First the dishwasher. Now the freezer.

[Tia]

My parents bought an International Harvester (yeah, the company that made tractors, combines, etc.) chest freezer in the 50's right after they were married. That thing sat out in an unheated farmhouse porch in northern MN (-40F was not uncommon, as well as 90F+ summer heat). In the 70's, they thought it would be prudent to get a second freezer and put it in the more climate controlled basement (we would butcher whole beef cattle at the time, so we utilized the extra space). Well the old IH freezer outlasted the "new" 70's freezer that died sometime in the 90's. In fact, when my parents moved off the farm in 2016, it was still chugging away and still in use as their only freezer. They sold the farmstead to a young couple and left the freezer -- I wouldn't doubt it is still working perfectly well.

I found a pic of what I think was the same model (I recognize the handle):


Kurt

Not sure of the brand but there is a similar one in a northern Iowa basement !

 

[isisdave]

There will be a power requirement on the label on the freezer. I would expect that if it requires a 20A circuit, that would be noted on the webpage listing it.

20A (even 15A) is a lot of power, and I think only frost-free freezers will need this much. They use heaters to briefly warm the walls to dispel frost formation. A manual defrost unit should be fine on a 15A circuit. Our chest freezer uses about 1 kWh per day, and I think it runs about 15 minutes per hour unless it's 90 in the garage.

Chest freezers use less energy than uprights, especially if not opened very much. The cold air falls out of an upright freezer the moment you open it, and chest freezers tend to have thicker walls and more insulation because they don't have to conform to standardized opening sizes to achieve the same capacity.

If you go for a frost-free unit and you're able to put it on emergency power in case of outage, see if it has a way to temporarily disable the automatic defrosting, as that uses a lot more power, even if briefly.

 

[WinniWoman]

There will be a power requirement on the label on the freezer. I would expect that if it requires a 20A circuit, that would be noted on the webpage listing it.

20A (even 15A) is a lot of power, and I think only frost-free freezers will need this much. They use heaters to briefly warm the walls to dispel frost formation. A manual defrost unit should be fine on a 15A circuit. Our chest freezer uses about 1 kWh per day, and I think it runs about 15 minutes per hour unless it's 90 in the garage.

Chest freezers use less energy than uprights, especially if not opened very much. The cold air falls out of an upright freezer the moment you open it, and chest freezers tend to have thicker walls and more insulation because they don't have to conform to standardized opening sizes to achieve the same capacity.

If you go for a frost-free unit and you're able to put it on emergency power in case of outage, see if it has a way to temporarily disable the automatic defrosting, as that uses a lot more power, even if briefly.

Yes. I know. We got the chest freezer because we knew we had plenty of amps in the garage( 20, though it only needs 15) and we prefer a freezer to be in the garage. Also, it’s circuit is on the whole house generator. Stand up frost free wouldn’t fit in garage.

Hence the problem in the basement where we’d put a stand up frost free is it’s 15 amps down there and not 20. Plus the generator is full so couldn’t add the stand up freezer.

 

[isisdave]

My real point is that a modern freezer or fridge that doesn't have a frost-free feature draws only about 75 watts when it's running, and for me that's about 30% of the time. The generator would probably handle it if you could turn off the auto-defrost.

 

[rickandcindy23]

We had a chest freezer, White-Westinghouse, from 1973 to 2010. Rick donated it to the firehouse.

 

[rapmarks]

Whenever I had to make a major purchase after I reached age 75, I would say this is my last roof replacement, my last refrigerator, etc. oh I was wrong. Nothing lasts

 

[DancingWaters]

We replaced dishwasher, fridge, washer/dryer all in the last 15 months. I will say I love the new appliances

 

[WinniWoman]

We replaced dishwasher, fridge, washer/dryer all in the last 15 months. I will say I love the new appliances

New appliances are fun! It’s their life expectancy that’s an issue, though. Especially since they are so expensive.

 

[Cornell]

My parents bought an International Harvester (yeah, the company that made tractors, combines, etc.) chest freezer in the 50's right after they were married. That thing sat out in an unheated farmhouse porch in northern MN (-40F was not uncommon, as well as 90F+ summer heat). In the 70's, they thought it would be prudent to get a second freezer and put it in the more climate controlled basement (we would butcher whole beef cattle at the time, so we utilized the extra space). Well the old IH freezer outlasted the "new" 70's freezer that died sometime in the 90's. In fact, when my parents moved off the farm in 2016, it was still chugging away and still in use as their only freezer. They sold the farmstead to a young couple and left the freezer -- I wouldn't doubt it is still working perfectly well.

I found a pic of what I think was the same model (I recognize the handle):

Kurt

My uncle is in his 80s and lives in the house my grandparents built (it was built in the early 50s). Sitting in that garage is a chest freezer that looks very similar to this (don't know the brand) that was put in the garage at the time of the house build. So yeah, we are talking 70 years old.

 

[silentg]

We had a chest freezer that decided to die while we were away on vacation. After a expensive clean up we replaced it with a Maytag Stand Up frost free freezer. So far it’s been working great. It survived moving from our old place to the new one. Both were kept in the garage. I had the chest freezer for 30 years and the stand up freezer for 12 years both worked well.

 

[Talent312]

We replaced dishwasher, fridge, washer/dryer all in the last 15 months. I will say I love the new appliances

I like my new top-load washer with a see-thru lid.
Watching it wash clothes is almost like watching a Hallmark TV show.

 

[PrairieGirl]

My parents bought an International Harvester (yeah, the company that made tractors, combines, etc.) chest freezer in the 50's right after they were married. That thing sat out in an unheated farmhouse porch in northern MN (-40F was not uncommon, as well as 90F+ summer heat)

Yeah, us practical, prairie folk! I Count me in the minority, but I LOVE the old chest freezers. We finally gave up our old one at the farm (used since the 60s) because the power company was willing to come get it and haul it away for free so that we could (would be forced to) buy a new energy efficient model.

Which we did. Yes, the uprights are easier to find stuff in.. but I very specifically did NOT buy a frost free model. The freeze/thaw cycle to keep the freezer frost free did not make sense to me. Convenient, yes. But I didn’t want my frozen food going through that cycle. Sigh. And my other older, small chest freezer doesn’t need defrosting as often as my fancy nUpright does.