"This is somewhat surprising, because most salespeople and the media seem to have dropped energy-efficiency in appliances as an issue," said Judith Wessel, former home management and equipment specialist for Ohio State University Extension and author of the studies. "One reason could be that many of the respondents live in and around central Ohio, where water is in relatively short supply and cost of electricity is on the rise."
One study surveyed predominantly rural residents. The other polled predominantly urban residents. Special features, which many manufacturers emphasize in advertising, was at the bottom of the list for both groups, said Wessel, who is also an assistant professor of family resource management.
Allen Martin, a graduate associate who helped in the rural-area study, said male respondents ranked energy issues higher in importance than females. Also, as the number of children increased, the importance of energy as a purchase criteria decreased. He said that is possibly due to an increased concern for other criteria such as performance or capacity.
The studies also found that rural families have more refrigerators and freezers operating than their urban counterparts. This has important implications, since most second and third refrigerators and freezers are older, less energy-efficient models. A new energy-efficient refrigerator can easily use half of the electricity to cool the same capacity than the typical refrigerator purchased 20 years ago.
The study also found that the average age of refrigerators was just over 10 years and the average age of freezers was almost 14 years. According to the appliance industry, the average life expectancy of refrigerators is 16 years and that of freezers is 15 years. In this study, nearly 35 percent of the freezers had already exceeded the average life expectancy.
