Freezers in freezing weather

[Claire]

I've lived here for 11 years, and most of our married life we've had a small (I think 8 cubic ft) freezer. We went on the road for three years, then moved to this old house.

My intentions were to buy another small chest freezer, but we somehow got by with the freezer on top of the fridge (the fridge is probably about 15-20 years old, and the freezer is just typical of the era).

Lately I'm getting fed up with juggling and jigsaw puzzling my way through the freezer. Needless to say, since we're all DC here, I cook a lot. It is very difficult to cook for two, so I tend to cook a regular meal (I learned to cook for 6), and freeze. I also make a lot of stock.

I told DH that I'm not making stock any more unless we buy a freezer. I feel like Fibber McGee and Molly every time I open the freezer door. He couldn't possibly in a million years find anything in the freezer. It is always packed totally; sometimes you have to almost empty it to find something that is in there.

Here's the question. For some reason DH does not want to put it in the cellar. After 30 years of living together, I am not going to go anywhere. He wants it in the garage.

The question is this: does a freezer function well in the winter when there is no heat (in other words, for the couple of months where I could literally put anything that needed to stay frozen in the garage without a freezer)?

 

[Harry Cobean]

morning claire
apparently the best ambient temperature for a freezer to operate efficiently is 50f.below this it may actually attempt to defrost the contents.read this on a few manufacturers/retailers sites.other side of the coin is that the main freezer at bolas's is located in an unheated outbuilding where temperatures drop well below freezing during the winter & it works fine,so......

 

[CWS4322]

We have nine freezers, several of which are outside in outbuildings. In the summer, we try to make sure the outside freezers are empty and unplug them until harvest time. They use more energy in the summer (the outside ones) than they do in the winter. As we are emptying the freezers, we replace what was in them with 2 l bottles of water. These freeze, of course, but a full freezer uses less energy than one that is partially full.

 

[Claire]

I guess having a freezer in an unheated building won't be a problem, then. CWS, When I lived in Florida and in Hawaii, in the spring I'd start collecting 2 liter bottles, fill most of the way with water, and freezing and make sure my freezer was almost full at all times. The bottles of ice made sure the freezer was full, would help keep the contents frozen through power outages, and, thankfully never needed as such, could provide backup water if we lost that (we often lost electricity for rather lengthy times when hurricane season came around).

 

[justplainbill]

Many modern refrigeration systems are not designed to function in cold environments (below say 50*F).
See- Freezer operation in my garage

 

[Andy M.]

I recommend you check the owners manual for any model freezer you want to buy. I too have heard that freezers don't do well in freezing environments.

 

[Harry Cobean]

I guess having a freezer in an unheated building won't be a problem, then. CWS, When I lived in Florida and in Hawaii, in the spring I'd start collecting 2 liter bottles, fill most of the way with water, and freezing and make sure my freezer was almost full at all times. The bottles of ice made sure the freezer was full, would help keep the contents frozen through power outages, and, thankfully never needed as such, could provide backup water if we lost that (we often lost electricity for rather lengthy times when hurricane season came around).

Many modern refrigeration systems are not designed to function in cold environments (below say 50*F).
See- Freezer operation in my garage

I recommend you check the owners manual for any model freezer you want to buy. I too have heard that freezers don't do well in freezing environments.

i dunno claire,andy & jpb seem to have come up with same info that i did in my original post.this figure of 50f keeps cropping up.while it is true that bolas's works fine in an unheated outbuilding it is about 30-35 years old which may account for it working ok.as jpb says:"Many modern refrigeration systems are not designed to function in cold environments (below say 50*F)".

 

[Dawgluver]

i dunno claire,andy & jpb seem to have come up with same info that i did in my original post.this figure of 50f keeps cropping up.while it is true that bolas's works fine in an unheated outbuilding it is about 30-35 years old which may account for it working ok.as jpb says:"Many modern refrigeration systems are not designed to function in cold environments (below say 50*F)".

I would have to agree. We did give an old fridge/freezer to a friend who keeps it in his garage workshop, but the room is heated in the winter.

 

[Oldvine]

Have you asked the company that sells the freezer you are interested in buying? If the sales person doesn't have the answer, they can contact the manufacturer. Different freezers manufacturers might have different requirements for installations.

 

[justplainbill]

Many if not all of Sears' Kenmore freezers are supposed to be ok for use in unheated garages.

 

[GLC]

Here's what I gather.

Many freezers are controlled by not only sensing the internal temperature but also sensing the difference with the exterior temperature, and they may be designed to shut down when the exterior temperature drops to near the desired internal temperature.

It is not a matter of refrigeration simply in general not working in a cold environment. Truck refrigeration units work in all temperatures. But home appliances are never engineered to be as robust or as flexible as commercial equipment. Why should they, when almost all of their products will be used inside as intended.

Figure that the usual home freezer may very well have difficulty in a room that's below freezing. It might be damage to the unit. It might be that it simply stops working, and your food thaws. So what to do?

I don't think turning the freezer off during a cold spell will work. The damage maybe done before it gets that cold. It could be too cold to run but not cold enough for the food. And you'd have to monitor the temperature independently. A pain.

You could heat the garage, but there are also accessory heaters for refrigerators that keep the local temperature at the coils high enough to keep it running.

Frigidaire - Garage Refrigerator Heater Kit

It should work with a freezer, since a refrigerator is just a freezer with a duct to steal cold for the other half. Ask Frigidaire about it and about the warnings about the age of the unit (which side of 2001) and the computer control situation. And it may be limited to top freezer refrigerators.

Obviously, the best would be a heater designed by the freezer maker for that model. If nothing is made that will work installed in the freezer, the alternative might be to build in around the freezer so it can be heated by a small space heater on a thermostat.

I personally would just put the thing in the cellar and be done with it. Or I wouldn't spend too much on the freezer and put it in the garage, but put in a freezer alarm. They're very cheap. If you found out it got too cold for the freezer to run, you could say "I told you so" and haul it to the cellar.

 

[CharlieD]

I think you are going to be fine, IL is not that cold. If you were somewhere in Siberia, i might worry about the freezer, but garage in IL should provide workable environment for any freezer today.

 

[jabbur]

My in-laws lived in the Cleveland area in the Ohio snow belt and they kept their freezer on the screened-in back porch. They would put up storm windows on the porch to cut the wind but it was totally unheated. They never had a problem and their freezer was fairly new. They had 2 small chest freezers and then about 5 years ago replaced them with one larger one. She would often store extra food on the back porch in the winter when the family was all there and the fridge was full. I would think you should be fine in the garage. Is your garage detached or attached? If attached, maybe keep the freezer against an interior shared wall.