Not even when buying a high power usage appliance with a large range of efficiency like a fridge, water heater, etc? That’s awfully odd - because the spread on efficiency for such items can be huge. Before energy Star it was even worse with just crazy bad efficiencies and no transparency.
My home has a tankless water heater, which I appreciate for the unlimited hot water supply…and it’s probably saving me money too. Americans (myself included) have enormous refrigerators compared to Europeans…if we really gave a shit, we’d have fridges half the size we have today.
We’d also hang our clothes to dry and might not even have a dryer at all. Way better for the environment…
I’m not even making an environmental statement. The spread in dollar cost per year in operating an efficiently cooled and insulated fridge and one that is neither is enormous. Obviously the size of the enclosed space matters as the heat gain is proportional to the surface area. But for the same volume you can spend 2x per year depending on the model.
Before energy star there was no way to know which was relatively more efficient. This led to people buying appliances that were extraordinarily and unreasonably inefficient, costing way more than necessary.
