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Re-activateWe're considering getting a compact refrigerator for our finished basement. How energy efficient are these small fridges?
A small refrigerator, say a model with a capacity of about 2 cubic feet, could be a good fit for a your basement or home office or a dorm room (most are bought for dorms). And the low price—some models cost as little as $70—might be appealing. But these Lilliputian appliances are surprisingly inefficient when it comes to electricity consumption. The most-efficient compact refrigerator we recently tested consumes about 280 kilowatt-hours per year, compared with roughly 390 kWh for an energy-efficient 18-cubic-foot top-freezer refrigerator.
That means the mini-fridge offers only about a tenth of the storage space but uses almost 72 percent of the energy the full-size model consumes. In other words, you're not getting a lot of storage bang for your fridge buck. For more on compact refrigerators, read our brand-new ratings-based buying guide.
Whenever you shop for a refrigerator or other appliance, refer to the yellow EnergyGuide label to find out how much electricity it's likely to use. And read "Refrigerator Capacity Claims Don't Add Up" to find out which regular-size models offer the most usable storage space.
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