Anyone own a Prestige Freezer?

Bigun28

Does anyone own a Prestige Freezer? I'm particularly interested to hear from anyone who owns a Prestige PRT225FFZS Freezer (it's the tall silver upright version).

The reason I ask is that I've been offered this model via a friend, but I can't find any balanced reviews on them to see how good or reliable they are, and I don't really want to end up with a very unreliable freezer. So I'm trying to determine people's experiences of them in terms of reliability etc before I part with my money.

Any info greatly appreciated.

savingsinblackhole

Randal Hi,
I got in one in Comet 2 years ago.
Generally pleased with the spec.
But a bit worried by its behavior recently.

Google searching for "prestige freezer problems", revealed other people having problems, regarding erratic temperature readings.
The user guide isn't a lot of help. For instance it says to regularly clean and defrost, and says see section on defrosting, but there isn't one.

One user claimed they took off a cover at the back to reveal the cold air channel was blocked with ice. On removal of which, everything OK.

I went into Comet to look for any advice and found they no longer offer the full size freezer, only larders and larder/freezers. They said to contact the manufacturer. But that is proving difficult to find.

Did you end up getting this freezer?

Bigun28

Thanks for the reply. I took a chance and did get the one I mentioned. It was really cheap because they thought it had a fault with the low temperature alarm light permanently on. But when I got it, I played around with the buttons and found that you just needed to reset it and hey presto, everything works fine now.

I did read the various reviews on it on the web and figured that often if you find a bad review, you will that same review across a few forums. Most people, if they are happy with something, don't tend to write any review at all. So thinking that Comet were selling it as a 'best seller' (apparently), and the fact that I was getting it cheap I thought I would give it a try.

So far it is good. Strangely enough I also have it set up with an additional remote temperature sensor which is linked to a weather station that I have, just in case anything goes wrong because it will set off an alarm on the weather station if the temperature goes above a certain level. Also because I had a slight concern regarding the mentions of erratic temperatures.

I've set the temperature on the freezer to -18 degrees and the remote sensor tends to register it as running between -15 and -19.5 degrees when I monitor it over a few weeks or so. It seems that the freezer motor runs, gets the temp down to about -19.5, and then stops and allows it to warm over time (many many hours) to a little above -18 (defrost cycling?) and then start again to bring the temp back down to below -18. You wouldn't normally notice it doing this because the temperature setting on the front always reads -18 degrees. I only notice it doing it because of the remote sensor, and I know that a similar thing happened on an old Hotpoint freezer that I used to have and monitor. So it may well be the same process across other freezer models.

But so far, it has been a very good freezer with loads of room.

Ref finding the manufacturer, I had similar issues. One of the drawers was cracked when I got it and I wanted to purchase a new one. I went through the number in the back of the user guide and they put me onto another company for the spares. Can't remember who they were precisely (Fridgeaire I think) but their number was 0845 052 9005. Eventually got a new draw which was quite cheap.

savingsinblackhole

Randal - well done!
Of course ever since we started having concerns (i.e. the alarm went off once and got to -8 then at other times it has shown -14, but in all cases got back down to -18 without intervention) we probably have been taking note of the temperature much more than before, so I can't honestly say whether it has behaving like this all along (apart from the one time the alarm went off) And of course I don't know what other temperatures it has got to when I'm not looking!

I was considering setting up a monitoring system, but I'd have to start from scratch. But I guess that is the only way to be confident.

I think I will definitely remove the interior rear panel just to see if there is any ice build up - and I'll let you know what I find.

And I wonder if yours did suffer the same and was cured by being turned off long enough for any ice to clear, in the time before you started using it?

It is so annoying that there is no official word on what it should do. Either there is a built in program to cycle the temperature to keep it defrosted or it is happening by default in a random fashion. The user guide doesn't mention automatic defrost, although the user guide for the fridge/freezer I saw in Comet today does - but then that probably refers to the fridge part.

I agree it is an excellent specified freezer, even though it has reduced capacity due to extra insulation compared to our previous one (which ran for 20 years) and a little strange/suspicious Comet are no longer supplying.

Bigun28

The only times we have had the freezer alarm going off was when we were filling it after a big shop and the temp got up to -3 (we just closed the door and put the super freeze on for a while). The other time was when someone managed to not close the door correctly and the remote alarm sensor went off on the weather station in the house - the freezer is located in a storage cupboard outside the back door, so we wouldn’t have heard the main freezer alarm. Hence the remote alarm worked wonders then.

Just having a look on the web for this model and noticed that Comet do appear to still be selling it here. Also there is another store called Laskys here that are still doing it and were when I was originally looking for details about the freezer.

I know that some people mentioned the ice build up before, but to be honest I have not had any problems with it and the person I go it from said they didn't notice anything with it before either. The freezer has just stayed frost free all the while with no problems. I suppose the temperature variances that I have noticed are just the defrost cycle working through.

Funnily enough, I have heard of a similar problem many years ago when someone complained about ice build up etc. When they got an engineer out to look at the problem it turned out that the drain at the back was blocked with old bits of food which allowed the ice to easily form over the hole and prevented the defrost cycle working correctly.

Capacity wise I’ve found it to be ideal for us (a family of 5) at 240 litres which seems to be the going rate for many large freezers, although they do quote it as having a gross capacity of over 300 litres. Never managed to fill it totally yet.

savingsinblackhole

Interesting!
The Comet page you linked to says:
Frost Free (twice) and Manual Defrost (near the bottom) - so which is it?

(http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080824222801AALzyRq)

Also it says it doesn't have Fast Freeze or High Temperature warning light, but it does!

savingsinblackhole

OK,
well I ventured to take my freezer apart.
No massive build ups of ice. So maybe I don't have a problem!

This shows the evaporator coils and interior defrost drip tray.


The drain hole is inevitably iced up, but since there is no accumulation it must be melting as required. Looks like there is some king of heating element in the tray.

The fan at the top works, and switches off when you open the door.