Talk to me about chest freezers (or other kinds i guess)

lauren grier

lauren grier

you're like stars
Are chest freezers.. good? efficient? long lasting? or is there another type of freezer that you have used and like?

I'm really aggravated with our fridge/freezer. We're renting this duplex so we don't own this crapper.. and well.. just ugh. It's a top/bottom style. we had an issue a couple of weeks ago when suddenly it wasnt cold enough in the fridge, and the freezer was borderline. we took everything out and defrosted it-- there was a ton of ice buildup.. everything seemed to be running perfectly again. phew! problem solved right? .. no. all of a sudden the freezer stopped being cold enough again. (of course right after we did a bulk grocery shopping). I'm assuming part of the problem is that we're over stuffing the freezer and there's just not enough air flow.. but the thing is tiny tiny so I guess we need a second freezer if we want to store more than 2 days worth of meat :p

So what are your recommendations.. and your buyer bewares ? we don't have much space upstairs.. but we do have a whole basement if I NEEDED to put it down there, but i'd prefer a more compact freezer.
 
(It puts the ice on the boobies.... Oh wait... you didn't mean THAT kind of chest freezer, did you?)
 
A chest freezer is more efficient because cold air sinks, so you can open the top of it, and all the air doesn't rush out like an upright freezer does. However, organization can be a little more problematic with it compared to an upright.

I have chest freezer and use plastic bins to organize it all. I have one for beef, one for pork, one for chicken, one for cheese, 2 for fruit, 1 for oadds and ends, and then a big open space for the bulky stuff. (I pack my zip top bags with meet and then freeze them flat so that I can then stack them in their respective bins like albums - it takes up less room that way.) The bins then get stacked on each other, and I can move them around fairly easily that way. Rarely does anything get lost at the bottom.

You can also organize an upright in similar fashion. It's just easier to get into than a chest, so they are more popular. There are tiny little upright freezer you can buy, too.
 
Got me - it was the $200 model at Lowes 10 year ago :) But it's a great freezer. not the smallest one, but not a huge one, either. I'm pretty sure ours is a little larger, but this is an approximation.

http://low.es/14Ebv3x
 
I don't personally have a chest freezer - yet... but my mom has had one for as long as I can remember. She just got a new from from Lowes (her old one was like 30 years old) - not sure which model, if you would like, I'll ask... I asked her why she got the chest one again and not the upright, since she got a fridge on up fridgerator to save on the back. Her reason was that she could cram more into a chest, the upright you have to be more careful on packing. ;)
 
MamaBee said:
I don't personally have a chest freezer - yet... but my mom has had one for as long as I can remember. She just got a new from from Lowes (her old one was like 30 years old) - not sure which model, if you would like, I'll ask... I asked her why she got the chest one again and not the upright, since she got a fridge on up fridgerator to save on the back. Her reason was that she could cram more into a chest, the upright you have to be more careful on packing. ;)
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yes please do ask :] thanks sweetie <3
 
We just replaced our old freezer a couple of weeks ago. We have an upright and I LOVE it. For us, the freezer itself fits better in the space we have and I have never liked chest freezers. I've had them in the past and it's always a struggle to keep everything organized and accessible, I don't have that issue with the upright at all and we can fit a ton of stuff in there. Our freezer is one of our most beloved appliances we use the hell out of it.
 
tx-nana-scraps said:
Agree with what the others say...but we had a chest freezer for so many years, then bought an upright from Sears and I love it so much more. So much easier to get things out. I have a very bad back and could never use a chest freezer now. Hated that the old chest freezer had to be defrosted, love that since the upright is only 8 years old it's self-defrosting. Happy shopping.
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how often did you have to empty out and defrost it? I'm just worried with an upright that there'd be too much window shopping happening with the bf and connor and it might not run as efficiently/stay as cold? but i may be completely wrong on that lol
 
uprights are inherently less efficient because the air falls out when the door is open.

My chest freezer is frostless - thought it will frost up if you don't get the lid down properly.
 
Darcy Baldwin said:
Got me - it was the $200 model at Lowes 10 year ago :) But it's a great freezer. not the smallest one, but not a huge one, either. I'm pretty sure ours is a little larger, but this is an approximation.

http://low.es/14Ebv3x
Click to expand...

I have one just like this :) even got it at Lowes. I've had it for about 8 years now and it's still going strong. I organize it much like Darcy does too except no meat - I make up soups, stews, freeze veggies from my gardens, etc. and put them in bins. I also use it for bulk items like grains, flours, nuts, seeds, etc. so they stay fresher longer.

ETA: I agree about the chest freezer being more efficient - I honest never noticed a bump in my electric bill when I got mine. And mine is frostless also. In the 8 years it's been running the only frost I've had is when I didn't realize something was too close to the top and it let some air in for a few hours.
 
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we started out with a chest freezer and hated it. i live with an anti-ocd hubs, who cannot keep things organized and in the end i simply refused to keep digging to the very bottom for something. i finally gave it away.

we got a nice little [it's like 4ft tall] upright freezer from Sears for around the 200$ mark and i love it. we're not in and out of it all that much and i love how you can see exactly what's on every shelf, nothing gets hidden and forgotten about. i think we've had it for 10-12 years. it's a frostless, but every once in a blue moon [depending on how full it is] we get a bit of ice build up. no biggie.
 
tx-nana-scraps said:
To keep Conner out of an upright you can lock it because they come with a key. Might be opened more in the beginning with the newness of it. Or just keep the ice cream, frozen snacks in the the fridge/freezer so the big one wouldn't need to be opened as much.

Like I said, for us the upright was the best for my back...and if you keep them full they do much better. Not good to run a nearly empty freezer.
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Yep. I'm a frugal, tree hugger and we bought an efficient upright. We may pay a bit more to run it but we don't have nearly the waste because we spend so much less time, digging, organizing and we don't throw away stuff. It's rare for us that the door is open that long, we keep stuff that gets accessed often in the fridge freezer.
 
We had a chest freezer for years and I hated it. IF you can stay really organized with it (like Darcy indicated), then it's OK. But we weren't and stuff shifted to the bottom that we forgot about and we ended up throwing a lot out. Now we just have 2 side-by-side fridges (one in the garage) and make do with those 2 freezers.

You might check Craigs List. We got our chest freezer for $75. Sold it years later for $60. :)
 
lauren grier said:
yes please do ask :] thanks sweetie <3
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I also asked her why the chest vs. upright... and if she had any 'what to look for advice'...

"Not much to chest freezers. The bigger you get the more you will put in and lose LOL Size all depends on what all a person freezes, size family, etc. I like the chest freezer we are getting. Never had one with a light and lock before LOL Ours is the 14.5 or something like that cu ft. by Whirlpool. I think it is about $450? Then was the 10% on sale and if have Lowes card get the 5% off which for us paid the sales tax.

I do not like an upright freezer as way too much space is lost with the shelves. "
 
MamaBee said:
I also asked her why the chest vs. upright... and if she had any 'what to look for advice'...

"Not much to chest freezers. The bigger you get the more you will put in and lose LOL Size all depends on what all a person freezes, size family, etc. I like the chest freezer we are getting. Never had one with a light and lock before LOL Ours is the 14.5 or something like that cu ft. by Whirlpool. I think it is about $450? Then was the 10% on sale and if have Lowes card get the 5% off which for us paid the sales tax.

I do not like an upright freezer as way too much space is lost with the shelves. "
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thank you for asking her <3 450 is out of the range i'd want to pay LOL.. but I really wonder how much space we'd need. There's just the three of us, granted.. connor and bf both eat like teenagers. So :p

It seems pretty split with everyone between the uprights and the chest freezers haha-- though one point that was brought up that i hadn't even considered is physical limitation issues- which I have plenty of. Maybe I need to go into a store and see how hard it would be for me to pick something up from the bottom.
 
We got an upright freezer, because I know me, and I'd forget about anything that wasn't in easy eye sight in the bottom of a chest freezer. I love having the drawers. You do lose a little space, but it works well for us.
 
We got ours on Craigslist. It's an upright, they said they bought it a year ago for $350 and sold it to us for $200. It definitely frosts up in the summertime with the humidity, but we mostly do our freezer cooking in the cooler months anyway.

It was delivered by the owner, and it was the biggest muscled man I have ever seen. He was huge and could lift it by himself like it was nothing. I was home alone with the babe and felt vulnerable, but he was nice and we just had him put it in the detached garage. Then it took DH plus 2 of our Vietnamese neighbors to put it down in the basement. lol!
 
We have a chest but I use milk crates to organize things inside it (one for veggies, one for breakfast, etc) and it works really well for us. It's the kind you have to defrost and we do that maybe once every 3 years.
 
We have had our Kenmore upright freezer for 15 years. I love it. Very easy to organize; holds a lot of stuff if you organize it properly and very easy to get stuff out of. Mine is not frostless. I defrost it a couple times a year. Takes about an hour. My parents have a similar one sitting on the floor of their garage. They just empty it and roll it out to their driveway and hose down the inside to defrost it. Mine is up on a shelf so I can't do that, so I just defrost the normal way with pans of boiling water. Our freezer saves us a ton of money buying meat in bulk & saves me lots of time by letting me cook ahead & freeze. Hope that helps!
 
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