I have freezer that been sit around years,not that old, I defrost it, had on flash defrost, never came back life, I like to know how diagnose the problem, see if worth fixing, maybe no good after sit around yrs now though

I wouldn’t plug a freezer into a GFI fed outlet.

I have two chest & one up right that are about seventeen years old, Two months ago, Best t Buy had a chest freezer at a great price, So Picked it up, plugged it in for a few hours to make sure it worked. I unplugged it & cracked the lid. Couple weeks ago, came home & seen the blue power light on, So I take a look & the wife had it already quarter packed. So much for a backup.

I solved that problem with it being packed ( with my sisters fresh bread being frozen) I put a Bio-Hazard sticker on it.
And a little dab of Backbreaker on the lift handle as a reassurance to any inspecting eyes or fingers of my sister's bread stuffing antics[color:#FF6666][/color]

my apologies. I Don't want to derail this post, as I do sympathize and relate to those who've had a freezer go south. But want to share some info, and info given to me by my refer tech.

Just took 23 pails of frozen fish bait out of my out door walk in and transferred to indoor chests. I use the square kitty litter 3 and 4 gallon pails along with the 2 gallon PREEN chemical pails. They stack perfectly in a freezer, using a 3 gallon on top of a 4 gallon and the two gallon fill in the rest. So the chests are almost 100% packed.
I have four different size chests so I do have charts as to how to fill each chest to use the maximum space. I experiment with empty pails till I get it correct.
I DO NOT TURN OFF MY WALK IN. Just turn the temp to 90. The condenser fan will run for a short time, then shut off. The defrost does not cycle on. But the compressor will "kick in" now and again. My freezer tech told me to do this after he came to recharge it after I had shut it down for the summer and the freon leaked out, he said that the "kicking in" now and again does something to prevent the thing from completely depressurizing??, thus allowing the freon to "escape".
I'd recommend you verify if this would work for your equipment based the brand, it's age, etc with someone who you'd trust more than some pinhead on Tman.
Good Luck.

I read you should put a frozen paper cup of water in the freezer with a penny on top. Add a little water to freeze the penny in place. If you open the freezer and the penny has dropped to the bottom, you know the freezer died or didn’t have power for some time.

How expensive is a freezer alarm? Always on my mind. Had on fail in the late 60s and lost a lot of shrimp.

We have several external thermometers with alarms. They are good to have and can give you several days to locate or buy another freezer if needed. You can buy them for $10.00 > $15.00 on Ebay or Amazon.

Sorry to hear this Bob, my cousin had that happen last year and lost a bunch of processed beef and venison. He didn't notice his until it was rancid smelling.

Happy Birthday John, your getting to be an old fart.

Thanks, half a century today. Will need to drop off a fresh fillet for you.