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I was patting myself on the back,  I had stored 6 months of food,  some items, like frozen capsicum, 12 months worth. 2 completely chockers chest freezers.

then we had an East Coast Low   with close to 200 mil of rain and were flooded in.   storm force winds that knocked down multiple trees and  power out for 2 full days. We covered the freezers with every spare blanket and sleeping bag that we have. Dh frantically tried to get an old generator that we were given working. He pulled and pulled on the pull start for hours. tried different motor parts etc. 

 The power came on again just now. the freezer was still frozen. LUCKY. but boy gave us a bit of a turn thinking of all the summer harvest was about to go to waste. the only food I had to chuck out were the cabbages I had stored in the fridge, a packet of fish and some milk. I will keep the cheese and watch it closely. the fridge was getting warm but I know that cheese is cultured at just below 20oC so should be OK.

Apparently a fully frozen freezer is good for 48 hours

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Ugh! I’m so glad it’s mostly fine!

We’ve lost freezer food twice. Once we added it to our insurance claim, since we had already hit the deductible with other damage. Another time we just ate it.  The cost, not the food, lol.  It was very upsetting!

These days, we’re fairly diversified in food storage methods, but I definitely like freezing best. I’m super grateful that we were able to upgrade to solar that can power freezers, but I still worry. Just a few weeks ago, dh asked out of nowhere… “Is this freezer connected to this light switch?!?”  My heart completely dropped.  It wasn’t, so yay! But I did have a moment of fearing that we’d been cyclically thawing and freezing a bunch of stuff… for, like, 2 years!

I hope you didn’t have other damage from the storm.

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No other damage. We have East Coast Lows on an average of 7 times a year. It is where the majority of our rain comes from. mostly the power is only off for a couple of hours. they differ in intensity - this one was between moderate and large

 I was just a bit shocked by my oversight- storing soo much food to potentially loose it all . I do bottle (can ) and dry food as well. but find some things like green beans, capsicum and  celery are way nicer frozen. Plus I just finished making heaps of different fruit pies, enough for one or two per week  for 6 months. 

 

crazily we have solar. our whole house is powered by solar, but we are connected to the grid and sell our surplus electricity. which means when the grid goes down it automatically shuts off the solar as a safety feature.

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23 minutes ago, Melissa in Australia said:

crazily we have solar. our whole house is powered by solar, but we are connected to the grid and sell our surplus electricity. which means when the grid goes down it automatically shuts off the solar as a safety feature.

Yeah, most people around here who have solar are grid-tied. It’s by far the most affordable way to go!  But, yes, a good freezer can keep cold for quite some time, thank goodness!

In the winter, our “refrigerator back up” was always coolers out on the deck.  This past winter and even the one before it were not consistently cold enough for that to be safe.  That freaked me out quite a bit!

 

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2 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Yeah, most people around here who have solar are grid-tied. It’s by far the most affordable way to go!  But, yes, a good freezer can keep cold for quite some time, thank goodness!

In the winter, our “refrigerator back up” was always coolers out on the deck.  This past winter and even the one before it were not consistently cold enough for that to be safe.  That freaked me out quite a bit!

 

it would never be cold enough for that here. winter coldest days are round 10 oC and that is only for a week. mostly it is between 12 and 15 for the coldest month of July. We have an average of  around 10 frosts a year.

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1 minute ago, Melissa in Australia said:

it would never be cold enough for that here. winter coldest days are round 10 oC and that is only for a week. mostly it is between 12 and 15 for the coldest month of July. We have an average of  around 10 frosts a year.

Lol. Yeah, that would be bad!
My frost dates zone spans 7.5 months. I haven’t noticed any real change in that, but our hard freezes are shorter and/or less frequent than in the past.

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We lost a freezer full of beef once, the freezer quit working but we didn't know it. Finally when one of the kids brought in partially thawed hamburger I went to check. Ugh, it was heart breaking. I am so glad that you lost very little!

I am still in the beginning stages of pressure canning, so still very reliant on our freezers. At the start of the pandemic, I convinced dh to buy a small gas powered generator that we could use to keep freezers cold by running for like 1 hour every four. We did end up using it after an ice storm this past winter knocked our power out for 3 days. It worked really well, of course it was also cold outside.

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