Fecking freezer door left ajar ...

Grrrr ... about £200 worth of food wasted ....

Does anyone know if you can get some sort of doohickey you can leave in the freezer which will sound an alarm if the temperature rises ? I know cold kills batteries, so have no idea how it could work.

Reply to
Jethro
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google him say

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never used one but am considering it now that I have seen them

Regards

Tony

Reply to
TMC

Thanks for that ... obviously I can google, but I was hoping someone here would say "I use " ... there's one on amazon which got a very poor review ...

Reply to
Jethro

Jethro :

You can buy them, e.g...

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IMO a temperature sensor isn't the right solution for this problem.

I made (this *is* uk.d-i-y) an alarm device that senses if the door is left open, even slightly open, for more than a couple of minutes.

The sensor is a 2-way magnetic alarm switch. The magnet is sticky-padded to the underside of the door at the opposite side from the hinge. The switch is sticky-padded to the underside of the body of the fridge, almost touching the magnet when the door is closed. Also there's an LED indicator which is wired in series with the switch. The switch/LED is connected to a control box, about the size of cigarette packet, stuffed into the gap at the side of the fridge.

When the door opens, the switch closes, which lights the LED (to confirm that it's working) and starts a timer. When the door closes properly, the switch opens, the LED goes out, and the timer stops.

But if the door isn't closed properly, the LED stays lit, and the timer sounds an alarm after a couple of minutes. Closing the door properly cancels the alarm.

The whole thing is powered by a wall wart. I used a pre-built timer module from Maplin or CPC (I forget which), which has a simple adjuster for the timer delay.

Once installed, it's simple and effective.

Reply to
Mike Barnes

I don't have a freezer, but since my op last Friday I may have to get one as I can't drive and will need to get food delivered.

So, how long was that freezer door open?

MM

Reply to
MM

Bad luck mate...

In the 70'/80's I made a Heathkit freezer alarm kit. It had a temp sensor

*and* a door-ajar sensor which was a microswitch on a little bracket, sticky padded to the frame and a rubber stick on bump-stop on the door that operated the microswitch when closed.

I'm thinking you could nearly trivially DIY this (maybe with a reed switch and magnet instead). PP3, small bleeper module and reed switch so it bleeps, softly but annoyingly when the door is not closed.

For extra marks, put a 60 second time delay on it.

Cheers

Tim

Reply to
Tim Watts

Funny, discussing with the Mrs over lunch, and we decided that a

*temperature* alarm was probably not the way, since the freezer is usually opened last thing at night, for the next days meal, and is the other side of the house. So we'd never hear the alarm by the time the temperature had gone up ...

So I said we need a *door ajar* alarm instead ... I see what I can cobble together .. (it's be years since I soldered in anger).

Many thanks for the description

Reply to
Jethro

Long enough that the burgers in the top drawer had completely defrosted ...

Reply to
Jethro

Aside from the technical answers, I had this problem with my fridge freezer in the UK. When I moved here I read the instructions (shock!) with my new one which said to jack the front feet up a little so the doors self close. Simple. But you may have done this already.

Reply to
Tony Bryer

Don't be a wuss. Unless the food had been at room temperature for a while, the worst that will happen is that some of it may have agglomerated (e.g. frozen chips), and icecream will have shrunk.

I fitted one of their BUZ-LK models to my inlaws' freezer, since the old chap often left it open. It's a bit crudely made, and mounting the main box on the side of the freezer only works if there's a lot of room between it and the next appliance. Because theirs is an under-worktop model, I had to mount the box below the door, where it's vulnerable to being kicked, or knocked off when they pull the bottom basket right out.

Still, it's reduced the number of times my wife's had to go and defrost it for them.

I couldn't face re-learning how to make electronic devices without any valves - hence the diy was only installation.

Reply to
Kevin Poole

My fridge has a door open alarm - it goes off constantly because the little ice box door has fallen off and you can't switch that compartment off separately! Grrr...

Reply to
Maria

Bit of a "piece of string question". If the room is warm defrosting will happen quicker than being in a cool room. Found the door of our upright slightly open the other day. Alarm light on (no audible alarm, has a light why not have a beep as well FFS!), compressor working overtime trying to keep everything frozen, it succeeded in that a lot of the melt was frozen, food may have got a bit warm but was still solid. Certainly colder than when it gets put in after the hours journey back from the supermarket.

Not sure how long the door had been ajar but hours rather minutes.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Welcome to the 21st Century.

Reply to
ARWadsworth

A lot of modern freezers have alarms built in, they beep loudly if the temp drops by a certain amount.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

I used an indoor/outdoor thermometer with built in alarm.

Put the 'outside' temperature sensor inside (thin wire stright over the door seal) and set it to shriek if the temperature rose past a certain point.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Me too. Took a bit of looking to find one with programmable alarm limits. But it was cheap...

Thomas Prufer

Reply to
Thomas Prufer

I have my fridge set up that way. (Can't remember why but could easily be accident rather than design).

Chest freezers might be more inconvenient than uprights but safer for the absent minded. I left the lid of mine up for more than 12 hours a few days back and it didn't defrost. Had a lot of ice to hammer off before I could get the lid to close properly though. Freezer is already

30 years old so I wonder how many years that 12 hours of hard work for the compressor has knocked off its remaining life.
Reply to
Roger Chapman

Or, "I used $LINK and it saved my bacon" ...

Reply to
Andy Burns

So did I!

It had a resistor in series with one of the sensors so you could tell the difference between door and temp.

It came in a fetching American Electrical Beige case.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

What would be most useful is an electromagnet which drops a weight which pulls the door shut.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

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