easy defrost methods for chest freezers to save energy

[canadian gardener]

Chest freezers need doing annually or so, when the ice begins to build on the sides because it sucks energy.

Here are some ways I've done mine.

First pull out the contents. I lay them on a towel, and cover with all the sleeping bags to keep them frozen while I work. This works well and gives you plenty of time to play with your freezer.

if you do this late spring, when it's low in contents, it's easier than any other time of year.

Current method:
Next pour some very hot tap water into the freezer (keep the freezer drain plug plugged for this method). Pour down the sides, let it sit a bit, say 20 minutes, while you go have coffee. Refill the hot water and head back down.

Come back and fire up the water sucking shop vac that your dh leaves handy near the freezer anyways. Please take the filter thingy out, so that the water can move directly into the vac without creating a mess. Mine needs this little tiny adjustment. Oh and the mud and ice are not nice together, so do empty the shop vac first.

This is experience talking.

Pour hot, not boiling water down the sides again. I do not take responsibility for any damage boiling water does to YOUR freezer. Let it be hot tap water, as boiling water may hurt YOUR particular freezer-- it may melt or warp the liner. I don't use boiling, just hot tap water.

Repeat, sucking ice and water out with the shop vac, and emptying wherever conveniant. LOTS OF COFFEE BREAKS, this is such HARD work!!!!

When the ice and water (and your coffee) is all gone, Sluice it down with baking soda and water and a wet terry cloth face towel, then suck that all out, and wipe dry with an old towel.

Set it to freeze once again, and put food back in.

Now Be SURE AND PLAY THE MARTYR to the HILT!!!! oh honey, I defrosted the FREEZER today!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and don't mention the 3 soap operas, one pot of coffee and a totally mispent day of pleasure in between moments of watching ice fall off the freezer).

Let him continue to think of you as a woman of great talent, and hard hard work! Let him feel guilty as he settles into an evening of TV! Let him take you out to dinner!

Old method:

I wasted a lot of electricity running my blow dryer which actually killed it, and now I don't own one anymore. I used to blow dry the freezer to get the ice to calve off the sides like the glaciers calving into the bays and fjords.

And that can be fun in a bubble wrap popping sort of way, but very time consuming, plus it wastes electricity and chews up your blow dryer.

Mine melted it's casing on one side, it went all warped and smelled really hot and bad!

Plus it's not good for freezer liners to have an impatient soul pickin' away at the ice on the sides.

And that brings me to the nasty little drains. Who REALLY loves having an incontinent freezer dribble all over the floor? I mean REALLY!!!!!

Keep the thing plugged as nature intended and turn on the shop vac if you are blessed with one,

and failing that, if you haven't got a water sucking shop vac,

then use a bunch of towels to soak it all up, and wash them afterwards.

Enjoy. A defrosted freezer saves a lot of energy and since it is up there in the top 5 energy suckers around the home, this matters. HTH

[peanut]

Interesting. I boil water in the electric kettle and take it down and let the steam melt off the ice...along with a hard spatula. But my freezer is like 30 years old and I don't worry about scratching the sides...which I dry and spray paint with metal paint if needed before refilling with food anyways.

I will run some hot water down the sides. Cleaning the freezer is often a two person job here. Dh gets the ice and junk out of the bottom. I'm too short to reach it.

Jean

[zakity]

**snort** I have fallen into a freezer before trying to clean it!!!

[Darlene]

Margery, you are too funny!
We pick a nice freezing cold day to defrost ours. Everything gets sorted into bags and hauled upstairs to wait on the deck while we defrost the freezer. We place a small electric heater in the freezer and shop vac it out too. Doesn't take long (maybe an hour start to finish)and nothing melts except the ice off the freezer.