One of the repair guys I had out said the older style fridge with the freezer up top was better, since the cold air basically falls down from the freezer to the fridge. Just a lot less parts to worry about I guess too?
And to clarify our ice maker issue, both repair guys said they could fix the ice in the door, but refused to since they couldn’t guarantee it would stay fixed and said it would break again. Probably sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, since it came with our house there wasn’t anything we could do about it, but if we had bought it ourselves they said we might could have raised hell and got it replaced since it is a design flaw.
Slight tangent here. We have been interested in buying a freezer and you simply can’t find them. We might be able to get a top-opening freezer in a month or two, but I really want the standup freezer.
The pandemic freaked everyone and freezers sold out and factories shut down. Parts needed from China are apparently a problem too, even for freezers assembled here.
Chest freezers are better, if you can stomach the annoyance factor. They are twice as efficient as stand-up versions due to their design. Literally they use half the power. Even less if you open the door infrequently due to their design.
My thoughts about chest freezers are forever colored by my experiences as a child. Living, as we did, in my grandmother’s house (my father’s mother) when my father was either deployed in Vietnam or when we were waiting to deploy somewhere as a family, I got to witness my great aunt Elva and her obsession with the three chest freezers in the basement. Every so often–usually corresponding to holidays or other times when family was gathered for some sort of get together–she would be compelled to go through the freezers, item by item, and sort things, throw things out, or just rearrange things. And some of the crap in those freezers I swear dated back to the fifties.
Yep, mea culpa, my impressions have been corrected now. Looks like the top freezers are better for energy. I mean, your best bet is to look at the energy label on the thing itself but it looks like typically tops are better.
Yeah when I bought my chest freezer I looked through the manual and it says that it needs to be kept where the ambient temperature is lower than like 85 degrees F. So there went the keep it in the garage plan. :)
Surely the efficiency is based on the usage, i.e. if you only open and exchange items in a freezer once a day vs many times per day? That should be the biggest difference in the front-door vs chest/top-door designs, assuming similar insulation and cooling engine.
Chest freezers are crazy efficient. All other things being equal (number of door openings, ambient temperature, etc) a chest freezer is going to wipe the floor with one that opens in the front.
See now you have confused me. There are stand up freezers? Like, it looks like a fridge, but it’s a freezer? That’s like, let us create a device that is stupid.
Then you ask your wife for her input (because, you’re gonna get it if you ask or not), and they say they don’t want the following situation:
Every so often–usually corresponding to holidays or other times when family was gathered for some sort of get together–she would be compelled to go through the freezers, item by item, and sort things, throw things out, or just rearrange things. And some of the crap in those freezers I swear dated back to the fifties.
We had an efficient chest freezer and my wife HATED it, because whatever she wanted was always buried. Now we have a stand up freezer that sits in our basement (which is cooler, so at least it’s a bit more efficient) and it’s only opened once in a while (< daily) to fetch out something.
This is the thing. We had a chest freezer growing up and stuff on top got used and stuff buried got forgotten and eventually thrown out for being freezer-burned. It’s annoying to dig in a chest freezer. You pull things out and shove them aside and then you have to re-stack.
It’s not like we’d be opening a freezer on a daily basis. It’s a few times a week.
Anyway, for the short-term it’s a moot question since freezers are difficult to come by new.
Not for long, the hoarding phase is pretty much over now. All those people now have to reckon what to do with forty pounds of ground beef, a dozen frozen chickens, and a pallet of toilet paper.
I bought a standup freezer when my fridge died a couple of weeks ago (FUCKING LG I REMEMBER YOU GOLDSTAR), all that food went to waste. So much easier to reach into than a chest freezer. FDA says food will remain good 8 hours sans power.
It’s pretty neat, each of the shelves actually has coils for cooling so it is more even.
I’ve had an additional freezer for many many years. They are good for more than 40 lb of random meat. I do a combination of sous vide / vacuum sealed cooking, and stuff stays good in the freezer for 6+ months if you vacuum seal it. My motto is : why make a small lasagna when I can make 2 trays, and have it when I want it for the next 6 months? I’ve also got bones from various chickens/roasts + veggie trimmings that when I accumulate enough I’ll make stock, etc. That extra space is a real boon for people who cook a lot.
The upstairs freezer is for quick access items, like frozen fruit for smoothies, frozen dumplings, and other things that we want more daily access to.
