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LOS ANGELES - Many Southern California customers are frustrated and confused to learn that they might not be receiving their expensive appliance orders, purchased through the luxury appliance store Pirch, when all locations suddenly closed this week. "Are we getting our merchandise? Are we getting a refund?" asked one customer, Maribell Rodriguez. Rodriguez told FOX 11 that she has yet to receive any answers from Pirch regarding her order since the company's abrupt closure Wednesday. She is in the middle of a home renovation and just took out a $20,000 loan to pay for the appliances. "I really feel that...

Frank Rodriguez in San Francisco says he has been dealing with a difficult LG fridge since 2021. “This one cost me $2,000 and it’s been a nightmare,” he said. He says it’s not freezing well. Techs have repeatedly tried to fix it, but haven’t. Frank says he’s asked for a replacement or a refund. But that hasn’t happened. *snip* LG says it put an arbitration notice on the box. It’s now asking a federal judge to require individual fridge owners to move their case to arbitration -- in private. But owners we interviewed say they never saw the box because...

Between 2013 and 2023, Americans’ spending on home appliances jumped 53 percent. Adjusted for inflation, that’s an annual increase of $390 to $558. But the cost of appliances decreased by 12 percent during that same time. How is that possible? Well, as the Wall Street Journal explains, one “reason for the discrepancy between [higher] spending and [lower] prices is a higher rate of replacement[.]” Over a mere two years, “Yelp users … requested 58% more quotes from thousands of appliance repair businesses last month than they did in January 2022.” “We’re making things more complicated, they’re harder to fix and...

When Jessica Romer pulls clothes out of her new washer-dryer, they feel cool and a bit damp but dry to the touch within seconds. Using no electric heating element or natural gas, the unit’s dryer employs a pump to draw in ambient heat from its surroundings, making it 50% more energy efficient than traditional models—though without producing that warm, toasty feel. “It’s different and strange,” said Romer, who lives in northern Florida, “but it does work.” Whether Romer’s heat-pump dryer represents the pinnacle of energy efficiency or just the latest stop on a long climb is part of a debate...

(excerpt) According the notice, Electrolux Group—the parent company of Frigidaire—is recalling about 383,240 of their side-by-side fridges with slim ice buckets. The reason? There is an ice bucket assembly component that can easily break and as a result, cause either a choking or laceration hazard through the pieces being dispensed out of the ice bucket. (excerpt) As the recall notes, the models included were manufactured between 2015 and 2019 and were sold at nationwide retailers such as Lowe's, Home Depot and more. Dates that the items in question were sold fall between November 2015 and September 2019 and between the...

The Biden administration’s War on Things That Work ran into a significant setback in the courts recently. At the start of Biden’s second year in office, he directed the Department of Energy to issue new “efficiency standards” for a variety of home appliances and plumbing fixtures. They went after everything from gas stoves and toasters to shower heads and toilets. They were seeking to undo regulations regarding “short-cycle appliances” put in place by the Trump administration which offered more flexibility to manufacturers and consumers in terms of water and energy conservation standards. But now, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals...

Betsy Anderson’s luck with refrigerators stinks as badly as the food she’s tried to keep cold. “One morning I went to get milk out and it was sour,” said the Redwood City homeowner. First, a $2,800 Kenmore Elite fridge — with an LG compressor inside — died in late 2019. “It was like 15 months old,” she said. “It basically stopped working. It wasn’t cold.” Anderson filed for warranty service. But after two months of replacement parts failing, techs canceling service calls, and Thanksgiving approaching, she broke down and bought another fridge: a brand-new LG. Groundhog day: $2K fridge edition...

The Supreme Court declined to rule on two court cases Monday involving energy development, while a federal appeals court blasted the Biden administration’s appliance efficiency standards. Home appliances The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Monday sided with 11 red states that sued the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) over its promulgated efficiency standards for dishwashers and washing machines, ruling that “it is unclear the DOE has any statutory authority to regulate water use in dishwashers and clothes washers.” The court also stated in its opinion that, even if it does have that authority and the agency had...

In a recent development, a federal appeals court has struck down the Biden administration’s attempt to impose strict climate regulations on dishwashers. The Department of Energy (DOE) aimed to repeal a Trump-era regulation that set standards for water use in dishwashers and clothes washing machines. However, the court ruled against the administration, citing concerns over the effectiveness of the proposed measures. The court’s decision stated that even if the DOE could consider both energy and water use in the definition of efficiency, the 2020 rules put forth by the Trump administration likely promoted greater efficiency in both categories than the...

New York City's effort in the 1990s to regulate toilets and shower heads to cut down water usage ignited consumer outrage, even inspiring a 1996 Seinfeld television episode in which the character Kramer was so fed up with his apartment's low-flow shower head that he purchased a high-flow head on the black market. Three decades later, the Biden administration is leaving few appliances in the home untouched in its quest to regulate the amount of water and energy Americans use for their household chores. The list of impacted appliances includes gas stoves, dishwashers, air conditioners, refrigerators, light bulbs, washing machines,...

If there was no other reason -- and there are plenty -- not to vote for Joe Biden, the fact that his administration has opened the door to more and more governmental control would be a great one. Climate change is a big excuse to make all kinds of societal transformative change and control our actions--not to mention, destroying or building up industries with those controls and restrictions. Coal and oil are bad, electrical vehicles (except those from that evil Elon Musk) are good. Government shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers, yet that's what they doing...

2023 was an unusually bad year for appliance regulations, and future years won’t be much better unless Congress finds a way to stop the nonsense. It all started last January when Richard Trumka Jr., a commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), announced an investigation into the safety of natural gas stoves and boasted that a ban on them was "a real possibility." That sparked a powerful consumer backlash, followed up by strong denials from the Biden administration that any such ban was in the works. But CPSC has still gone ahead with its inquiry, and in February, team...

President Biden invoked a Cold War-era law in a surprising move Friday to pour taxpayer funds into domestic manufacturing of electric heat pumps, an alternative to gas-powered residential furnaces. In a joint announcement with the White House, the Department of Energy (DOE) said the federal government would award a "historic" $169 million for nine projects across 15 sites nationwide in an effort to accelerate electric heat pump manufacturing. The significant level of funding was made possible after Biden utilized the 1950 Defense Production Act (DPA) to increase domestic production of green energy technologies. Under the actions announced Friday, the DOE...

In December, Energy Secretary Granholm announced that the administration had taken 110 actions on energy efficiency standards in 2022 alone...and are moving forward with rules impacting dozens more appliances. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Joe Biden administration continues to use executive authority to regulate popular household appliances at an unprecedented level, with claims that their changes will save consumers money and help slow climate change and its alleged effects on the environment. Though the latest set of restrictions the administration is mandating is for gas powered furnaces, that is only the latest and far from the last. “According to the current federal Unified...

My New York City apartment doesn't have a lot going for it. It's 700 square feet. The master bedroom fits little more than a queen-sized bed. There's no kitchen pantry. My baby son sleeps in a large closet. But I'm a cook, and it does have at least one thing that keeps me renewing the lease year after year: a four-burner gas stove. Gas ranges allow cooks a greater degree of control over heat, from which flavor and texture result. But for the next generation of New York cooks, that feature will be even more of a rarity. Starting this...

President Joe Biden’s proposed energy efficiency standards for water heaters, released July 21 by the Energy Department, not only would raise the cost of water heaters for consumers but take certain products off the market. One popular tankless natural gas water heater, made by Rinnai in Griffin, Georgia, would have to be discontinued. The public has until Sept. 26 to file comments. Beginning in 2029, the Energy Department’s proposed regulation would set government standards for all types of water heaters, including gas-fired, oil-fired, electric, and instantaneous tankless water heaters. The proposed rule would raise standards disproportionately for tankless, gas-fired water...

The U.S. Department of Energy is now turning its attention to household water heaters as the Biden administration continues to target everyday home appliances for further regulations. The administration, led by Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, proposed new standards for water heaters last week. The standards on residential water heater efficiency, which are required by Congress, have not been updated in 13 years. Officials say the new regulations to impose energy efficiency standards would save consumers $11.4 billion on energy and water bills annually. The regulations - which would take effect in 2029 - would require electric water heaters to...

Consumer advocate: New Biden regulations mean ‘Everyday things that people want are going to get more expensive or disappear' ... A pledge by the Biden administration in December 2022 to take “more than 100 actions” to impose significantly tighter environmental standards on consumer goods is now becoming reality, and consumer groups are predicting a future in which Americans pay more for products that do less, while manufacturers warn of shortages and supply chain breakdowns. “You’re seeing, just in the last few months, new rules from the Biden administration about clothes washers, dishwashers, and other kinds of kitchen appliances, and in...

Last Tuesday, Rewiring America announced that it has hired Georgia politician Stacey Abrams to help the group “launch and scale a national awareness campaign and a network of large and small communities working to help Americans go electric.

The Biden administration announced its latest home appliance regulations this week, targeting air conditioners in an action it said would reduce the nation's carbon emissions. The regulations, unveiled Thursday by the Department of Energy (DOE), finalize energy efficiency standards for home air conditioning units, or window air conditioners, and portable air cleaners. The DOE said the move would cut air pollution and push consumer costs down by billions of dollars via energy savings. "Today’s announcement builds on the historic actions President Biden took last year to strengthen outdated energy efficiency standards, which will help save on people’s energy bills and...