governments, retailers, and consumers about clothes washers and to drive innovation and continual improvement in the sustainability of these products.”  This standard follows last year’s release of the first-ever sustainability standard for refrigeration products.

 “The standard is intended to be used to evaluate products for six key attributes: materials, manufacturing and operations, energy and water consumption during use, consumables, end of life, and innovation, as a bonus attribute,” notes McGuire.  The new standards can be especially helpful to consumers who wish to have additional information when purchasing more environmentally-friendly products.  For example, the end-of-life category, consumers can evaluate clothes washers based upon the amount of recyclable materials they contain.

Click here to read more of McGuire’s column. If your company is a supplier to the appliance industry and you wish to purchase either the standard for refrigeration products or clothes washers, you may do so here.

New Appliances Result in Substantial Savings on Consumers' Electricity Bills

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) has released the 2011 Energy Efficiency and Consumption Trends data for major home appliances.  This data, based on 2011 shipments of major appliances, shows the continuing trend of decreased energy consumption. If consumers were to replace their 10-year-old refrigerator, clothes washer and dishwasher of average efficiency with more energy efficient models manufactured in 2011, they would save, on average, $90 per year on their electricity bill.  Upgrading to an ENERGY STAR® unit may offer additional energy savings.  

Energy consumption in refrigerators continued to decline in 2011 with new refrigerators using an average of 452 kWh per year, over 50% less than units made in 1990.  Dishwasher energy consumption is down nearly 51% due to advances in energy efficiency and new technologies such as soil sensors that use only as much water as needed and more stainless steel interiors which help dry dishes faster.  Clothes washer tub volume continues to increase while energy consumption decreases, meaning those who bought new clothes washers in 2011 can fit more clothes in each load while using less energy. Clothes washers show a 75% decrease in energy consumption per unit since 1990, while tub capacity increased by more than 32%. 

Complete historical tables of energy efficiency and consumption trends data are available through AHAM.  Click here for a direct link to purchase the 2011 Energy Efficiency and Consumption Trends data, or you may visit AHAM’s website at www.aham.org.  

Evolutions in Kitchen and Appliance Design

Kitchen and appliance design and functionality has evolved from the days of the Frigidaire and Monsanto “kitchens of the future” as shown in these two films from the 1950s. 

In this month’s Interior Design magazine, Jill Notini, AHAM’s VP of Communications and Marketing talks about kitchen design.  Click here to read the article, and see some exciting new products!

Notini says, "We are seeing a convergence of function, technology, and aesthetic design. Appliances still cool, cook, or clean food, but now there is integration of other features framed in modern design."

Manufacturers are designing appliances that can provide other functions and make life easier for busy consumers. For example, refrigerators are now coming equipped with built-in LCD screens so people can download apps that provide recipes, news and weather.

Additionally, as smart appliances become more widely available and connected to a smart electrical grid, they will become more energy efficient.

“Manufacturers have improved efficiency by leaps and bounds, and are now incorporating advanced technologies that go beyond traditional energy savings and provide enormous consumer benefit,” Notini says.

You don’t have to wait too long to experience these new features and designs.  The kitchen of the future is here now.  Let us know what you think about kitchen design.    How would you change your current kitchen?  What kind of appliances would you select?

New Standards to Save $350 Over the Life of an Appliance

In a move that will save consumers over $20 billion on their electricity and water bills, the US Department of Energy announced today new standards for dishwashers and clothes washers.

Developed in conjunction with AHAM, appliance manufacturers and consumer and environmental groups, beginning in 2013 new dishwashers will use 15 percent less energy and 20 percent less water. Beginning in 2015, new clothes washers will offer consumers more efficient choices and save households approximately $350 over the lifetime of the appliance.

AHAM President Joe McGuire said, “DOE’s implementation of these new standards reflects the consensus agreement reached by stakeholders. It will result in tremendous energy savings for the consumer while preserving product choice and minimizing manufacturer impact. The home appliance industry is proud of its long history of energy efficiency advancements benefiting consumers and applauds DOE for working with stakeholders to increase energy efficiency,”

For more than 20 years, there has been a steady increase in the efficiency of home appliances as manufacturers have developed ways for dishwashers and clothes washers to use less electricity and water. For example, in 1991 the average dishwasher consumed 2.67 kilowatts (kWh) per cycle and by 2010 it was only 1.37 kWh/ cycle – that’s nearly a 49% decrease! Also, clothes washers consumed 2.68 kWh/cycle in 1991 and in 2010 it had dropped by 75% to .66 kWh/cycle!

If you’re in the market now for a new appliance, you can search AHAM’s directory of certified clothes washers and dishwashers.  All of the models listed in the directory have been verified for water and energy use.

For more information on DOE’s announcement, click here.

The Home of the Future…from 1957

What images are conjured up when you envision the “Home of the Future?”   Nowadays, you might think of a kitchen equipped with modern-looking smart appliances that can be controlled from your smart phone.  If so, you would be correct because those technologies are currently being developed and will not only save you time and effort in the kitchen, but help to lower your utility bills with increased energy efficiency.

However, six decades ago, the “Home of the Future” was envisioned very differently.  At Disneyland in Anaheim California, the Monsanto Home of the Future became a major attraction in 1957 that showcased what a typical American home would be like in 1986. Some things, such as microwaves and dishwashers, would become ubiquitous. However, some parts of this futuristic kitchen never came to pass and now seem kitschy by today’s standards, such as all-plastic dinnerware, using the dishwasher to store the dishes, and replacing the refrigerator/freezer with hidden “cold zones” for “irradiated food.”

This website features more information about the Monsanto Home of the Future and includes a fun 8-minute film from the late 1950s of a housewife daydreaming about living there. You can see more pictures of the Home of the Future here.  

Or watch here:

 

What do you think of this Monsanto Home of the Future?    What do you hope the Home of the Future will look like?    Tell us!

South Carolina Offers Rebates for ENERGY STAR Appliances

If you live in South Carolina and have been holding off on purchasing a new energy efficient appliance, now is the time to get one – but you have to act fast! The Aiken Standard reported that beginning Friday, January 27^th through February 5^th, dishwashers, refrigerators and room air conditioners will receive a $50 rebate and clothes washers will receive a $100 rebate. All appliances must be ENERGY STAR certified to be eligible for the rebate.

Upgrading to ENERGY STAR appliances are not only greener than the appliances of yesteryear by consuming less electricity and water, but they will leave you with more green in your bank, too. By purchasing an ENERGY STAR washer, you could save over $135 per year on your utility bills. In fact, in 1990, the average consumption for a washer was 2.67 kilowatt hours (kWh) per cycle and one manufactured in 2010 consumes only .66 kWh per cycle – a 75 percent decrease!  Click here to find ENERGY STAR qualified washers.

For more information about the rebate program, visit the South Carolina Energy Office’s website.   If you do not live in South Carolina, click here to review savings opportunities in your area.