Reasons for disposal of domestic refrigerators and whether some of the appliances could potentially bere-used was studied. Based on visual inspection, a simple operational test and an electrical inspection, 28%of appliances were considered suitable for re-use. Potentially, these appliances could be provided cheaply orwithout cost to low income households. It might be unethical to provide low income households withappliances that had high energy use or performance issues, therefore the appliances were tested to comparethe temperature and energy performance with their original stated performance. In addition the applianceswere compared to current energy efficient appliances. For appliances where manufacturers data wasavailable it was found that 18 (out of 22) appliances used more energy when tested than provided on theenergy label, 1 appliance used almost identical energy and 3 appliances used less energy. Compared tocurrent appliances only 5 appliances were better than or equal to an ‘A’ rated appliance.
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