Freezer died a few days ago.

GRRR. Still dealing with the fallout of salvaging things before they are lost. This particular large freezer held primarily whitetail deer glands and tarsals. Most have never smelled the strong musky odor of thousands of thawed tarsal and other reproductive parts. These quality items are like gold these days.

All the frost had melted and some of the bags got wet and was giving off a strong tinctured odor already. Man what a great odor. I am going to save all the liquid for personal use. Looks to be close to a gal of liquid or more. Going over to bail /siphon it out shortly. I transferred all the thawed tarsal glands to clean plastic bags and labeled them all once again.

I am fortunate I had my on the road travel fur freezer available to transfer most of the buckets and bags into. The other over flow glands went into another freezer that had some room.

I have been looking for a good used large or commercial freezer on line Craigs list etc. but haven't found one yet.

I have external magnetic digital thermometer on all our freezers for just such a situation. I don't check them daily usually once a week or so. I had just gotten back with a truck load of trout and had gone into the shop to get some rags etc. to clean off the buckets and stopped to check on the thermometers as I passed each one. Glad I stopped by instinct to look at them.

Having a freezer go down in the summer can be a sickening feeling
When you know what’s in there and what the outcome will most likely be.

any electrical power issues locally ?
if the voltage drops the compressors burn out in a brown out period

It was them idiot construction workers tearing up your streets to put in new infrastructure!

Just had an upright loaded with beaver pelts stop running. Unloaded it and pulled it out, a wire from the Sudco 3 in1 starter broke at the compressor. Hopefully I got lucky.

This is an older freezer a "Gibson" model that my dad had and I took off his hands years ago. Its our oldest model. Probably 35-40 years old . Most likely won't buy one now that will last that long.

Gary you are too funny, I about spit my coffee out.

Good Save, Bob. That could have been nasty.

Had a 6' chest freezer full of horseshoe crabs pop the circuit on a extension strip.

Very interesting odor...and it was in the basement. Plugged it back in and refroze everything, still bad when I cleaned it out., lol

Lesson #1, never plug freezer into a circuit breaker strip
Lesson #2, don't wonder what that smell is...go look immediately!

I always heard it better keep freezer run all the time then to shut off when not in use ? I think mostly older chest freezers that used lot electricity, one mine that 17 years old, commercial model does not use lots electricity, I gonna leave run or plan to till at least a yr from now an then maybe Another year

One of mine died on me two years ago. By the time I noticed, skunk soup at the bottom. Found things I barely remember putting in it, skulls, fish, beaver castors, etc. it was pretty rank. Took about four months to find a new one (Covid delays). New one went to food, the food one went to the shed for dead stuff.

I always heard it better keep freezer run all the time then to shut off when not in use ? I think mostly older chest freezers that used lot electricity, one mine that 17 years old, commercial model does not use lots electricity, I gonna leave run or plan to till at least a yr from now an then maybe Another year

Dave I usually unplug this upright freezer in the summer and I haven't had any trouble with it. It is an ancient Whirlpool freezer.

A full freezer runs a lot less than an empty one. If you do not have much in the freezer, gradually add water jugs or bottles or even pans. Bags of ice will work also. The extra mass helps hold the cold better than air space.

Had one die last summer. I had 14 beaver carcasses as well as a bunch of other stuff. Was probably dead for at least six weeks before I discovered it. Not fun.

Yow! I can’t even imagine the smell.

FREEZER ALARMS - Click here.

I’m still hunting for one more too.

Need another 5-6 footer and I’ll be good for a while.

Used to be able to get used ones in that size for $100 pretty easily. Now people want $300-400. And way more uprights out there these days than chest freezers it seems.

Bob, they sell lots of very nice, cheap commercial freezers, including walk in freezers, at:

https://www.auctionfactory.com/

They have a lot of auctions around Cleveland, not that far from you.

Keith

I just got the old freezer hauled out of the shop with the help of a couple of my employees. My dad had marked the date of purchase and price on the back of the freezer. He paid $338.00 +Tax.

12- 10-1975 47 years old this year. I was a young man of 24 that year.

I don't think I will get 47 years of service from the new one I just bought. Ouch $780.00. Or live long enough to see it.

18.5 cubic ft. It is just the size of my old one it seems.

They had this unit and all the others in storage were stored standing on end. I didn't think that was good for the freon in the coils and the compressor to do that. I better wait a few days before plugging it in to be on the safe side.

Loked at mine yesterday when I got home. The ground fault tripped and had sterted to thaw a bit. Got lucky.

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.