High Efficiency Products

I’m going to say something unpopular. I am not a fan of High Efficiency (HE) products and never have been. Just want to make it clear that I am not against efficiency, in fact I am a very efficient person that really appreciates efficiency. Which is exactly why I don’t like these products. Sounds like a contradiction right? To me these products are not actually efficient and they just slap on the HE label.

What makes a product HE:

Simply put they use less resources to reduce your bills and environmental factors while providing the same or better effectiveness or outcome.

Why I don’t like them. This is a generalization:

Simply put the quality is less while you use more resources, time and money. This all sounds like a contradiction so lets unravel it.

• These products are more expensive upfront and more expensive to repair. Costing more over all.

• They use less resources (ex energy, water etc) which should be beneficial but they reduce it to the bare minimum and something has to give. Which ends up being the quality

• Since quality is reduced, you often you have to run the appliance more than once in order to get the same quality. Taking up more time, using more resources and causing bills to increase.

• If you do see savings it would take about 10 years (depending on appliance) for those savings to equal the extra cost to purchase it. And that is just in time for costly repairs or replacement

• Over all costing more with poor quality. I recommend you do calculation on your specific appliances to see if it is worth it. For example, the amount of water, electric it uses etc

My take on specific appliances:

• Driers: Doesn’t heat up as much as regular one which will result in needing to be put in more than once. I also find that the lint clogs the machines more and needs to be cleaned out more often even if you are cleaning the lint screen every time.

• Washing machine: These ones I like. They use less water, clean well and better for the septic systems. Like them even more if they are front loaders.

• Furnaces: Don’t like them at all. They are expensive with more moving parts that need to be serviced more often. The parts are more expensive. It doesn’t heat up as well. By the time the heated air gets pushed out, you get a bunch of cold air in the house. When the room finally starts to heat up, then it shuts off. You need to increase the heat more than usual to get the same temp as a regular one. All of this costs a lot.

• Dishwashers: I know that many people love these things and want I’m about to say is extremely unpopular. I am not a fan of dishwashers as I find them to be more trouble then they are worth. The average person, can wash dishes faster and with less electricity. As for water, well people use to do dishes in a very efficient manner that used the same or less water. As for the cost, a dishwasher costs a lot, takes too long which means more electrical use and the repairs cost too. Then there is the cost of all the products you have to buy. Plus, it doesn’t clean as well, and you have to risen off the food anyways before putting it in or else it will clog. It doesn’t end there. You have to clean the trap regularly. If you have hard water then you need to do an extra cleaning cycle. If you are on septic system, you need to make sure the products are specific safe and not to use too much water. Last thing is that you also have to fill it up the dishwasher in order to make it worth it. Sure, if you have quest over it might be worth it. Otherwise, you are using lots of plates, cups etc so that you can fill it up. All of this, in my opinion doesn’t make it worth it. In fact, it takes more time, more resources and costs more than if I just do them by hand in an efficient manner.