Freezer for garage: Upright or chest? What features?

[profmom]

This will be our first garage freezer. It seems like an upright would be more convenient -- less floor space and food wouldn't get as buried & forgotten. What has your experience been?

 

Also, what features do you recommend? This would be for a garage in Texas. :) Do you recommend a specific model or brand?

[frugalmama]

Chest freezer hands down, especially in TX. The upright ones every time you open the door you lose a LOT more cool, which makes them costly to run, especially in a garage.

[Mandylubug]

I have had an upright in the garage before.. cost us a TON electricity wise during the summer. I would go with a chest due to energy cost savings...but I like the convenience of an upright haha

[Annie G]

I LOVE my upright. But I live in northern Illinois...if I had to contend with Texas heat, I might have chosen differently.

[Lara in Colo]

I have had both and I really prefer an upright. You can find your food, it isn't buried under stuff, so you have less waste. I guess, seeing the comments about energy, I would try to figure a system to make a chest freezer easier to use.

 

Like lots of rubbermaid containers (the 2 liter size) with lids and labels so you can put your food in them and have them on their ends and just pull the container out and inside is all the chicken or veggies.

[BlessedMom]

Frost free upright!

[Bluegoat]

Food will generally last longer in a chest freezer, so if you are planning on keeping things for a while that is something to consider.

[duckens]

When we went browsing for a freezer for our garage, I had my heart set on an upright because I remember my mom losing food in the bottom of the old chest freezer at home. Plus, she's short (I'm 5'2", too!), and things on the very bottom were simply hard to reach.

 

When we got to the store, we toured the chest freezers, too. We ultimately decided on a chest freezer because:

 

1) We got more bang for our buck. We got more freezer for the cost.

 

2) We knew our freezer would be in the garage in Iowa summer, and every time we opened the door, we would not lose all of our coolness.

 

and

 

3) The new freezers have WONDERFUL dividers to organize your food, plus three baskets to organize smaller or more frequently used items.

 

For example, our freezer is divided into sections of:

 

--Frozen vegies

 

--Frozen fruit

 

--Sweets (choc chips, cookies)

 

--Ground buffalo

 

--Other cuts of buffalo (steaks, roasts, brats, hotdogs)

 

--Other miscellaneous meat (chicken, brats, ham, bacon)

 

--Bread (we bake 9 loaves at a time)

 

--Easy freezer meals (frozen pizzas and other stuff from the frozen foods section at Sam's Club; it's a cheaper meal than fast food when you can't cook a real meal).

 

--Smaller section is full of butter and cream cheese that we buy in bulk. It's nice to not have to run to the store every week for butter.

 

--One basket is mostly full of frozen juice

 

--Another basket is full of 1-lb blocks of cheddar, mozzarella, and feta cheese

 

That is not all of the sections, but you get the idea. Yes, things do get mixed up if one category is overfull and the other is less full, but everything gets sorted out when we defrost every couple of years.

 

Oh, and I have a little stepstool that stays in the garage next to the freezer so I can reach stuff on the bottom! :)

[Lakeside]

When we went browsing for a freezer for our garage, I had my heart set on an upright because I remember my mom losing food in the bottom of the old chest freezer at home. Plus, she's short (I'm 5'2", too!), and things on the very bottom were simply hard to reach.

 

When we got to the store, we toured the chest freezers, too. We ultimately decided on a chest freezer because:

 

1) We got more bang for our buck. We got more freezer for the cost.

 

2) We knew our freezer would be in the garage in Iowa summer, and every time we opened the door, we would not lose all of our coolness.

 

and

 

3) The new freezers have WONDERFUL dividers to organize your food, plus three baskets to organize smaller or more frequently used items.

 

For example, our freezer is divided into sections of:

 

--Frozen vegies

 

--Frozen fruit

 

--Sweets (choc chips, cookies)

 

--Ground buffalo

 

--Other cuts of buffalo (steaks, roasts, brats, hotdogs)

 

--Other miscellaneous meat (chicken, brats, ham, bacon)

 

--Bread (we bake 9 loaves at a time)

 

--Easy freezer meals (frozen pizzas and other stuff from the frozen foods section at Sam's Club; it's a cheaper meal than fast food when you can't cook a real meal).

 

--Smaller section is full of butter and cream cheese that we buy in bulk. It's nice to not have to run to the store every week for butter.

 

--One basket is mostly full of frozen juice

 

--Another basket is full of 1-lb blocks of cheddar, mozzarella, and feta cheese

 

That is not all of the sections, but you get the idea. Yes, things do get mixed up if one category is overfull and the other is less full, but everything gets sorted out when we defrost every couple of years.

 

Oh, and I have a little stepstool that stays in the garage next to the freezer so I can reach stuff on the bottom! :)

 

What size freezer do you have?

[itsheresomewhere]

I have had both and I prefer the upright. I hated the chest as it killed my back when I was going in and out of it. Ours was deep. My upright is an energy saver and doesn't cost much to run. Whatever one you get, make sure it has a lock. The lock is great to prevent your kids/husband from going in it and leaving it opened and letting everything spoil:glare:.

[duckens]

Shannon asked:

What size freezer do you have?

We have a Fridgidare Gallery. We bought the biggest one we could get. Imagine that it could hold 3-4 bodies.

 

I think this is the one:

 

http://www.lowes.com/pd_240838-2251-GLFC2528FW_?PL=1&productId=1068595&cm_mmc=search_google-_-Appliances%20Refrigerators-_-Freezers%20Chest%20Models%20Frigidaire-_-glfc2528fw

[gardenmom5]

started out with my mother's upright, and now we have a chest. lower energy costs. a defrost feature that will 'heat' the walls so all the ice falls off when you want to defrost it. baskets are a must.

[Alte Veste Academy]

Frost free upright!

 

:iagree: I have a Frigidaire frost-free upright commercial size freezer and I love it! It is so easy to organize and get in and out quickly. I had it in my garage for 7 years in TX. Several times when it was running emptyish, I would just move the stuff in there to the kitchen fridge and unplug it until my next big meat purchase. I never noticed a difference in my electric bill at all.

 

Now, that said, that freezer is MINE. I don't put popsicles in it or other things that are needed daily or that the kids need to access. Frozen pops, yogurts, etc. for the kids are in my kitchen freezer. The freezer in the garage is used for bulk purchases of meat, bread, fruit, veggies, etc. I don't even open it daily. And I keep it FULL or, like I said, it gets transferred over to the kitchen freezer and it gets unplugged. That's rare.

[rafiki]

.

[Unicorn.]

I'm in TX, and we have an upright. It isn't costly to run at all. I can find what I need quickly, nothing gets lost or buried, and I have shelves rather than a giant box that everything falls to the bottom of.