Our side by side fridge with water & ice dispenser leaves us with the smallest freezer imaginable. Family of 4 with 2 young kids who will eventually eat much more. We are "sale" shoppers so stock up when prices are good on whatever. We do have another fridge downstairs with a top freezer, but we rarely need the fridge portion so I save the $10/month and keep it off. I think we would be better off with a chest freezer. We don't do any slaughtering or hunting, so no whole cows or venison storage will be required. I'm thinking a small-ish one will work for us. Winging it I'd guess 9 cu ft is plenty, not sure what the standard sizes are. So, help me out. Who makes a good one? Any features to look for? What size should I target? Any aversion to buying used? Thanks.
I personally prefer an upright. I used to have stuff in a chest freezer that I forgot about for years until I moved. The freezer we have is more about convenience than saving money. It costs about $20/mo to run. It's a large 'commercial' Frigidaire, I think we paid $100 for it.
Agreed, we have an upright as well and for the same reasons. Things on the bottom of a chest get forgotten over time. Also, on a chest, the lid becomes a catch all in no time.
Try to get one that fits your needs. You don't want a 1/2 empty freezer, it uses a lot more electricity. Fill plastic milk jugs with water if you need to.
Glad you brought that up Jack, we do the same thing. Dual purpose, the frozen jugs work well in power outage situations too
We got a 14 cu. ft. upright a few years ago. My brother has a chest freezer about the same size and it turned into a "catch all" like MOHMH said. We buy bread, meat, butter, and whatever when it's on sale then stick it in there. I'm able to keep the temp control at either the lowest setting or the next one up, and I'd say it doesn't take more than $5/month to run it.
We have a small chest freezer and we like it. I think if we needed a large one an upright would be better.
We have both styles. Wild game goes in the upright, everything else in the chest. Never have had a problem with either mechanically or with the chest becoming a catch all but it gets opened every day. The chest is a Frigidaire and the upright is a White-Westinghouse. Both were bought scratch and dent.
I have both the chest and the upright. The chest freezer is now off because it cost too much to run. $14 per month. We have a small chest freezer I keep on the porch. Ended up there because I had no way to get it up the stairs. We have enough room in it for our needs, 2 people, larger freezer means more bargin buying and wasted food. Chest freezer are less money to operate. Got mine at Sam's club for $200. Keeps everything rock hard.
I keep thinking it would be nice to have a bigger freezer, but I've lost some meats because of freezer burn. My fault because we don't eat a ton of red meat.
We used to have a small upright freezer. It was perfect. We both loved it because there was no digging around.
I never figured a freezer to cost much to run. $20/month is . My total electric bill runs around ~$40 a month if averaged out.
I bought this to keep some extra meat and stuff in but its mostly for my bee keeping things so nothing can get lost in the bottom. It works great keeps everything in it frozen solid. I dont know what it costs to run it never bothered to figure that out I just pay the bill when it comes. I would like to get an upright sometime down the road but for now this works good for us. http://www.lowes.com/pd_462646-3311...l=1¤tURL=?Ntt=chest+freezers&facetInfo=
I had a friend that bought a used one, it ended up having a terrible stench once uplugged and on the way to her home. The stench never left and she ended up taking it to the dump. I was evacauated from my home for 2 weeks while ours (200 lbs assorted wild game and grocery meats) sat without electricity and the meat rotted. Now I know where the stench came from in my friends freezer. Then upon return we had to wait for emergency food disposal dumpsters (hazardous) and we turned it back on. Amazingly while running it didnt smell that bad. Of course we ended up taking ours to the dump too. I would be averse to a used one
I bought my first house from my sister. They left a big chest freezer full of stuff in the basement while they were building, and I finally cleaned it out one day. I found stuff at the bottom that had been there for years. I think all that I saved were a couple of turkeys, holiday gifts from work. After I cooked the second one, I unplugged it. I was single, lived alone, and worked second shift. I had the refrigerator and freezer running, lights and tv for maybe an hour or two daily, and a couple loads of laundry every week. Furnace, water heater, and range were all NG. My bills were pretty consistent, usually between $50-60 when I wasn't running the a/c. After I unplugged the freezer, my bill dropped to $35-40ish. I think those two free turkeys cost me at least $200
We have a family of four and also added a small chest freezer. If we needed something bigger we probably would go upright.
I used a kill o watt meter to test power usage. You have to enter your cost of electricity and then let it run with the appliance plugged in. My upright was 14 per month, the chest freezer is about $50 a year. Noneof them are of use if you don't rotate your good to assure you know what you have and what age it is. Make sure go set whist you have on hand first.
