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How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

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Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#181

Post by Xylakant »

pengaru wrote: post #143
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there's no airflow in the refrigerator, then it takes a long time to chill food, the reverse of how a blast chiller can chill food really quickly by moving lots of air. But maybe the water chills the air to make up for this, IDK. It would be interesting to experiment.

It's like pre-loading your refrigerator/freezer with a sack of ice. If your power goes out long enough for your food to spoil, what will you do? Well, maybe you'll go buy some sacks of ice to throw in there until the power turns back on. Ok, if you have the space to spare, why wait for the failure to go fetch the emergency ice? Just fill the empty space with ballast water and you're ahead of the problem. Once the the…

Practically all of your food has a thaw point that’s below the thaw point of ice. The energy absorbed in the phase transition of ice to water massively eclipses the energy to heat up the same amount of water by one degree. In effect, all your food will protect your newly acquired ice from melting.

You want something that has a thaw point way below your foods thaw point - add salt t your ice.

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#182

Post by todd8 »

A simple way to detect power failure induced thawing in a freezer is to store a paper cup about half full of frozen water in the freezer. By keeping a coin on top of the ice it’s easy to see with a quick glance if the temperature has risen for an extended period of time (possibly due to a temporary power failure or the door not being fully closed).

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#183

Post by jhrmnn »

toxik wrote: post #167
an-allen wrote: post #154

Hi. Actualexperience here... it depends on the ambient temperature and how much stuff is in said freezer. So heres a data point: Freezer: normal upper level refrigerator freezer chock full of frozen fish caught on holiday in Alaska. Place, Time: Houston, TX, Late Summer, Hurricane Igor just hit and knocked our power out for 14 days. Findings: We kept the freezer shut and at about 4-5 days the fish was noticeably thaw…

You missed the perhaps most important datapoint: how often and many times did you open the freezer? Side loaded freezer and fridges are extremely inefficient because all the cold air is let out when you open the door.

But the heat capacity of the air inside is negligible compared to that of the solid stuff inside. So it shouldn’t matter if you do it just a few times in two weeks.

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#184

Post by Symbiote »

philwelch wrote: post #145
galkk wrote: post #112

> When opening an empty upright freezer, all the cold air can just "fall out" I recently found that the ice-cream refrigerators of street vendors (and everything else that is being sold when the doors are frequently opened) are opening on the top for that exact reason - to not let cold air "fall out" (because cold air is on the bottom)

This is also why the Trader Joe’s freezer/refrigerator section is designed the way it is. Turns out that a chest freezer/refrigerator with no top on it at all isn’t that much worse than a standing freezer/refrigerator with a door that gets opened and closed over and over again.

Most normal supermarkets in Europe either have upright doors (more common if space is limited) or open chests. The open chests are covered when the shop is closed.

The budget supermarkets tend to have chests with a transparent sliding door on top.

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#185

Post by drevil-v2 »

distances wrote: post #174
drevil-v2 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the calories used to travel up and down the stairs by multiple family members? Say over a month you burn enough calories to eat an extra steak to make up the energy lost, would the environment be better or worse off? What about time lost? Say you wasted an extra hour or two every fortnight just getting to and from the fridge, what if instead you had read a book or worked on your hobbies? Would you be happi…

Would you use the same reasoning against exercising?

Hopefully you are not virtue signalling about saving the environment when you exercise.

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#186

Post by at_a_remove »

bjoli wrote: post #158
at_a_remove wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've handled it for decades. First thing you do when you get your slab is that you wrap it in two towels, then you fold down the loose edges and pop that in a cooler. Towels towels towels, that's my go-to. You can handle dry ice with your bare hands -- I have scores of times -- the trick is that contact with pressure (squeezing or weight) is what is going to give you frostbite. Otherwise, I have swiftly moved two pou…

You will have quite some intellectual effects before you start coughing. In fact, where we are going with adding co2 to the atmosphere, people will be measurably dumber in 50 years. Yes, really. Indoors we can easily get as high co2 levels as 1000ppm (starting from 400 something which we have outside now). That has in various studies been connected to upwards of 30% in cognitive decline in some tests like decision ma…

I've done it tons of times.

Part of having the stuff wrapped up and insulated is that it isn't sublimating like mad.

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#187

Post by walrus01 »

an-allen wrote: post #159
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to argue with science but why didn't you clean the fish out about day 7? Was it hurricane made getting rid of fish problematic?

I think shock, depression, anger, disbelief, the mechanics of where to put the rotting fish... like there was a tree down in our front yard, every store was closed in a 40 mile radius, power was out to most of Houston... but yea hindsight being 20/20 i would have relocated the fish to a house with a generator. it was a really dark time man.

If you had a shovel would it not have been the more hygienic disposal option, at about day 7/8 once you were sure the power was not coming back soon, to dig a 3.5 foot deep hole, put the fish in it and cover it over?

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#188

Post by at_a_remove »

function_seven wrote: post #87
at_a_remove wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used this, in a more dangerous fashion, to recarbonate flat soda.

Drop a few pebbles of dry ice into a 2-liter bottle, cap, and monitor for plastic stretching sounds?

I would calculate what it would bear in terms of recarbonation, get the flat soda very cold (carbon dioxide enters solution preferentially at lower temperatures), weigh, drop, cap, and roll it down a hill. If no explosion, wait a couple of minutes just for safety.

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#189

Post by gnicholas »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #134
efficax wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the US natural gas stoves are very common. There is some risk when frying on high heat that you could start an oil fire... Never used induction but gas offers very fine control of heat with a nice stove, especially compared to electric which relies on radiant heat from a coil and cannot change temperatures rapidly

I used gas for 20 years, then induction for 10. Induction wins everywhere (reproducibility of heat, speed to heat, ease of cleaning...) The only thing I miss a tiny bit from gas is the ability to tilt a pan to have oil gather in a puddle to deep fry something small. Other than that everytime I use gas I long for induction.

I had induction for nearly a decade and am now back on gas. I miss the ease of cleaning that induction offers, and the efficiency for things like boiling water. [1]

But if you use woks or other vessels that do not entirely touch the stovetop surface, gas is better. I made fried rice the other day on my gas stove, and it was a completely different experience than induction. The sides of the wok just heat up so much more than with induction.

Of course, it's a huge pain to clean all the tiny grains of rice that drop onto the stovetop. I wish kitchens had dual stovetops, with maybe 2 gas burners and the rest induction. But I've never seen a home like that; even high-end homes have either a nice gas range or an induction ranges.

fun fact: Menlo Park recently outlawed gas for new constructions. I imagine most folks will go to induction, which has previously been relatively rare here.

1: https://www.pcrichard.com/library/blogArticle/induction-vs-g...

Re: How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out?

#190

Post by avhon1 »

distant_hat wrote: post #179
an-allen wrote: post #154

Hi. Actualexperience here... it depends on the ambient temperature and how much stuff is in said freezer. So heres a data point: Freezer: normal upper level refrigerator freezer chock full of frozen fish caught on holiday in Alaska. Place, Time: Houston, TX, Late Summer, Hurricane Igor just hit and knocked our power out for 14 days. Findings: We kept the freezer shut and at about 4-5 days the fish was noticeably thaw…

Why not cook everything at that point and throw a feast. We've done this in India with an extended power cut.

If their stove and oven are electric, and they don't have, or don't have fuel for, a propane or charcoal grill, then a hurricane could really knock out their ability to cook things.
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