Buying new fridge'freezer and problem re frozen food

ailey

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help with this. I'm going to buy a new fridge/freezer today online and would like to take up the offer of £9.99 recycling of old one. My problem is that I think you have to leave the new one standing for so many hours before switching on and then it will take a certain amount of hours for the fridge and freezer to cool to correct temperature. If I agree to the Recycle system which I would like to do as we would have a problem between my husband and myself trying to get it out onto the pavement for the council to pick up (I think that's still the local Council's policy that you put it out the night before collection), then I am left with nowhere to store the fridge foods and frozen foods until the new fridge/freezer is ready. What does everyone do when they are changing over these items and getting the old one taken away? An engineer was out last Monday and has it going again but apparently gas it leaking so he said it will need scrapped. Hope someone can help. Many thanks.

soup

well, eat everything in the freezer and use as much as you can of the fridge stuff.

The new one only needs to stand for 6 hrs, some less, then turn it on and it will get to temp in an hour. If you can't eat everything before it arrives then put your stuff in a black bag and take it to a neighbour/friend overnight. Collect it again when the new one is working.

Have some powdered milk handy so cereal, tea, coffee will not be a problem, mix it up as you go.

ailey

soup wrote: »

well, eat everything in the freezer and use as much as you can of the fridge stuff.

The new one only needs to stand for 6 hrs, some less, then turn it on and it will get to temp in an hour. If you can't eat everything before it arrives then put your stuff in a black bag and take it to a neighbour/friend overnight. Collect it again when the new one is working.

Have some powdered milk handy so cereal, tea, coffee will not be a problem, mix it up as you go.

I've arranged for delivery next Thursday so that will allow us to use some stuff but there's only hubby and I now so don't go through it too quickly. I must see if anyone can take any freezer food for me as that would be a great help. 6 hour standing time is not so bad as I thought it was around 12 for some reason and one hour to get to temp is less than I thought too so that's good. I've got a tiny can cooler on loan from my nephew when the fridge failed last weekend and it held a jug of milk and the butter so can rely on that again. Thanks so much for giving me that information. :beer:

Enterprise_1701C

Could you get a couple of cheap coolbags? I always put the stuff from my fridge into a cool bag when I defrost it and it keeps lovely and cool, use one or two of the freezer blocks you can get too.

If you don't have enough coolbags:

The frozen stuff should be even easier - make sure you set the freezer on as low a temperature as you can the night before, then get a large cardboard box and plenty of insulation (polystyrene would be good, but newspapers do the job perfectly OK), line the box with it, put your frozen stuff in (with the things like fish in the middle) and cover with newspaper. Store in as cool a room as you can and it should keep for a quite a while. Frozen things need an exchange of energy to defrost, and the fact they are stored with other frozen things means this is less likely .

I have never used this method for anything other than to defrost a freezer before, but I would expect it to work, the more frozen stuff in the box the better.

ailey

Thanks so much for your advice, Jane. That is just excellent. I would not have thought of turning freezer to lowest setting. I must check what it sits at just now. It's maybe at its lowest. I will freeze any ice packs I have. I was going to throw out my newspapers today but will use them to line the box. Just couldn't get my head round it yesterday. Also putting any fish in the middle of the food to stop it defrosting is a very good idea. Must do that with any ice lollies/ice cream. Now I know what I'm doing! I think my head was a bit stressed yesterday as I was trying to find the fridge/freezer I liked and I had looked at so many for the past 4 days, I was getting information overload! Many many thanks once again, Jane. :beer:

d.ross_2

First of all, if you haven't already ordered your fridge, then have a look at Boots on line store. I bought a fridge/freezer, a dishwasher, and a tumble dryer, and saved over £400 on the next lowest price.

As it isn't the retailer who are taking the old fridge away, then couldn't you pull the old fridge out, but leave it plugged in. Then have the new one delivered the day before the old one is taken away?

ailey

d.ross wrote: »

First of all, if you haven't already ordered your fridge, then have a look at Boots on line store. I bought a fridge/freezer, a dishwasher, and a tumble dryer, and saved over £400 on the next lowest price.

As it isn't the retailer who are taking the old fridge away, then couldn't you pull the old fridge out, but leave it plugged in. Then have the new one delivered the day before the old one is taken away?

I discovered that Boots, M&S and some other stores sold kitchen appliances and that they do so through DRG Ltd which is appliancesonline.co.uk but Boots etc were £401 and appliancesonline.co.uk were £354 with free delivery (and also a free £50 case of Naked wine, although I wouldn't have been influenced by that. It was just offered with the one we were buying). I wanted a 70cm wide so a bit limited in choice. I've paid the £9.99 for them to take away my old one as my husband had a small stroke last year and a bit weak down one side and I have a medical condition where I've not to lift anything heavy so thought it best to use their recycle system rather than the local Council where we have to leave it outside the night before. That was my problem the fact that it will be uplifted by the delivery people before my new one has cooled down. Thanks a lot for the information. It's just wonderful how many people out there try to help others. Makes for a better world. :beer: