freezers?

[gummy-bear]

My mom and I are looking into buying a freezer for the house before she leaves to go traveling. She really likes the upright freezers but they are a couple hundred dollars more than the chest.  I am clueless as far as brands go and what size is ideal. So, I turn to you guys.Any particular brand or style that stands above the rest? What size of freezer do you have?

TIA
GummyBear

 

[joshua47]

I think it really depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking to freeze game or something like that, a chest is way better in my opinion. If you're freezing portioned items and lots of small things, an upright might be better. If you're just looking to use it for home use (not industrial) check Sears. They usually carry pretty good home-use products at good prices.

 

[kyheirloomer]

I'd say Joshua has it pretty much covered.

Chest freezers are ideal for long term storage, uprights better for things you'll be reaching for more or less often.

Ideal is to have a chest freezer, an upright, and a fairly large built-in-to-the-fridge. That way, the larger the unit, the less often it gets opened.

Freezers operate at maximum efficiency when they are packed as full as possible, and opened as infrequently as possible.

Some things to consider. Any freezer should operate at at least zero-degrees. Lower than that is even better.

Do not even consider a self-defrosting freezer. That's a guaranteed way of creating freezer burn.

 

[chefedb]

 For ease and for the sake of your back and convenience. an upright is way to go. it can be organized           Chest are ok if you do not use a lot.
    See if you can buy used, check newspapers. you will save a lot of $.

 

[mikelm]

"See if you can buy used, check newspapers. you will save a lot of $. "

Ed is quite right about the savings. For many years, refrigerators and freezers have been regarded as the longest-lived of home appliances. So, it's not too great a gamble to go used.

Mike

 

[bcycler]

As a person with extremely old appliances with one recent exception you might call me value conscience. My approx. 32 year old Kenmore Chest freezer has rumbled some discontent for the last year which has me interested in replacement, my lack of enthusiasm for the new appliance has stopped a number of purchases.

Frigidaire has about 90% of the home freezer market and in my opinion they manufacture as if they had no competition. Pinch the door liner of one and wince at the though of letting a juice can drop from more than a few inches, couple this with the insiping 1 year warranty, read some reviews and you may come to the same opinion I have, I would only purchase one as an act of desperation.

In some ways I understand this as the cost of a freezer today isn't much different than when I purchased my 32 year old unit. Energy efficiency seems to have resulted in smaller compressors that run more frequently. The refrigerants used today are different (not sure if this is a factor in life expectancy) but I can't see any excuse (again in my opinion) for the awful quality of the door liners. I've pulled a few units out in the stores so I could examine the backs and seen corroding copper pipes coming into tiny compressors.  You will save something on your energy bill buying a new unit but I don't like the trade off in build quality.

I would pay to buy one better built, eschewing bells and whistles for a solid compressor and good tubing coupled with real warranty, at least 5 years on the sealed system but they just don't seem to be made. 

So as suggested above I'm keeping an eye out for a used one, more than a couple of years old but not ancient.

 

[abefroman]

Check craigslist!