Chest Freezers

[V-NH]

Where do you keep yours? Can they be kept somewhere without climate control or will that decrease their operating life? Considering moving mine to the garage but I am concerned about no heat being in there in the winter.

[susieneddy]

We have ours on the back porch. There isn't any heat out there but it seems to work just fine.

[CurtisWilliams]

My chest freezer manual said to keep it above 50f, as it is not designed to work in lower temps.

It seems to me that the lower ambient temperature is, the more efficiently the freezer would work.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Garage.

[Wendy]

I have one in the barn, one in the unheated summer kitchen and two in the basement.

[MDKatie]

One is in the finished part of the basement, and one is in the unfinished part that stays cool but not freezing. Before we moved, we had it out in the shed (no temp control) and it did fine.

[7thswan]

Ours are in the unheated pole barn.

[PNP Katahdins]

Our big chest freezer is in an uninsulated cement-block room added to the back of the house a long time ago. Outside temps last winter were brutal. It did fine.

Last winter we added a smaller chest freezer when we had four older ewes butchered. It's in the basement behind the wood furnace and also does fine as far as we can tell so far.

Our power rarely goes out. When we leave for more than a weekend, I put dishes of ice cubes in each freezer and check for melting when we get home.

Peg

[MichaelZ]

A freezer-only should be OK.

A refrigerator/freezer will be problematic, however since it will shut off when the temp is below your target refrigerator temp, resulting in barely frozen food in the freezer section. But since you said "chest freezer" you won't have this problem. A neighbor has a chest freezer in his outside garage with no problem and we get plenty cold.

[Harry Chickpea]

The issue with cold is that the cooling cycle has the refrigerant changing from a liquid to gas in the freezer and then the gas back to liquid in the condenser coil that lives just behind the compressor. If the refrigerant doesn't change into gas before it reaches the compressor, the (NONcompressable) liquid can damage the compressor.

Hopefully, in cold weather the thermostats will prevent the compressor from cycling on, but I can't blame the manufacturers for setting reasonable operating parameters for equipment.

[kycrawler]

Both of my chest freezers are outside in an unheated pole barn no problems

[wy_white_wolf]

Originally Posted by Harry Chickpea

The issue with cold is that the cooling cycle has the refrigerant changing from a liquid to gas in the freezer and then the gas back to liquid in the condenser coil that lives just behind the compressor. If the refrigerant doesn't change into gas before it reaches the compressor, the (NONcompressable) liquid can damage the compressor.

Hopefully, in cold weather the thermostats will prevent the compressor from cycling on, but I can't blame the manufacturers for setting reasonable operating parameters for equipment.

Also some frost free units get stuck in the defrost mode when it gets to cold.

WWW

[hercsmama]

All my freezers are out in the garage (detached). We used to have one out on the back porch when we lived in Washington state, a thousand years ago...

[jassytoo]

Ours are both in unheated garage. No problems with that although in western Washington are winters aren't usually really cold.

[sniper69]

I keep both of mine in an unfinished part of the basement. They do great there.

[TnAndy]

Originally Posted by Wendy

I have one in the barn, one in the unheated summer kitchen and two in the basement.

4 FREEZERS ?

I just ordered our 5th one, to be in next week, and thought we might have passed the 'crazy stage' one or two ago.....ahahahaaaa...

To be fair, 3 of them are small chest units (7-9cuft) along with two uprights that are 14-15cuft, rather than really large units. We try to use one out, then turn it off, and condense/move stuff around so by next spring, we'll be done to 2 running. Don't really have anything to put in this new one, yet, but have two pigs that will require some space, and the just butchered steer took up one entire upright by itself that was off/unused.

Food is so expensive any more one can just about justify keeping a spare freezer around in case one goes out. The last one I bought was a 7cuft Haier that was only $200 new. This new one will be a Danby 9cuft. Trying that brand (which had to order in) because it uses only 2/3 the power per year as the 7cuft Haier (which can buy local)

All of ours are either in the unheated garage or summer kitchen....but both are insulated to the point they never dip below about 40 degrees in the winter.

[highlands]

I have three, one is actually a freezer/fridge chest version. i keep the two freezer ones out on our porch. They're sheltered from the elements (rain, snow) but the temperature fluctuates around them from -45°F to 86°F. Neither has a problem with that. One of them has been out side for over 30 years. That one is actually older than me and ironically uses half the energy of the modern energy efficient one. Both of those are the same size and used the same way. The older unit is simply better. I would buy another of those older ones over a new one any day of the week.

We bought the third one because it can run at 27°F which is just above the freezing temperature of meat (25°F) so we can store meat fresh for long periods. That one was on the porch for a while but then moved into our butcher shop when space was available.

-Walter