
How long does a freezer stay frozen when the power goes out? - cardamomo
https://woodgears.ca/heating/freezer.html
======
an-allen
Hi. Actualexperience here... it depends on the ambient temperature and how
much stuff is in said freezer. So heres a data point:

Freezer: normal upper level refrigerator freezer chock full of frozen fish
caught on holiday in Alaska.

Place, Time: Houston, TX, Late Summer, Hurricane Igor just hit and knocked our
power out for 14 days.

Findings: We kept the freezer shut and at about 4-5 days the fish was
noticeably thawing and getting flexible. Still cold, but not frozen. I think
we might have made an attempt at dry ice but it was too late in the process to
matter.

At day 8 or so it had completely defrosted.

At day 10 the smell was so horrendous that if we opened the freezer door we
would gag.

At day 14 the power returned. On day 15 or 16 we opened the now cold rotted
fish in the freezer and cleaned it out. We vomited multiple times. The smell,
despite multiple rounds of bleach, never really went away. The stench
permanently inextricable from the lining of the freezer, and the flavor of
every ice cube ever made in it from then on.

~~~
toxik
You missed the perhaps most important datapoint: how often and many times did
you open the freezer? Side loaded freezer and fridges are extremely
inefficient because all the cold air is let out when you open the door.

~~~
koheripbal
This is also why it's important to FILL the freezer as much as possible if you
know you might lose power.

We lost power for 4 days, but I packed in every water bottle I could find
before hand, and everything remained frozen for the entire period. Literally
almost no space left for air.

We also did not open it, of course.

~~~
jpindar
Plastic bags of water are even better because they leave no spaces between
them.

~~~
MertsA
Careful with that, it can be a massive headache when you want to try and get
them back out again if you make the mistake of letting them freeze around
something to where it's now stuck in place.

~~~
munificent
I too have had a freezer full of bags of delicious homemade chicken stock,
each intertwined with and near-permanently bonded to the wire shelving.

------
morninglight
The location of the freezer or refrigerator is critical. If you live in a
house that has a typical unfinished basement, don't overlook the advantage it
offers. With one simple change, you can noticeably lower your electric bill,
reduce your carbon footprint, gain extra kitchen space and improve your
health. Just move your refrigerator to the basement.

Since the basement is normally cooler than the upstairs, the refrigerator will
run less often. This will not only extend its lifetime, but also lower the
electricity it consumes, thus also reducing your carbon footprint. The kitchen
space previously wasted by the refrigerator has uses that are only limited by
your imagination.

Finally, you and your family will directly benefit from the exercise you get
with trips to the fridge. Of course it is not convenient - that is the point.
Sometimes you might even pass up that extra dish of ice cream, because it's a
pain in the butt. However, the size of your butt may be improved.

It's a simple step that can be done in a couple of hours. And the recurring
benefits are automatic and last a lifetime.

Method #1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J8ul-
CcrzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J8ul-CcrzY)

Method #2: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXCiWk-
aIyc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXCiWk-aIyc)

~~~
geofft
This seems like a decent idea if the thing that's in your fridge is ice cream,
but not if it's ingredients for cooking meals. Whoever does the cooking is
going to spend a ton of time running up and down while stuff overcooks, and
then they'll be even more tired _and_ get more complaints from the rest of the
family. So you should be absolutely sure that you have an equitable family
dynamic and that everyone agrees that you do, before you try this.

~~~
Falling3
Yeah, I can certainly appreciate the environmental and cost savings, but this
would make me miserable. I could get myself the make the trip for ice cream,
but the multiple runs back to the fridge while preparing food has me agitated
just thinking about it.

~~~
em-bee
you'll learn to plan your meals better. take everything out that you need
before you start...

~~~
jjulius
"Refrigerate X while cooking Y, then remove X from fridge as Y begins to
[something]," and variants of that phrase are common scenarios in recipes.
Your point is only valid for a portion of recipes, not all.

Let's also take into account how many ingredients you may need from the fridge
when you plan ahead. Certain meals may require multiple trips to/from the
basement (however far away that may be) depending on how many - and the size
of - ingredients involved.

Also, what mjmj said, re:kids.

~~~
Xylakant
Very few recipes involve taking stuff from the freezer repeatedly however,
most things will need to thaw in advance. Making ice cream in a freezer in the
basement would suck, however.

Not having the fridge readily available in the kitchen would suck, though, so
that only works if you have a dedicated freezer.

------
todd8
A simple way to detect power failure induced thawing in a freezer is to store
a paper cup about half full of frozen water in the freezer. By keeping a coin
on top of the ice it’s easy to see with a quick glance if the temperature has
risen for an extended period of time (possibly due to a temporary power
failure or the door not being fully closed).

~~~
syshum
It is possible for the Ice to partially melt and the coin to not sink, the ice
would need to COMPLETELY melt before this test would work, given the nature of
ice it is possible for food to raise to an unsafe temperature while the ice is
still melting

This "trick" should not be used in place of proper temperature monitoring

~~~
KMnO4
I usually just put the cup upside down in a small container. If there's any
melting the water will collect in the container.

Another poster said use an upside down water bottle, which sounds like an even
better option.

------
MatthiasWandel
Maker of the video here.

For a moment, I though this was about _my_ video and article, but reading the
comments, it's more about everyone sharing their stories. Few of the comments
reflect having read the article. Fair enough, sometimes it just takes a link
to give theme for a discussion.

~~~
spuz
If I've learnt anything from reading Hacker News for a few years it's that I
would take this as a compliment that the article did a good in covering any
aspect we might be curious about and answer any questions we might have had.
For example the fact that you did the experiment with an empty and full
freezer and with empty boxes vs food pretty much preempts any nit-picks you
might get from people in this this thread.

------
contingencies
It depends on the thermal mass of the contents, the effectiveness of the
insulation, and the external ambient environmental temperature.

In real world use, it also generally depends on (1) how frequently and for how
long you open it, and (2) whether it's top-loading (efficient) versus front-
loading (inefficient).

Source: My venture custom designed and built a refrigeration circuit with
autonomous electronic management from scratch over the last year or so, so
have done numerous recent tests in this space. I also visited about 4
different fridge factories in Guangdong and spoke to their engineers,
investigated the different available chemical coolants, relevant sensors, etc.

~~~
shortandsweet
I keep a coffee mug filled with water in the freezer with a penny on top.

~~~
ramraj07
Have you seen how long this setup takes before it'll trigger a change? Ive
left glasses of frozen water to thaw and they most definitely don't thaw
evenly. They also take way more time to thaw than any regular food product due
to the significant heat/surface area ratio difference.

------
svnpenn
> about 36 hours

> while the power is out, for each time the door is opened for five seconds,
> subtract 7 minutes

~~~
abiogenesis
> 27 hours in a garage and not a basement

~~~
svnpenn
thats not a quote...

~~~
abiogenesis
Well, it's a paraphrase:

> If it were in a hot garage at 30° C, the food would thaw in about 3/4 of the
> time.

------
galkk
> When opening an empty upright freezer, all the cold air can just "fall out"

I recently found that the ice-cream refrigerators of street vendors (and
everything else that is being sold when the doors are frequently opened) are
opening on the top for that exact reason - to not let cold air "fall out"
(because cold air is on the bottom)

~~~
philwelch
This is also why the Trader Joe’s freezer/refrigerator section is designed the
way it is. Turns out that a chest freezer/refrigerator with no top on it at
all isn’t that much worse than a standing freezer/refrigerator with a door
that gets opened and closed over and over again.

~~~
Symbiote
Most normal supermarkets in Europe either have upright doors (more common if
space is limited) or open chests. The open chests are covered when the shop is
closed.

The budget supermarkets tend to have chests with a transparent sliding door on
top.

~~~
zaarn
In germany the sliding top door is standard in almost all supermarkets,
ranging from ALDI to Edeka, it covers "normal" and "budget" supermarkets. The
only places I see non-transparent doors is bulk supermarkets.

------
pengaru
A test with the freezer as full as possible with just water would be
interesting as a best-case set of data points to compare against.

I always keep containers full of water in the bowels of my
refrigerators/freezers only removing them when the space is required for food.
There's not much sense in keeping empty volumes of air in a refrigerated
space.

~~~
Mathnerd314
When there's no airflow in the refrigerator, then it takes a long time to
chill food, the reverse of how a blast chiller can chill food really quickly
by moving lots of air. But maybe the water chills the air to make up for this,
IDK. It would be interesting to experiment.

~~~
pengaru
It's like pre-loading your refrigerator/freezer with a sack of ice. If your
power goes out long enough for your food to spoil, what will you do? Well,
maybe you'll go buy some sacks of ice to throw in there until the power turns
back on.

Ok, if you have the space to spare, why wait for the failure to go fetch the
emergency ice? Just fill the empty space with ballast water and you're ahead
of the problem.

Once the thermal mass is at the desired temperature, it will help bring newly
introduced items to the desired temperature _faster_ , not slower.

The only time it slows down the cooling is when first introduced @ a warmer
temp, or when there's been a failure for long enough to let everything warm
up. But note that in the failure scenarios, the thermal mass helps keep the
space cool for longer than had it not been there. Just remove the warmed
ballast when the failure is over to let the perishables re-cool first, then
reintroduce the ballast when appropriate ... perhaps even pre-cooling it
elsewhere first.

~~~
Xylakant
Practically all of your food has a thaw point that’s below the thaw point of
ice. The energy absorbed in the phase transition of ice to water massively
eclipses the energy to heat up the same amount of water by one degree. In
effect, all your food will protect your newly acquired ice from melting.

You want something that has a thaw point way below your foods thaw point - add
salt t your ice.

~~~
ghaff
I had never thought about this but you're right. Big frozen water/soda bottles
of ice still increase the overall thermal mass and will almost certainly slow
full thawing. Otherwise, ice blocks in a cooler wouldn't work.

But you're really better off adding salt to those bottles so they absorb
energy when melting below the freezing point of pure water (and frozen food).

~~~
jayrot
While that's true, since the current topic of this conversation is about
emergency preparedness, I think having potable water (in ice form) would be
much preferable to salted water.

~~~
Xylakant
It’s substantially more efficient to store a pack of bottled water or two on
top of your fridge - and keep your food at the same time. Water keeps well
even if not frozen.

If you want to keep tap water, you can buy silver ion additives at any
camping/outdoor store. If you’re really planning for preparedness, buy a
ceramic water micro filter and additives. That can make nearly all water
usable.

------
banach_d
This is an extremely interesting question, both from a scientific and a
practical point of view, but the article doesn't really answer it at all.

He starts by measuring the temperature in the freezer, but then puts a
realistic amount of food in it and doesn't want to let the food go bad. So he
makes an extrapolation from the warming between -18 and -11, but immediately
points out (fairly) that the extrapolation is not really valid. Then he
answers a completely different question - how much cold is lost when you open
the door. The answer to that is also quite dubious and of limited
applicability.

The experiment I would like to see is this: fill a freezer (or a couple of
different types of freezer) X% (where X could be 50, 80, 100) with a mix of
different frozen foods, including ice cream, meat, vegetables, cooked meals,
bread. Turn the power off. Every day, open the freezer briefly, long enough to
retrieve some of your samples, maybe some from the top/front and some from the
bottom/back. Then tell us, for a few types of food and location in the
freezer, what day did the food thaw enough that you wouldn't want to refreeze
it? What day did the food become less than perfect if consumed immediately?
What day did the food become inedible?

People can put up with different levels of yickiness so you'd want
descriptions more than numbers here.

------
jacknews
You want the contents to remain BELOW 0C, not hovering at 0C while everything
melts.

You can do this by adding some salt-water bottles, which have a lower melting
point, and will therefore absorb a lot of heat (heat of fusion) well below 0C.
Eg add 250g salt/liter gives melting point of -18C.

Of course you waste some space on useless salt water vs potable - maybe there
are better alternatives, eg fruit juice? Milk? Honey?

~~~
ghaff
I'd have to do the calculations but wouldn't you be better off with a solution
that just _barely_ froze at freezer temps? Because of latent heat of melting?
i.e. you want it to freeze--just at as low a temperature as possible given the
freezer temperature.

Your basic point makes sense to me though of course thawing isn't even.

ADDED:

Doing the calculation. It takes 334 joules to melt 1g of water vs. about 4
joules to raise that same gram of liquid water 1 degree. Freezer temp is
supposed to be about -18 degrees Celsius.

So the latent heat of melting is a bigger deal than a few degrees of raising
liquid temperature. So you should have ice packs maybe somewhere in the -10
degree range which is what I assume commercial ice packs do.

~~~
gnopgnip
Completely saturated salty water freezes right around -6F or -21C. And most
home freezers are set to right around that for energy conservation reasons,
but max out even lower. So you could use any briny water and it will phase
change before your food melts.

I'm surprised a 12v based deep freezer that runs off a reasonably sized solar
panel is not more popular/affordable. With the right amount of thermal mass,
and good insulation, and a small battery you could greatly extend how long
your food stays cold. There are a lot of people who live in places where snowy
weather or high winds and loss of power is an eventuality. In an emergency
losing your food is a bigger concern than just the cost of the food.

~~~
Gibbon1
12V/120V freezers do exist and are marketed towards RV, camping, and off grid
markets. Disadvantage is they tend to be smaller, cost more. But they are very
efficient. Where a residential freezer might draw a couple of hundred watts
dual voltage fridges draw 25-50 watts. And automatically switch between 12VDC
and 120VAC. So they can be connected to both shore power and a battery at the
same time and it 'just works'

~~~
ghaff
There are also propane fridges/freezers but they are also smaller. (Though at
the point where you have a large propane tank, you could arguably just as well
have a backup generator.)

~~~
Gibbon1
My impression is the big advantage of absorption fridges is they will run off
a tank of propane for a long time. But Downside they are very slow to cool
down and running off AC/DC they aren't very efficient.

But yeah cheapest thing to do is get a furnace transfer switch and a
generator. That seems to be how rural people in the upper midwest avoid
freezing to death when the power goes out in the winter.

------
jonplackett
Related but tangential anecdote:

When we went on our honeymoon my mother in law came around and left our
freezer full of delicious meat, fish all sorts. But then inexplicably turned
off the freezer electricity switch on her way out.

2 weeks later my little sister cane around to leave us some milk in the fridge
for our return. Only to find the entire kitchen wreaking of rotting meat and
water and other crap all over the floor.

She cleaned it up without even telling us - plus did I mention she’s a
vegetarian and hates the smell of meat.

Top marks for my family that day.

~~~
ethagknight
You had your freezer on a switched outlet?

~~~
jonplackett
Not even - it was inside a little electrics box with switches for the cooker,
dishwasher, washing machine and things like that which you don’t ever really
turn off unless you’re replacing them. The one outlier is that the extractor
fan is also in there and maybe that’s why she thought she needed to turn those
things off.

------
devy
Tropical Storm Isaias hit my area last week with tornados (which has been
really rare.) and power went out for a few days.

Our local utility company actually has a FAQ / Tips page[1] to answer this
question. It appears that the information was sourced from CDC[2] and American
Red Cross[3].

[1]:
[https://nj.pseg.com/outageandgasleaks/duringanoutage/outager...](https://nj.pseg.com/outageandgasleaks/duringanoutage/outageresources)

[2]:
[https://emergency.cdc.gov/poweroutage/pdf/poweroutage.pdf](https://emergency.cdc.gov/poweroutage/pdf/poweroutage.pdf)

[3]: [https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-
emergen...](https://www.redcross.org/get-help/how-to-prepare-for-
emergencies/types-of-emergencies/power-outage.html#During)

------
supernova87a
I was just looking at getting a NG generator installed for my parents on the
east coast, after watching these recent storms come through. I'd dawdled on
this for years, because it was just infrequent enough.

Anyway, I also looked at battery backup systems (Tesla, Enphase, etc).
Unfortunately, it seems they haven't reached cost competitiveness with the
plain old gas generator yet. Not a lot of power density (time), and too
expensive for the benefit in noise/fumes/etc. $15000 for 2-3 days worth of
backup, compared to $5000 for installing a Kohler run of the mill NG unit,
etc.

I was disappointed -- was hoping that batteries were further along than they
are. Anyway, I'm sure there's going to be a run on getting these installed for
the next few months, so clearly there's plenty of time to think it over.

~~~
pfdietz
An inverter that runs off the 12V battery in your car is very cheap. Get one,
and an extension cord, and you have an emergency power source to cool down
your freezer every few days.

~~~
gregwebs
This is the approach I am taking (bought inverter, will test it out next
weekend). I don't think you can really run this off the battery (it will be on
the order of 1000 watts): instead you need to have the car turned on and will
be essentially running it off the inverter. So it's essentially an inefficient
gas-powered generator that you already have on-hand and you need to make sure
you have some gas in the tank.

~~~
pfdietz
I don't think a freezer draws anywhere close to 1000W when running. Perhaps
you are talking about a startup transient?

------
sandworm101
Small things. If the power goes out, throw a blanket or two over the freezer
asap. It makes a big difference.

------
rsync
Related ... the last time I was in the market for a chest freezer (a "deep
freeze") I wanted one that showed a log of temperature over time ...

This, essentially, does not exist. It appears that there are laboratory
freezers that support this (very simple) feature, but they are relatively
small and _very expensive_.

A better way to go is an electricity monitor on the plug, where you track
electrical power over time and assume (reasonably) that full electrical power
implies full temperature control.

Still ... a simple log of temperature over time (without resorting to weird
solutions with raspis dangling temp wires into the freezer ...) would be a
very nice feature and I'm disappointed that it doesn't exist ...

~~~
kevindong
Such data might be interesting to look at, but as long as the freezer does its
job (aka keep everything stored within it fully frozen), what's the point in
having that data?

~~~
rsync
"... what's the point in having that data?"

In normal, day to day life, I think it would have little value.

The use-case I am envisioning here is: you have a high value store of frozen
items (meat, etc.) and you leave your home for 20 or 30 days ...

When you get back, the freezer is running nicely and everything is frozen and
things look great - but what if there were a 3 or 4 or 5 day power outage in
the middle of your trip that thawed things out just enough to spoil ?

Or what if there were one or more power outages (or brownouts) _that you were
aware of_ that were _not_ , in fact, long enough to ruin your stored food ...
but how would you be sure ?

If you had a time view of freezer temps you could make those determinations
easily.

~~~
Simon_says
This is all kind of overkill. Just put a penny on the surface of a cup of ice
in the freezer.

------
at_a_remove
Personally, I throw blocks of dry ice in there as soon as the power has been
out a few hours, just in case. Beats regular ice all the way.

~~~
Someone1234
How do you safely handle dry ice? I'm legitimately asking, I know retailers
sell it with big warning labels but I wouldn't know how to transport it, move
it, and similar.

~~~
at_a_remove
I've handled it for decades.

First thing you do when you get your slab is that you wrap it in two towels,
then you fold down the loose edges and pop that in a cooler. Towels towels
towels, that's my go-to.

You _can_ handle dry ice with your bare hands -- I have scores of times -- the
trick is that contact with pressure (squeezing or weight) is what is going to
give you frostbite. Otherwise, I have swiftly moved two pound chunks with bare
hands if I were lazy. Any pair of winter or driving gloves is sufficient so
long as the fingertips aren't open. Just leather gloves are dandy.

Now, if you're feeling fearful, you can drive with the windows down, but to be
honest, carbon dioxide in too high of quantities will invoke a
gasping/coughing reflex. You would have plenty of warning. You can verify this
by putting a small chunk of dry ice in water, leaning over the cup, and
inhaling. You'll cough, and that is the reflex to look far. It isn't shy about
making itself known. I have driven around with fifty pounds of dry ice in
coolers with no issues.

Now that you've driven home, you can take the dry ice, towels and all, and put
one in the freezer, one or two in the fridge. Now, this stuff sublimates, so
you won't have water everywhere, but don't worry about pressure building up in
the two compartments, you'd have to use straps to hold the doors down tight
enough to be an issue. I put the dry ice at the top of each compartment, as a
trend.

It'll save your refrigerator's worth full of food.

~~~
01100011
One note: if it behaves like dry ice in a cooler does, it can carbonate many
of your food items. I've used dry ice on camping trips and ended up with
carbonated fruit.

~~~
function_seven
I can't tell if this is a warning, or a cool discovery.

I feel like carbonated fruit would be a treat, but I suspect I might be wrong?

~~~
01100011
It sizzles on your tongue when you bite it. I thought it was interesting but
not desirable.

------
Merrill
Last week the power was out Tuesday 2 pm until Friday 8 pm, 78 hours. I left
the lid shut on a 7 cubic foot chest freezer in the garage, where the ambient
was in the 70s F most of the time due to the cool weather. When the power came
back on, the temperature was about 37 degrees at the top of the freezer. Ice
cream in the second layer down had a light bit of crystallization, but no
other obvious defects. Other food will be evaluated before being eaten, but it
should be safe since it was below or at normal refrigerator temperature,
although texture may suffer due to being refrozen.

------
mschuster91
The solution for this is to buy a generator. Hand started 1 kW ones go for
~130€ these days ([https://toom.de/p/inverter-strom-generator-
sg-1200/1501059](https://toom.de/p/inverter-strom-generator-sg-1200/1501059)),
plus enough cable from <somewhere outdoor> to <location of fridge>. That's
enough for 24/7 running the fridge and any other important appliances (think a
TV/radio and a cellphone charger to have access to some form of
information/communication).

Don't even need to keep a jerrycan around and risk the fuel go stale if you
know how to siphon fuel from your car in an emergency (for a widespread
outage, it is not guaranteed that gas stations are operational). Only
requirement is to check oil level and start them up and run for at least half
an hour once a quarter (you might get away with half a year).

PSA: Do not, never ever, even dream about putting that generator indoors
unless you have a certified chimney sweep (or whatever your regional
equivalent is) certify the safety of the exhaust system. And even if you do
(or have any other sort of fuel furnace in the house), get at least a CO
warner at the most bottom place of your house!

------
btbuildem
The temp curves may be non-linear, so I'm not convinced about the
extrapolation from just a few hours.

I get not wanting to spoil food -- but why didn't he try with, say, jugs of
water? Easy way to fill the freezer, great thermal mass, and probably a decent
approximation of freezable goods.

------
K0balt
I operate 5 inexpensive chest freezers 4 hours a day on a solar microgrid
system. 4 hours is enough to keep them frozen hard, as long as they are full.
I use water bottles to fill any extra space.

If you put a lot of stuff in them at a time, they will need to be run
overnight (>12hrs) to freeze them down hard. If you do not freeze the contents
completely at first, it may not ever freeze, because if it doesn't store the
latent energy of freezing the freezer won't have enough thermal inertia to
remain below freezing during the 20 hours of rest.

On very rainy periods, we can go about 48 hours from the end of the last
freeze cycle before any significant melting occurs.

------
mellosouls
Note, it doesn't just require an outage to stop the freezer working.

Many modern freezers ironically stop working properly under low (but above
freezing) room temperatures encountered in unheated rooms (eg outbuildings,
garages, etc) in colder climates.

------
seanc
During an extended power outage you can add quite a bit of time by wrapping
the freezer in more insulation. Anything will do; fibreglass insulation,
quilts, blankets.

You'll be shocked at how cold the inside of the blanket gets.

------
TheOtherHobbes
Thawed vs unthawed isn't a bool. You're really interested in the long-term
safety of the food, and that starts to decrease as temperatures start to
increase.

-18C/0F is the point at which most pathogens are forced to hibernate and bacterial cultures stop growing. But they don't die, and they'll start to revive at higher temperatures - which means they'll begin to spread if there's a regular thaw/freeze cycle, even in a freezer that spends some of its time at -18C/0F.

------
baggy_trough
If you can restock the freezer with ice, you can keep it cold for several days
easily. Spoken from experience, thanks PG&E.

~~~
aschatten
Where do you get ice if you are out of power?

~~~
gpm
You can buy giant bags of ice really cheap at many gas stations, convenience
stores, grocery stores, wallmart, etc.

------
8bitsrule
All else being the same, the more mass in in the freezer, the less that a
given inflow of heat will warm it. If 10 heat units enter, they will warm 10
kg of uniform contents much less than 100kg.

If you have extra space, using it to store something dense that has a high
specific heat and is inexpensive is easy: use ice. (Glaciers take a -long-
time to melt!)

------
sushshshsh
We bought dry ice blocks and put them in the freezer which lasted nearly 2
days-- just in time for the power of course.

------
stblack
I bought and filled a chest freezer in pandemic preparations.

Cost of the chest freezer: CAD 1,000

Cost to completely fill the freezer with good food: CAD 2,700

Given that, during a pandemic or a winter storm in Canada, a power failure can
be a prolonged event...

Cost of a good gas powered generator to keep the freezer viable beyond a day:
CAD 1,000.

This article seems to validate the generator purchase.

~~~
walrus01
If society and food supply chains had actually broken down due to a massive
pandemic (imagine ebola with a 30% fatality rate tearing through a population
of 350+ million in the USA and Canada) you would have been much better served
by a stockpile of rice, beans, canned food, multivitamins and other true
disaster supplies.

~~~
stblack
The scenario we are planning is power down for several days.

Not the collapse of civilization.

------
dmichulke
Nitpick and fun fact:

"we avoid opening the fridge and freezer to keep the cold inside."

Technically, you cannot keep the cold inside because cold is a word for the
absence of warmth (energy), so you're actually trying to keep the warmth
outside.

Words indicating the absence of something (cold, darkness, ...) are called
privatives.

h/t Terry Pratchett

~~~
xavieralexandre
Technically there is a mass of cold air that comes out of the fridge when you
open the door. Keeping the door shot keeps this mass of air inside.

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jhallenworld
Here's what I've learned about refrigerators recently.

My fridge is failing in a revealing way. It has an automatic defrost unit-
this means that it heats the evaporator coils in the freezer every so often (I
think it's once every 36 hours) to melt the frost off of them, producing the
same condensation you normally get from an A/C. So where does this water go?
Well there is a hose from the freezer to a pan underneath the fridge. There is
a cooling fan for the condenser coils there which can dip into this pan. The
idea is to use this water to help cool the condenser coils, making the fridge
a little more efficient.

Anyway, so the failure has to do with the management of this condensation
water. When it's not working, you get a puddle of water in the bottom of the
fridge compartment which eventually leaks out to the floor. First thing to
check- is the hose clogged? Yes it is, washed it out, but problem still
happens. Next thing to check- behind the back wall of the freezer you find the
evaporator coils. At the bottom is some cheap metal called the "drain trough".
It is a funnel that leads the condensation into the hose. This is where the
planned obsolescence comes into play. I'm convinced that the manufactures make
this metal out of steal with just the tiniest amount of galvanization so that
it will eventually rot out. I think even plastic would have been a better
material.

It's theoretically possible to replace this metal, but consider the work
involved: you need to empty the freezer, dry it out, remove the back of it,
figure out how to move the evaporator coils out of the way without damaging
them, unscrew the trough, and figure out how to wiggle it out. You need to do
this at least twice (once to debug the issue in the first place, next to
actually replace it). Finally good luck finding the replacement in stock (also
add the time needed for this search). The fridge is maybe good for 12 years,
but little chance of replacement parts stocked for that long. Certainly this
is the case for my fridge, and I fabricated a temporary patch out of rubber.

Also, of course, there is absolutely no way for you to inspect this part
before you buy a new fridge. Maybe it's even worse on new fridges, who knows?

Edit: check it out, someone else noticed this:

[https://medium.com/@michael.grimshaw1/rusted-through-in-
four...](https://medium.com/@michael.grimshaw1/rusted-through-in-four-
years-c897fd7ce08f)

~~~
gruez
> This is where the planned obsolescence comes into play. I'm convinced that
> the manufactures make this metal out of steal with just the tiniest amount
> of galvanization so that it will eventually rot out.

One thing I never got about "planned obsolescence" as some sort of way to get
more recurring revenue is how it works with competitors. If you're the only
game in town then it makes perfect sense, but if your appliance died an early
death, are you really going to buy from the same manufacturer? What if another
manufacturer doesn't do the same thing and their appliance lasts longer?
Wouldn't you lose market share? For it to work you'd need some sort of
conspiracy with all the other competitors so everyone cuts quality in unison,
which we haven't seen a lot of evidence of. The only one that comes to mind is
the lightbulb one.

~~~
chillwaves
They make their products fail in non obvious ways and the competitors do the
same thing. You won't be able to see the flaws when you buy the product.

Recent example, my parents buy "stainless steel" because they think it is more
durable but it's purely cosmetic because of the internal parts. They had a
stainless steel microwave that stopped working because the door would not stay
shut.

I was able to pry open the framing of the door and located the tension spring
that was required to keep the door hooked shut, well it had been attached to
the flimsiest plastic tab I could imagine.

Everything else about the microwave worked perfectly fine but because this
flimsy 2mm thick plastic tab broke, it was now junk.

So i drilled a hole in the plastic frame and reattached the spring to that
hole (which was drilled in a way that made it more stable) and fixed the
microwave.

There was literally no increase in cost to anchor this critical tension spring
in a less fragile way, in fact I would argue it cost them more to design this
special failing piece.

The whole industry is just absurd, the whole way we run the economy is absurd.
It only makes sense if you have infinite planets to exploit for resources with
infinite room for waste.

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SCAQTony
Freezer: 8-cubit feet of space totally full! If you keep the door shut and
don't open it the food will last about 12-hours.

This happened to me this week. Use dry ice to keep the food fresh. Dry ice
costs $1.00 a pound, you need 25 pounds total, five for the freezer. This
solution will work for about 12-hours.

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Markoff
36 hours in 19C room or 3/4 (27hrs) in 30C seem about right

worked in insurance company with people claiming broken freezers among other
things and you can for sure get through day even in hot weather

of course this won't fly in shops where they have to legally store the
products frozen during whole distribution chain

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beached_whale
It would be interesting to see the effect of adding insulation like blankets,
or foam would have.

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mxfh
at least half a day is usually safe. All Appliances sold in EU have this in
their data sheet: ‘power cut safe “X” h’ defined as ‘temperature rise time’

Me example from last year: 4h at about 20C Ambient temperture: 4 degree
Celsius loss from -20C

Too bad smart home temperature logging is failing too while power is off:
[https://twitter.com/mxfh/status/1194646175644897281/](https://twitter.com/mxfh/status/1194646175644897281/)

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pcurve
So much electricity does it use every time you open the door?

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7373737373
I'd like to see a similar experiment that analyzes the effect of opening a
window on the oxygen (and perhaps other gases) content of living spaces

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8note
It would be nice to see the rest of the thermal analysis, and see if it
matches the provided specs

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gruez
is he using... excel 2003? I hope he doesn't open any untrusted documents,
because he's probably a sitting duck in terms of exploits.

~~~
netsharc
In the YouTube video comments he says it's 21 years old. So Office 2000
(released to retail in June 1999).

He added: "Super snappy on a modern computer!"

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Wolfenstein98k
All this is missing is an executive summary!

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dillonmckay
Does it not depend on what is in the freezer?

Like, if it is half-filled with icepacks versus frozen beef?

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
The article addresses thermal mass, although not into the level of detail of
X% ice packs and Y% food.

~~~
dillonmckay
I keep a certain amount of icepacks in the freezer, in case the power goes
put, but also because the thermostat seems to swing a bit.

