Two strikes for Viking

At $7,000, the Viking Professional VCBB536L built-in refrigerator is hardly a budget buy. But based on our tests, it could cost you a lot more than you bargained for in higher-than-expected energy use. What’s more, we believe this model exceeds the Department of Energy’s allowable energy consumption by more than 60 percent.

We usually see about 20 percent higher energy use in our energy tests than what’s stated on the refrigerator’s EnergyGuide label, because our tests are different from and tougher than what the DOE mandates. But there was an 83 percent difference between the Viking’s energy use in our test and on its EnergyGuide label: 1040 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year in our tests compared with 567 kWh on the unit’s EnergyGuide label.

This is the second time in as many years that a Viking refrigerator used significantly more energy in our tests. In March 2010, we notified the DOE about similar energy-use findings with the Viking Professional VCSB542. We suspected that a significant portion of the higher energy consumption was due to its Plasmacluster Ion Air Purifier, which is also on the VCBB536L. The DOE opened an investigation of that model. Two of four units the DOE tested failed the federal standard for maximum energy use. The department then tested 15 more units, supplied to the DOE by Viking. All of those units passed. Based on a statistical analysis of the combined test results, the DOE ruled that the Viking met the federal standard.

Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, supports the DOE’s plan to get units for testing at retail. We always buy the refrigerators we test at retail, in most cases anonymously, to ensure that they’re the same as what you’d buy. We urge the DOE to pay special attention to new technologies and their effect on energy use.