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Regular
Posts: 62
| Does anyone have any advice/recommendations regarding buying a freezer for use in a garage? I have been told chest freezers are more efficient as the cold air is not lost every time you open the door. We store a fair amount of venison and some pork and beef as well as fruit/veg etc so would want a decent amount of space.
Cheers
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Veteran
Posts: 275
| I think you're right that chest freezers are a bit more efficient, but I suspect probably not all that much if you're using the freezer for long-term storage rather than going into it on a daily basis. The energy efficiency ratings should be a reasonably good guide, but they are based on energy use per unit of volume - so an A ++ big freezer may use more energy that an A-rated smaller one. You really want the typical energy usage, but that doesn't seem all that easy to obtain. |
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Regular
Posts: 80
| Other than the usual advise about keeping the freezer full even if you have to fill it with containers of water (this will also increase it's resilience if the power goes out for a short time) location is important.
This is were an old fashioned Pantry would come in handy. A small room on the north side of the house vented to the outside air. Somewhere that gets no sun.
Going off in a tangent, have you considered alternatives to freezing. I understand ( although i have not tried it ) that methods like canning can preserve meat for years. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 319
| Apparently chest fridges are very efficient too but not all that practical for most kitchens. It's worth seeing if you can replace bulbs by LED equivalents. I managed to find one for ours recently. This is a particular problem for businesses who waste a fortune heating up fridges with the lights which then means they have to work harder and of course leaving doors open in overheated shops which must be the most insane way to use up our carbon budget. We've apparently got about 16 years left at the current rate before we overshoot 2 degrees spectacularly. |
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Veteran
Posts: 275
| One more observation - I pulled our woefully inefficient fridge out of its normal place under a worksurface (which makes it even more inefficient, as warm air produced by the fridge is trapped by the worksurface) and discovered its energy rating certificate. Having blown the dust off, the certificate shows, in addition to the A to G rating, the estimated annual energy usage. We've been looking for a new fridge for our new house, and it's difficult to find the annual energy usage, but obviously the figures exist, so I imagine they must for freezers too. In the case of our fridge, it's quite educational - the fridge has an energy rating of C, which is pretty poor these days, but the annual energy use is only 250 kWh. So a small, inefficient fridge can be better than a big, efficient one, and of course the same will apply to freezers.
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 319
| I'm told you are supposed to hoover behind the fridge every now and then as the dust makes it less efficient. You've also got to factor in the energy cost of making something new. About half the carbon footprint of a car is in its manufacture. I don't know if the same applies for appliances. We recently had to decide whether to repair our microwave or replace it as it was nearly the same price. Interestingly it is now more powerful than when it was new and the local repair man seemed very pleased to have the work. |
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Energy efficient freezers
