Indeed so, as I keep telling people. For a start, the temp of an unopened freezer, particularly a chest freezer, will stay low for a pretty long time. Perhaps more to the point, from the 'food safety' point of view (bacterial growth), in nearly all cases any temp appreciably below zero is adequate. The main reason for the low freezer temps we use is to prevent (chemical and physical) deterioration which may make some foods unpleasant to taste or appearance (but still usually 'safe').
Essentially the same here. We get lots of power cuts, I presume due to the operation of 'devices' in the distribution neywork (particularly when there is lightning around), but usually only for durations ranging from a small number of seconds up to a few minutes.
See what I 've just written about this. I think people probably get too concerned about this perceived 'risk'.
Yes, 'defrost cycles' are a problem. They may in some senses be 'convenient', but inevitably result in temp in some parts of the freezer repaetedly rising to some extent. For that reason, if I could avoid it, I would never have a 'self-defrosting freezeer.
That is very pessimistic. A reasonably full chest freezer which is not opened will be fine for a lot more than 12 hours without power. If it is opened, or if it does not contain much, then things become different.
See above. I personally avoid them. I do have upright freezers, but not ones which 'auto-defrost'
That is a little daft (even if convenient), since they are the one type of thing stored in freezers that are ruined by modest rises in temp! (amee problem with ice cubes
)
If the freezer is working, then the fan moves the air around the freezer so there are no cooler or warmer spots with auto defrost as the fan is required as the cool bit is behind a divider, so it needs the fan. It also allows shelves to be removed for things like the Christmas turkey, so while working as designed they are a lot better than upright without auto defrost. They also tend to have features like showing the max temperature reached during a power cut, opening the door resets it. And inverter drive motors so less noise and smaller start up spikes.
Yes, I understand that.
Yes, that is an advantage over standard upright freezers where the shelves are intimately connected to 'cooling pipes'.
That's a matter of balancing pros and cons, about which opinions will undoubtedly vary.
For reasons I've explained, that feature would not particularly interest me - and, in any event, there's surely no reason why a freezer without such a feature couldn't have such a feature?
Again, that presumable is true whether or not it has auto-defrost?
That is one of the issues which concerns me a little, and hence one of the reasons I've avoided auto-defrost.
As I've implied, in some senses she is doing you a favour. As I've said, in the event of a loss of power, a freezer (of any type) will remain cooler for longer if it is crammed full of things than if there's only a little in it
As I wrote to eric, I don't see why the 'max temp experienced' display or the inverter motor are, at least in theory, necessarily restricted to auto-defrost ones - so it's certainly worth looking/checking if those 'features' interest you.
That's the sort of thing I imagined when I referred to "devices in the distribution network", and it would seem that, at least around here the 'transient fault' is very often not a true 'fault' at all, but just the consequence of a flash of lightning.
If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.
Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.
Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local
