Is it worth having a second freezer

ltlmiles5

I've been thinking of getting a bigger freezer for a long time. Our current fridge freezer, we've had for about 7 years, and while it works perfectly fine, we now have a family of five, so we do need a bigger one.

We were thinking of buying a large fridge freezer though, one of those that are about 6 feet high, instead of getting a chest freezer.

What are the electricity costs of a chest freezer? Would you say that the bargains to be had from bulk buying and buying at discounted prices, and bulk cooking would cover the added costs of electricity?

calleyw

Look at the models you are interested in and the see how many Kwh's it uses per year and then times it by the amount you pay per Kwh for electric.

I am looking at getting a chest freezer. And there was a huge one way to big for us in a local shop. Whirlpool C rated for energy and the sales guy said it would cost about £50 a year to run. When I said I wanted an A rating one.

The A rated one I had my eye on in currys which was a lot smaller would have cost £25 a year and todays rates. And was on offer for £129.99 + £19.99 Delivery charge. Not sure if the offer is still on though.

I want a chest freezer so I can go supermarket shopping a lot less. And when I find a bargain I can pop it in the freezer. As I just don't have the room and about lucky to get 2 weeks worth of shopping in my fridge freezer.


Yours

Calley

ltlmiles5

Thanks for that calleyw. About £2 a month is not bad when you factor in the infrequent trips to the supermarket and fewer takeaways. I have to go about twice a week at the moment, due to fridge and freezer space constraints!

Ken68

About £20 A YEAR for a fridge/freezer (I use an energy monitor cost £5 from Lidl).See....http://www.energyrating.gov.au/standby.html
A chest freezer is cheaper to run and even cheaper if you insulate it from the surrounding heat....http://www.est.org.uk/myhome/assumptions/...Something here also
http://www.selfsufficientish.com/

ltlmiles5

Thanks Ken68. Will check the websites out.

squeaky

Hiya

While there are indeed cost benefits to bulk buying and cooking sessions that will certainly help to offset running costs it's going to be difficult to know for sure until you've costed the electricity.

I'd suggest you ask your power costs question in the Utilities Board (linked below) and perhaps someone can point you to a good site to help calculate it, and also somewhere that explains the different ratings.

What I'll do too, because we have another recent thread on freezers, is to merge the two together. The usual rules apply - posts are listed in date order so you'll need to read from the beginning to catch up with us


Utililities Board



Edit: Note to self: Must learn to type faster

icecubequeen

Ive been considering on getting another freezer, as I save so much money buying reduced food in the supermarkets, but I need to freeze it to keep it longer. Im running out of room in my current freezer, so thinking another freezer would help. It would also give me more room for batch cooked food, I could cook loads more and freeze it.

But what Im wondering is, is an extra freezer gonna save me money?

Ok im saving money on getting reduced food and freezing it, and being able to freeze batched cooked food more then I do now. But will the cost of runnin an extra freezer out weigh the savings being made on the cheap food?

Just wondered if anyone OS'ers have a 2nd freezer? and is it worth it in the long run?

(BTW i intend on trying to get a freezer off freecycle or cheaply 2nd hand, so there shouldnt be much of a cost paying out for one, its just the running costs im wondering about)

Ta in advance
Hels xxxx

Jayar

A freezer/fridge freezer used 2-3 units of lecky every 24 hours and if you check out this page
http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp
you should be able to work out approximately how much that will cost you
I think it's a great idea myself

organic_wanabe

I have two freezers - one in the house which is upright with 6 drawers and a chest one in the garage. I sometimes think I could use a third! The only problem is that I don't keep a note of what I put in and take out and so don't use them as efficiently as I could, but I certainly couldn't be without either and nothing goes to waste. I don't really give a thought to running costs because they must have saved me so much money over the years. One particular bargain which stands out in my memory was being able to avail myself of 5 Duchy Originals Turkeys at around £7 each on Christmas Eve 2004 (reduced from approx £22 each). We lived on turkey for the first few months of 2005!

paddy's_mum

I too have two large chest freezers, kept in the garage. They are constantly being filled as 'salmonella shelf' (sell by date/reduced for quick sale) items come our way.

I tend also to cook huge batches of soup as veg comes into season or someone with a glut gives me a bag or two of whatever they have produced. I recently picked up eight gammon hocks at £1 each - they are now frozen ready for a major soup session.

Nothing in our house gets wasted and large freezing capacity helps. On Monday, Tesco had whole free range ducks reduced to £3 each. I bought four. We had the meat roasted that night, cold with a salad the next night, boiled up the carcase for stock, boiled again for flavoured liquor to moisten the dogs' dry food and finally, chucked the bones into the woodburner to contribute to keeping the house warm!

I have never really thought to work out the running costs - we live very rurally and every trip to town we don't make is a saving in petrol costs so in our case we think it balances out.

I do keep an extremely close eye on our power supply though and have alarms on both freezers.