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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?

#321

Post by SECProto »

csours wrote: post #319
SECProto wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you come home after power was lost for more than a day or so, TAPE THE DOORS OF YOUR FRIDGE SHUT AND DO NOT OPEN IT. It's not worth it. You will never make the fridge use-able again. I don't quite understand what you're saying here - that after 24 hours, things will be defrosted and rotted enough that the fridge/freezer will stink forever? That it should be taped closed and the whole thing disposed of after the…

> "I have experienced a number of multi-day power outages, and have never had to tape a fridge shut and not use it again, so I disagree pretty strongly with that advice." How hot was it when this happened? Were you there to manage the situation or did you have to leave? If you have to leave in a hurry and are not able to empty your fridge, and it is hot, and you are not able to return for a few days, then yes, your f…

> If you have to leave in a hurry and are not able to empty your fridge, and it is hot, and you are not able to return for a few days, then yes, your fridge will probably never be usable again.

That's much more useful, nuanced advice than "if it's been more than 24 hours, tape it shut and throw it away".

My experiences have been in more moderate climate, probably temps in the 15-25 range. That said, it also depends what's in the fridge - I moved into an apartment where some beer had exploded in a left-behind beer fridge, the entire inside was coated in green mold for several months. Treatment with succession of soap, bleach, and oxiclean, and it's still in use to this day - so contents of the fridge matters too.

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

#322

Post by mumblemumble »

rambojazz wrote: post #320
mumblemumble wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good trick, although there's a caveat: it only works with freezers that aren't self-defrosting.

If freezers self-defrost by lowering the internal temperature, won't that spoil the food inside by lowering and raising the temp multiple times?

In my experience, food in self-defrosting freezers doesn't outright spoil quickly enough to be a practical concern, though I'm sure it does technically allow for stuff to grow faster.

What it does do, though, is get freezer burned very quickly.

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

#323

Post by dctoedt »

tonyarkles wrote: post #266
darkerside wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does sound nice. Unfortunate that COVID is really going to make it harder for people to pool resources like that to handle an emergency situation.

I’m laughing a bit thinking of the absurdity going on in my brain. While reading the parent comment there were two parallel streams going on in my brain: “That is so awesome that the community rallied together like that” “What the duck are they doing having a large gathering in their yard?! Surely they could have figured out a safer way to do that! If someone got COVID during a hurricane with no power that could be r…

GP commenter here — I assume you re-read my comment and realized that this was in September 2008 .... :-)

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

#324

Post by MertsA »

jpindar wrote: post #317
koheripbal wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also why it's important to FILL the freezer as much as possible if you know you might lose power. We lost power for 4 days, but I packed in every water bottle I could find before hand, and everything remained frozen for the entire period. Literally almost no space left for air. We also did not open it, of course.

Plastic bags of water are even better because they leave no spaces between them.

Careful with that, it can be a massive headache when you want to try and get them back out again if you make the mistake of letting them freeze around something to where it's now stuck in place.

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

#325

Post by MertsA »

dghughes wrote: post #282
MereInterest wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And anything used in construction has been heavily treated to resist water damage, so I wouldn't want to be near those fumes, let alone eat something cooked from them.

It may be OK after the smoke clears. Rookies who have never used a real charcoal BBQ don't know when the coals are ready and start cooking too soon. You cook when it seems like it's too late the coals are ash but that's the time to do it.

He's talking about treated wood which is the exception. I wouldn't cook off of burning plywood or OSB but the smoke shouldn't be that toxic. Often the bottom plate of a wall will be pressure treated wood which is filled with all sorts of nasty preservatives and stuff from before 2004 was almost all treated with chromated copper arsenate. That's got a hexavalent Chromium compound (carcinogenic) along with Arsenic pentoxide (highly toxic) plus a dash of Copper because apparently the Arsenic and hexavalent Chromium weren't bad enough.

I would not cook on burning pressure treated lumber, but the vast majority of lumber in construction is not pressure treated.

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

#326

Post by wtvanhest »

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…

There is a good trick to use if you leave on vacation (or for monitoring breast milk for those new parents). You can freeze a cup of water, and throw a coin on top. If your freezer melts at any point, the coin will be at the bottom, not the top of the water glass when it refreezes.

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

#327

Post by vorpalhex »

darkerside wrote: post #229
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he described why he didn't get rid of the fish, some times the world is structured in such a way that you really can't handle the obvious things.

Also, whole burying fish may be logically obvious in this case, it is almost never the correct move in any other situation. Actions that defy common sense can be really difficult to commit, particularly in times when the stakes seem high. What if they buried it, the world was ending, and they somehow needed all that food? It's an easier call to make here than it was there.

Can you imagine that conversation with your neighbors?

"Tom, why are you burying fish in your yard? Don't you have better things to be doing like evacuating or collecting fire wood right now?"

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

#328

Post by [deleted] »

vageli wrote: post #77
cbsks wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a clever idea! I’m not sure how practical it is, however. The first problem that popped into my mind was that the stove would often be unattended while I ran downstairs to grab something I forgot from the fridge.

> That’s a clever idea! > I’m not sure how practical it is, however. The first problem that popped into my mind was that the stove would often be unattended while I ran downstairs to grab something I forgot from the fridge. I often leave the stove unattended whilst I check the grill outside. So long as it's less than a few minutes (and you have a fire extinguisher on hand in the kitchen—as one always should), there s…

[deleted]

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

#329

Post by vorpalhex »

uglycoyote wrote: post #313
MatthiasWandel wrote: post #233

Maker of the video here. For a moment, I though this was about my video and article, but reading the comments, it's more about everyone sharing their stories. Few of the comments reflect having read the article. Fair enough, sometimes it just takes a link to give theme for a discussion.

I am a fan of your site and appreciate your thoughtful writing, but I found that I could not get very far through this article on mobile (and I usually read HN on mobile, not desktop). The problem is the layout. The font is small, and if you zoom in, it does not wrap. I have noticed this is the past, it's not the first time that one of your articles has been linked on Hacker News. And I always thought it was strange,…

For what it's worth op, I'd be happy to help script out a process for extracting your old content into a new format (something like markdown so you can use whatever site generator tickles your fancy) and it's one I've scripted a few times before. Feel free to drop me an email.

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

#330

Post by jayrot »

ghaff wrote: post #293
Xylakant wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had never thought about this but you're right. Big frozen water/soda bottles of ice still increase the overall thermal mass and will almost certainly slow full thawing. Otherwise, ice blocks in a cooler wouldn't work. But you're really better off adding salt to those bottles so they absorb energy when melting below the freezing point of pure water (and frozen food).

While that's true, since the current topic of this conversation is about emergency preparedness, I think having potable water (in ice form) would be much preferable to salted water.
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