[Greenbuilding] finding coils inside (new) chest freezer

[Lynelle Hamilton]

I'm with Kathy. I am also out in the country and I can't can all the 
things I want to preserve (and can't tolerate the sugar or salt levels 
in many recipes in any event) so freezing does allow for an overall 
reduction in my footprint. It also allows a lot more control over my 
food supply (I can grow and store from my own land, or a known source.) 
I did get an "all refrigerator" to eliminate the redundancy of a freezer 
and a "mini-freezer" (the one usually provided with a fridge). At 50-60% 
of the hydro needed to run a combo unit, the savings goes a long way to 
off setting my small chest freezer, while giving me much more capacity. 
When I get my cold room installed (in the spring, crappy timing, I know, 
but I'd like to finish the insulation in the house first), the existing 
freezer will be traded for a DC unit running off panels. But that is 
then and this is now, so on I go with the little beast.

If I were in an urban area and could walk to places for food (community 
garden as well as stores), I'd likely not have a freezer, or get by with 
a small one in a fridge.

It's like the tag on the t-shirt--"one size fits none." There's no 
single path to right for many of us--at least not yet. Green is 
contextual and a balance of all the factors.

Lynelle


On 05/12/2010 13:38, Kathy Cochran wrote:
>
> You obviously don’t cook, or appreciate the value of food storage. 
> Having a freezer means that you can take advantage of food specials, 
> etc., and minimize the use of the automobile to go on grocery shopping 
> trips. If you were mine, I would lock you out of the basement and keep 
> you away from the new freezer. It also gives you a place to store the 
> harvest of the fruits and vegetables that you can grow on your own 
> land, if you are so inclined.
>
> Those are my thoughts. Kathy Cochran
>
> *From:*greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org 
> [mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] *On Behalf Of 
> *Reuben Deumling
> *Sent:* Sunday, December 05, 2010 8:15 AM
> *To:* Doug Kalmer
> *Cc:* greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org
> *Subject:* Re: [Greenbuilding] finding coils inside (new) chest freezer
>
> On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 7:46 AM, Doug Kalmer <sunart at netease.net 
> <mailto: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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