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Understand the numbers before you spend

Most major-appliance purchases happen the day the old one dies — usually with no time to research. These guides give you the vocabulary fast.

Methodology & the Verified Label Live

Where every number comes from, how we plan to compute annual running cost, and what we refuse to do.

Capacity inflation: why the box says more than the DOE label Coming soon

Advertised vs. DOE-adjusted volume, and why the gap runs 30-32% on refrigerators.

Rebadged appliance brands: who really makes what Coming soon

Whirlpool -> Maytag/KitchenAid/Amana, Electrolux -> Frigidaire, GE = Haier, store-brand mapping.

Vented vs. heat-pump dryers, explained Coming soon

The 2.48x median running-cost gap and the buy-cheap/run-cheap inversion — the one appliance category where it flips.

Guides are written by Erin Rose and will be grounded in the same certified dataset behind the rest of the site. See our methodology.