How big a chest freezer ?

[Deleted User]

Our very old upright fridge/freezer (bought second hand in 1992 !) has just expired. Has been in our garage for the past 5 years.

I would really like to replace it with a chest freezer but my husband thinks that we shouldn't get a large one as things will just get forgotten at the bottom and also that we won't fill it up and it will be a waste of electricity (there's just the two of us). Of course HE isnt the one who does the food shops - and I'd like to be able to pick up things when I see them reduced and stock up in a big freezer.

So - my question is .... how do I work out how big a freezer we need? Also, how do I make sure that it runs as economically as possible? It will need to be in the garage (which is a brick built one with a double glazed window. It can cold but never icy inside - not even when we had all that horrendous weather in the winter of 2010-11).

Cheers

grizzly1911

How big was the freezer part of of your old one?

How much more do you think you will make use of?

Do you like/need to cook/caterer in advance or would the ability to do so be an advantage?

Don't know what spare floor space you have in the garage but a larger upright may help save space and also make things easier to sort/locate/protect whilst freezing..

Whilst you may by the food cheap(er) if it is costing you money to keep it there it is a trade off. Consider the power usuage of different sizes/types. We only have a small fitted freezer of 94L Net and it consumes ~0.7KW/h a day 60p a week.

materialgirl

as said above, it depends on how much space you have and how often you shop i guess. We have an american style fridge/freezer, and that suits both me & my OH and we shop fortnightly and i still manage to bulk cook soups etc and have room for bulk buying bread or any extra pre-xmas cheap buys i find. :T

[Deleted User]

grizzly1911 wrote: »

How big was the freezer part of of your old one?

How much more do you think you will make use of?

Do you like/need to cook/caterer in advance or would the ability to do so be an advantage?

Don't know what spare floor space you have in the garage but a larger upright may help save space and also make things easier to sort/locate/protect whilst freezing..

Whilst you may by the food cheap(er) if it is costing you money to keep it there it is a trade off. Consider the power usuage of different sizes/types. We only have a small fitted freezer of 94L Net and it consumes ~0.7KW/h a day 60p a week.

How big was the freezer - I don't actually know the figure. It was a typical upright fridge freezer (with freezer half at the bottom). We only have a small fridge and freezer in the kitchen, so having an "overflow" outside was really useful. Never had enough freezer space - used to not buy lots of things because I knew we wouldn't have enough room for them.

We grow lots of soft fruit so it would be good to be able to store the excess; plus I work a couple of evenings a week and could call in at supermarkets on the way home and pick up bargains (or that's my plan ... )

I do cook everything from scratch; don't use ready meals. Exceptions being things like pizzas (when on offer). Would be good to be able to buy mince & sausages when on offer and freeze them, plus when I make a big pan of sauce for spaghetti to be able to freeze the leftovers - that sort of thing. I do use lots of frozen veg, especially things like green beans and corn.

Garage can be rearranged to provide more floor space if it's needed.

Interesting about how much power it would consume ...I need to bear that in mind when choosing one. (How do you know it's 60p a week, by the way? How are you monitoring it ?)

jhe

we had the same dilemma a few years back, settled for a whirlpool chest freezer thats around 110 cm width plenty big enough for us but we do fill it up.
got to admit food does get left at the bottom i much preferred my old upright freezer
just to say also when we bought it we were warned it wasnt meant to be used in outbuildings but we have never had a problem with it.
i believe there are freezers sold that can be used in outbuildings but choices were limited when we bought ours.

joedenise

There's only 2 of us as well but I have a small chest freezer, small upright freezer - both outside in a plastic garden storage cupboard!) and a fridge/freezer in the kitchen and I hardly ever have any space in them, except the last few days before my shop.

I would like to replace the outside freezers with a single chest freezer as I am sure it would be cheaper to run.

There is no need for things to get lost at the bottom of a chest freezer - you just have to be organised enough to keep an inventory of what you have in there and cross off things as you use them.

If you are sure you want and will use a larger chest freezer then go for it.

Denise

grizzly1911

Corona wrote: »

How big was the freezer - I don't actually know the figure. It was a typical upright fridge freezer (with freezer half at the bottom). We only have a small fridge and freezer in the kitchen, so having an "overflow" outside was really useful. Never had enough freezer space - used to not buy lots of things because I knew we wouldn't have enough room for them.


Interesting about how much power it would consume ...I need to bear that in mind when choosing one. (How do you know it's 60p a week, by the way? How are you monitoring it ?)

I would suggest that if you had a full size ~6ft F/F then, equally split, the freezer bit would have been similar to ours 95/100L.


According to the brochure it consumes 100w (0.1KWh) when working or ~0 .70KWh per day. Our electric is ~£0.12 per Kwh. (.70X.12x7 = £0.60) take it this would increase if you were to do a lot of freezing from scratch or if you had a less full freezer.

Mr_Ted

:rotfl:How big do you want it to be, no one can answer that here :T

A chest freezer like all freezers and fridges works best if its full!

If theres something you want at the bottom then you'll have to dig it out, bearing in mind that it will probably be frozen to everything around it!

Sometimes we have to think for ourselves

[Deleted User]

I agree with your dh. We got rid of our chest freezer and small fridge freezer. After a fair but of research we found that the fridge freezer that ikea sell to be best value over all and a+ energy rated and is ample for a family of 5.