Demise of the chest freezer?

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

I just took my expired chest freezer (as in double the size of a washing machine) to the dump, and was accused of it being commercial. Do people not use these things anymore?

[harry]

I have two of them. Not huge ones though.

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

Mine was pretty much double the width of a washing machine etc. Standard sized chest freezer which I've seen ever since I was born 43 years ago. Maybe less folk freeze large quantities of home grown food now and just want a small thing the size of a fridge to store frozen pizzas from Asda for a few weeks? Trying to buy a second hand one to replace it, there were about 20 times as many fridge freezers as chest freezers.

[Bill Wright]

I bought one before there was VAT. I got a big one because it was cheaper than a small one due to Purchase Tax on small ones. Mine was 16 cubit feet. It cost £82. All its life it had a peculiarity in that the yellow neon would only glow when illuminated by the room light. I never understood this. When I decided to replace the freezer I found that it had leaked underneath. The concrete floor was frozen sold due to water getting between the cracks and freezing. When we lifted the freezer the floor came with it. I now have two Beko uprights. They are fine. As a precaution I gave them their own mains supplies and their own RCDs, nothing to do with the house. I also bought two of those little thermometers on a wire. They cost £12 + VAT. I extended the wires. They give an interesting insight into the way the inside temp of a freezer cycles up and down.

Bill

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

Bloody hell how old are you? I thought we'd always had it. I'm 43 and = can remember 15% and 17.5% before they decided to STEAL more money from = us at 20%.

Why on earth would that happen? Was yours classed as commercial and VAT= exempt? I thought you said there was no VAT yet?

Neither do I. I assume it was broken and was just reflecting?

That's why I just got rid of this one, the carpet was getting soggy. I = also noticed it was running for longer each time and outputting less hea= t. I think when they get old the pipes rust and some refridgerant leaks= out, making them less efficient.

Odd that liquid water could escape a frozen object.

Why the two RCDs?

Have you tried putting the sensor at the bottom and the top of the insid= es? There's quite some difference. I had a chest freezer that was -18C= at the top and -30C at the bottom. Presumably that's why there was a s= ticker inside it saying you could turn the thermostat down if you only f= illed the bottom half.

The other weird thing I saw was a sticker that said sausages only last 1= month yet beef lasts 12 months. Why?

[NY]

On 21/10/18 16:33, Bill Wright wrote: > I also bought two of those little thermometers on a wire. They > cost £12 + VAT. I extended the wires. They give an interesting insight > into the way the inside temp of a freezer cycles up and down.

How much range of temperature does the thermostat allow (its hysteresis) between switching the pump on and off? I've always wondered.

When we changed our central heating thermostat from an old-fashioned bimetallic strip to a Hive system, it was interesting to see how much more constant the room temperature was, as recorded by the internal temperature sensor of our weather station, than it had been with the bimetallic thermostat.

I imagine the same will be true with old freezers (bimetallic) versus new ones (solid-state temperature sensor).

You were lucky that you replaced your old freezer with a Beko. I presume from your description of a concrete floor that it's outside or otherwise unheated. Beko are one of the few manufacturers that still can be sited in a room that is not maintained at around 15-20 deg C; most of them stop working if the ambient temp drops below about 10 deg C. I've always thought that there is something slightly illogical about a device that is designed to cool the inside of it not working if the outside temp gets too cold (ie when the pump has to do *less* work). But it's all to do with refrigerant used, and whether (for a combined fridge/freezer, if it uses one thermostat to control both compartments, instead of having two separate ones as they should do (trying to infer the temp of the freezer from the temp of the fridge is naive in the extreme).

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

I never got a bimetallic one to work (tried 5 makes!). As soon as the r= oom became too cold, it switched on, but the slight arc across the strip= 's contacts warmed it up and it turned back off. All I ended up with wa= s a loud buzzer. I changed it for a digital stat and all is well.

I assume it's bad to turn the compressor on and off too frequently thoug= h. I had a dehumidifier which had a timer preventing it from starting l= ess than 5-10 minutes after stopping.

Not fit for purpose, I'd take it straight back to the shop as faulty. F= reezers tend to be sited in garages. If it needs extra warmth, it shoul= d be fitted with a small heater to make the duff refridgerant work.

[spuorgelgoog]

Bill is one of our senior members.

Purchase Tax was abolished on 2 April 1973 and replaced by Value Added Tax (VAT), initially set at a rate of 10%, which was shortly afterwards reduced to 8%.

Purchase Tax was originally 33.3333%

Nobbut a young'un yet.

Possibly seen as a necessity for larger families or bulk food storage. Purchase Tax applied to 'luxury' items.

The sausages contain minced meat, which will degrade more quickly than a solid lump of beef.

Owain

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

OUCH!

I don't feel like it.

Yes, storing food long term to save money is a luxury....

Why? It's still meat, with bacteria which can live at certain temperatures.

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

So in the interests of saving the environment, we all have to heat our g= arages to make our freezers work. DOH! Is there no end to human stupid= ity? I seriously can't wait until we've used up all the earth's resourc= es and lead a simpler life.

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

Shouldn't they all be using Peltier blocks by now? I can't understand w= hy we still use the compressor in the 21st century. My car fridge opera= tes at any temperature, it simply creates a temperature difference betwe= en the inside and the outside of the container.

[Max Demian]

"The tax was subsequently set at differing rates dependent upon individual items' degree of "luxury" as determined by the government of the day."

I remember buying a "looxury" cassette deck that had 25% purchase tax. Most items carried much less tax. Vans were exempt, so people bought them and fitted rear seats and windows, possibly illegally.

[Max Demian]

Only if they can't be arsed to cut up the bodies.

[NY]

Peltier effect. I haven't heard of that for years and then the other day I saw an article about someone who had designed a fridge compartment that used Peltier blocks to keep it cold, rather than using a compressor. And no you mention it. The fridge project used a Raspberry Pi computer to vary the current that the Peltier could draw, because (the article said) Peltiers don't like sudden switching on and off.

If it is true that Peltier blocks can't be controlled by a simple on/off thermostat (whether bimetallic or a relay controlled by a solid-state temperature sensor) then maybe that is one reason why they haven't become more common: the more complicated control circuitry to leave the Peltier permanently on but with variable current, and therefore the greater energy loss in the transistors which are partly on, rather than being fully on or else fully off.

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

I've never heard of them hating sudden on and off. As far as I know, my car fridge is a simple thermostat that turns the Peltier block on and off as required. Mind you I guess it could be more gradual, I've never taken it apart to analyse it deeply. But in this century, turning something on and off slowly isn't a problem, just look at the motor speed control on a washing machine. You'd think the greenies would love a fridge or freezer without any gases that could damage their precious ozone layer.

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

If I was going to do that I'd dig a hole underneath my house and bury them in there, nobody thinks to lift floorboards.

[Jimmy Wilkinson Knife]

People who make up these stupid rules ought to be beaten up.

[David]

Ah - that will be the heating/cooling in my camping cool box. Always on because no thermostat. I've never used it as a warm bin (presumably for take away food) and I assume the function is there just because it comes as part of a Peltier device.

Does the job of an overspill beer fridge.

Cheers

Dave R

[David]

Two Beko freezers here as well - learned the lesson about fridge/freezer the hard way when it was in the garage during renovations.

They are outside down the side passage under cover. It still seems strange that a dedicated freezer (as opposed to fridge/ freezer) needs to be kept somewhere warm to work.

Cheers

Dave R

[Steve Walker]

Yes. My grandad had a VW camper that started life as a van - a proper, split-screen one.

One of the most unreliable vehicles I have experienced - he used to put in a spare engine and fix the broken one, ready for the next failure. He once phoned my dad, in Manchester and asked him to bring the spare engine ... to Cornwall!

My grandparents and my aunt used to tour Europe in it and usually ended up stripping and rebuilding the engine in Ostend for some reason.

SteveW