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How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
91–100 of 384 posts
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#92The location of the freezer or refrigerator is critical. If you live in a house that has a typical unfinished basement, don't overlook the advantage it offers. With one simple change, you can noticeably lower your electric bill, reduce your carbon footprint, gain extra kitchen space and improve your health. Just move your refrigerator to the basement. Since the basement is normally cooler than the upstairs, the refri…
This seems like a decent idea if the thing that's in your fridge is ice cream, but not if it's ingredients for cooking meals. Whoever does the cooking is going to spend a ton of time running up and down while stuff overcooks, and then they'll be even more tired and get more complaints from the rest of the family. So you should be absolutely sure that you have an equitable family dynamic and that everyone agrees that you do, before you try this.
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#93I bought and filled a chest freezer in pandemic preparations. Cost of the chest freezer: CAD 1,000 Cost to completely fill the freezer with good food: CAD 2,700 Given that, during a pandemic or a winter storm in Canada, a power failure can be a prolonged event... Cost of a good gas powered generator to keep the freezer viable beyond a day: CAD 1,000. This article seems to validate the generator purchase.
If society and food supply chains had actually broken down due to a massive pandemic (imagine ebola with a 30% fatality rate tearing through a population of 350+ million in the USA and Canada) you would have been much better served by a stockpile of rice, beans, canned food, multivitamins and other true disaster supplies.
The scenario we are planning is power down for several days.
Not the collapse of civilization.
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#94The location of the freezer or refrigerator is critical. If you live in a house that has a typical unfinished basement, don't overlook the advantage it offers. With one simple change, you can noticeably lower your electric bill, reduce your carbon footprint, gain extra kitchen space and improve your health. Just move your refrigerator to the basement. Since the basement is normally cooler than the upstairs, the refri…
This seems like a decent idea if the thing that's in your fridge is ice cream, but not if it's ingredients for cooking meals. Whoever does the cooking is going to spend a ton of time running up and down while stuff overcooks, and then they'll be even more tired and get more complaints from the rest of the family. So you should be absolutely sure that you have an equitable family dynamic and that everyone agrees that…
Yeah, I can certainly appreciate the environmental and cost savings, but this would make me miserable. I could get myself the make the trip for ice cream, but the multiple runs back to the fridge while preparing food has me agitated just thinking about it.
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
One note: if it behaves like dry ice in a cooler does, it can carbonate many of your food items. I've used dry ice on camping trips and ended up with carbonated fruit.
I can't tell if this is a warning, or a cool discovery. I feel like carbonated fruit would be a treat, but I suspect I might be wrong?
It sizzles on your tongue when you bite it. I thought it was interesting but not desirable.
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#96The location of the freezer or refrigerator is critical. If you live in a house that has a typical unfinished basement, don't overlook the advantage it offers. With one simple change, you can noticeably lower your electric bill, reduce your carbon footprint, gain extra kitchen space and improve your health. Just move your refrigerator to the basement. Since the basement is normally cooler than the upstairs, the refri…
This seems like a decent idea if the thing that's in your fridge is ice cream, but not if it's ingredients for cooking meals. Whoever does the cooking is going to spend a ton of time running up and down while stuff overcooks, and then they'll be even more tired and get more complaints from the rest of the family. So you should be absolutely sure that you have an equitable family dynamic and that everyone agrees that…
Perhaps a smaller L1 cache in the form of a mini-fridge could hold the prep for a given meal or even day or so in the kitchen, while keeping the cold storage cold storage downstairs.
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Seems like ice is a better choice? The phase transition requires a huge amount of energy. Why are you excluding the phase transition energy of the brine? Presumably you can calibrate the salinity so it freezes at around say... -15C, and set your freezer to -18C. That way it's absorbing heat more heat when it's colder, which is helpful if you want to keep your food frozen. The latent heat of water isn't of use to you…
Because OP mentioned saturated brine and a freezing point of -18C.
That's the point! The brine is frozen at -19c and liquid at - 17c which is well below the freezing point of everything else in the freezer.
Or you can have normal water which is frozen at -1c and liquid at 1c. Your pick.
The handy thing about the brine is that its absorbs heat at a temperature below that which everything else thaws. So as the brine thaws it keeps your freezer at -18c which means everything in it is still frozen.
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems like a decent idea if the thing that's in your fridge is ice cream, but not if it's ingredients for cooking meals. Whoever does the cooking is going to spend a ton of time running up and down while stuff overcooks, and then they'll be even more tired and get more complaints from the rest of the family. So you should be absolutely sure that you have an equitable family dynamic and that everyone agrees that…
Yeah, I can certainly appreciate the environmental and cost savings, but this would make me miserable. I could get myself the make the trip for ice cream, but the multiple runs back to the fridge while preparing food has me agitated just thinking about it.
you'll learn to plan your meals better. take everything out that you need before you start...
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#99You want the contents to remain BELOW 0C, not hovering at 0C while everything melts. You can do this by adding some salt-water bottles, which have a lower melting point, and will therefore absorb a lot of heat (heat of fusion) well below 0C. Eg add 250g salt/liter gives melting point of -18C. Of course you waste some space on useless salt water vs potable - maybe there are better alternatives, eg fruit juice? Milk? H…
I'd have to do the calculations but wouldn't you be better off with a solution that just barely froze at freezer temps? Because of latent heat of melting? i.e. you want it to freeze--just at as low a temperature as possible given the freezer temperature. Your basic point makes sense to me though of course thawing isn't even. ADDED: Doing the calculation. It takes 334 joules to melt 1g of water vs. about 4 joules to r…
Completely saturated salty water freezes right around -6F or -21C. And most home freezers are set to right around that for energy conservation reasons, but max out even lower. So you could use any briny water and it will phase change before your food melts.
I'm surprised a 12v based deep freezer that runs off a reasonably sized solar panel is not more popular/affordable. With the right amount of thermal mass, and good insulation, and a small battery you could greatly extend how long your food stays cold. There are a lot of people who live in places where snowy weather or high winds and loss of power is an eventuality. In an emergency losing your food is a bigger concern than just the cost of the food.
Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such data might be interesting to look at, but as long as the freezer does its job (aka keep everything stored within it fully frozen), what's the point in having that data?
"... what's the point in having that data?" In normal, day to day life, I think it would have little value. The use-case I am envisioning here is: you have a high value store of frozen items (meat, etc.) and you leave your home for 20 or 30 days ... When you get back, the freezer is running nicely and everything is frozen and things look great - but what if there were a 3 or 4 or 5 day power outage in the middle of y…
If you can live with just minimum, current, and maximum temperature instead of a detailed log, this works well [1].