[Greenbuilding] finding coils inside (new) chest freezer

[Doug Kalmer]

The outer sheet metal is part of the heat distributing system- the condenser coils heat the sheet metal, which loses heat to the room.  You will find small diameter steel lines right under the skin, with foam in place insulation between the lines and the inner box wall. It will be difficult to insert more insulation between the condenser grid and the existing foam, as the steel lines are fixed, and you will not be able to get any "slack" to move them all outward from the box. Most chest freezers I,ve seen are not designed to make it easy to remove the outer skin-IOW, you will be cutting the sheet metal to get it off, and making it likely that you would cut a condenser line, causing a lot of expensive problems. I suggest you just buy a really well insulated chest freezer to begin with. If you want to improve the insulation of a regular chest freezer, however, I suggest you glue more foamboard to the lid and the bottom, that's where most of the heat is lost, and no condenser coils are. Just feel around sides, back and top of any modern chest freezer while it's running- most will be warm on front and sides, and the coldest spots will be in the middle of the lid, and center of the bottom. Doug, ex refrigeration guy
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Reuben Deumling 
  To: Doug Kalmer 
  Cc: greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org 
  Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2010 10:14 AM
  Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] finding coils inside (new) chest freezer





  On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 7:46 AM, Doug Kalmer <sunart at netease.net> wrote:

    Forget tearing into the walls, most chest freezers have the coils near the outer sheetmetal in front and both sides, you would just make a mess of a new freezer. Doug

  Doug,

  tell me more about the coils being found spread across three walls. How do I find out if that is so with all of them? Is there any hope of accessing technical drawings that show the location/distribution of the coils for these freezers? I've learned that freezers sold here have for the most part been made by one of three companies: WC Woods, Haier, and Frigidaire. I have so far only come up with one strategy for determining this, which involves going to the appliance dealer equipped with my infrared thermometer gun and ask them to plug in the chest freezers I'm interested in. That *could* work out well, or it could be a pain.

  As far as 'making a mess of a new freezer' that is my goal. I'm not buying a freezer to display it prominently for my guests. I'm reluctantly letting another kWh-sucking appliance into my basement and plan to do whatever I can to minimize its real-world consumption of electricity.. I'll be adding blocky panels of rigid foam to the exterior walls that lack coils anyway, so the 'new freezer' look is already shot.  
  My plan to remove the sheetmetal which obscures the coils is motivated by the hope that in so doing I could increase the amount of insulation that resides between these coils and the interior wall of the freezer--to overcome one more crummy design aspect of an appliance category.

  Thanks for your thoughts.

  Reuben Deumling
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