Now the weather has got colder here in Austria, I decided it was time to defrost the freezer. I don't think Scott of the Antarctic had to contend with as much ice. My own fault, I waited for the temperatures to drop last winter so that I could throw all the contents outside with no chance of them thawing, but it never got cold enough.....
Anyway, it got me thinking about electric coolboxes, the type you get for putting in the car. They often have a switch you can throw to turn them into warmboxes, that it, they have a heating function as well as a cooling function using the same mechanism. Why not have the same in a domestic freezer to speed up the defrosting process? Would make life much easier!
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Just borrow Mrs H's hair dryer and it's done in no time Mike.
Pat
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Hmm, hadn't thought of that. I've been using the traditional bowls of hot water. Thanks Pat.
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>> Hmm, hadn't thought of that. I've been using the traditional bowls of hot water. Thanks
>> Pat.
I use a hand held aldi steam cleaner, the steam jet cuts through the ice.
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Or one of those small domestic steam cleaners, very effective and cheaper than a wife!
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Change to a freezer that doesn't frost up?
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>> Change to a freezer that doesn't frost up?
>>
We bought this one because it was very energy efficient, which turned out to mean that there was no recirculating fan,as we had in our previous one, to stop the ice buildup.
It hasn't been helped by me leaving the door very slightly open a couple of times recently - not enough to damage the food, but enough to let a quantity of air in, the moisture in which promptly froze.
And I should have done it last winter. During the previous one (2012-13) we had temperatures down to -20°C, which being at least as cold as the freezer meant there was no rush as there was no chance of the contents thawing even unwrapped!
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>> Just borrow Mrs H's hair dryer and it's done in no time Mike.
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>> Pat
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Similar here. I have my own "freezer" hair drier that has been demoted.
Our upright freezer takes about 45mins to be defrosted etc.
I start at the top and by the time I get to the lower drawers the frost is soft.
I am just waiting for a dry day so that I can decant the contents outside.
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>> It hasn't been helped by me leaving the door very slightly open a couple of times recently - not
>> enough to damage the food, but enough to let a quantity of air in, the moisture in which
>> promptly froze.
Don't leave the door of a frost free freezer slightly ajar. The moisture that gets in will freeze and stop your fridge working.... I know from experience.
Quick defrost with a hairdryer soon sorts it.
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The coolboxes that cool or warm use the Peltier effect. Not terribly efficient or powerful but useful for a short term device.
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I use one of those small hand held steam cleaners to defrost the upright freezer. Bought several years ago from LIDL, IIRC.
Great fun for £14.99. Cuts through the ice like a hot knife through butter.
It looks like this one:- tinyurl.com/m6raynd - www.domu.co.uk/ (but cheaper)
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Chez Brompt the drawers out of the freezer get stacked indoors under a fleece blanket. OK, bread might defrost to point of being a bit soft but nothing else really thaws. Even chicken is only a problem if it gets above fridge temperature - and that'd take nigh on 12 hours under fleece as above.
A fan heater deflected into freezer sorts all the ice inside 90mins. Just need lots of towels or newspaper to catch the meltwater.
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Don't you lot have wives to attend to these sorts of matters?
Sheesh !
Or is this one of the joys one has to look forward to in retirement, waving hair dryers around in freezers?
;-)
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It is one of the pleasures of retirement Runfer using a womens tool to do a mans job.>:)
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>> It is one of the pleasures of retirement Runfer using a womens tool to do
>> a mans job.>:)
Surprising how clean the dishwasher gets many engine parts and the steam mop has a removable hand-held bit that gets those parts that won't go in the dishwasher.
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>> Don't you lot have wives
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Yes
>> to attend to these sorts of matters?
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No
>> Or is this one of the joys one has to look forward to in retirement,
>> waving hair dryers around in freezers?
>>
Yes!
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>> Don't you lot have wives to attend to these sorts of matters?
Yes but I send her out to work.
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I did the no.2 freezer in the garage last week. It's a single size chest type. I hung the hot air gun on a bungee just above it. Went for a coffee, came back 10 minutes later and easily flaked all the ice off with a scraper.
Scooped it out of the bottom with a couple of pieces of traffolite, chipped all round the seal with a small hammer and..bobs yer nobs...job done. All the stuff back in in 30 minutes.
Erin got about 100% more in after that. Shouldn't be in the garage really but that's the only place for it.
We have a powered coolbox. It works in the boot of the Vitara, plugged in to the auxiliary socket which is ignition switched. It would soon flatten the car battery if left on and I think it runs on about 14V DC anyway. We transfer it into the awning on campsite and run it on 240V. Keeps the drinkies cool very nicely ! Two clever little cutouts in the lid lining let you stand 2 litre bottles upright.
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Used to use a hair dryer to melt the ice as and when the freezer needed defrosting until we got a Beko frost-free type.
However, the defrosted water from the old Lec freezer was very handy for topping up the car battery....:-)
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>> >> Don't you lot have wives to attend to these sorts of matters?
>>
>> Yes but I send her out to work.
>>
Surely she has ample time when she has finished her shift?
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Freezers need different defrosting techniques depending on type.
The chest freezer that is just a plain box with no exposed cooling pipes can just be scraped and chipped quite vigorously and then the ice and frost swept up with a dustpan and brush. Job done in minutes, no defrosting necessary.
The kind with shelves with a network of exposed pipes needs much more care. It is easy to damage the pipework by hacking with a knife, so you really do need to melt all the ice properly. To avoid mess it might be easier just to carry it outside and let it drip by itself.
I'm not sure pointing a hot air gun at the cooling pipes is a good thing?
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Thanks for the reminder.....8o(
Both freezers need defrosting.
The upright in the kitchen probably needs new door seal, looking at the icing pattern.
Uprights have a major design feature that can't really be corrected.
When you open the door, cold air falls out at the bottom, and is replaced by warm, moist air from the kitchen, which slowly builds up. This is slightly better with freezers that have inner doors and drawer fronts.
Chest freezers seem to need much less defrosting because the cold air can't get out.
By the way, both of ours are thirty years old, and still function well.
(crosses fingers)
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Thirty years old? You've done well keeping them alive that long.
Ours need defrosting again soon exciting times.>:)
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If you have your freezer say in your garage I am led to believe that you should not opt for the 'frost free' models.
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"If you have your freezer say in your garage I am led to believe that you should not opt for the 'frost free' models."
Certainly you should consider which model of freezer you are buying if you wish to use it in the garage, but, afaik, the issue isn't about the 'frost-free' characteristic.
About 5 years ago, we had to replace our freezer that we kept in the garage; the old one was clearly packing up (again) so we had to do some hasty research. It was then that we learned that our choice was restricted.
We went to the local (late) Comet, and were impressed that the first thing that the salesman asked was "Where do you want to keep the freezer?". For the garage, the only models available were made by Beko, and this concurred with what we had read. I understand that, because of their coolant, a Beko can operate down to -15 deg C.
We bought a Beko 'frost-free' model and it has run fine (touch-wood) ever since. There may, by now, be other manufacturers who can supply suitable models - but the question has to be asked when purchasing.
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Our freezer is kept in a shed, as is our clothes dryer, our deep fat fryer (keeps the stink out of the house) and our small supplementary oven/grill - we don't use our indoor oven for grilling
Both the freezer & clothes dryer are BEKO, as is our indoor clothes washing machine and our multi-function kitchen oven.
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>> The kind with shelves with a network of exposed pipes needs much more care. It
>> is easy to damage the pipework by hacking with a knife, so you really do
>> need to melt all the ice properly.
We have this type. It would be a lot easier if the interconnecting wires (rather than the pipes) ran from front to back, it would make it a lot easier to get the smaller chunks, that have dropped off, out.
>> I'm not sure pointing a hot air gun at the cooling pipes is a good
>> thing?
Having tried yesterday on Pat's suggestion, ours has now obviously gone back on and doesn't seemed to have suffered in any way. It reached its working temperature pretty quickly.
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Not being a lover of domestic tasks I've done it for years and never had a problem.
Sooner the job is done, the sooner I get to go outdoors again!
Pat
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Defrosting the freezer - Pat
