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I have a Hotpoint Iced Diamond Fridge Freezer in the shed which in the cold weather the freezer stops working. I had thought it was the whole machine stopping working as it is old (I have a new one in the kitchen) – but have learnt that all fridge freezers tend to do this in colder weather.
I was advised by one shop that buying separate items this would not happen so had decided to buy a chest freezer. but when I enquired in a different shop (Currys) they told me that all freezers will do this in very cold weather.
So is this true ?? I know many people with chest freezers in their shed – and they have not had problems. How are you supposed to keep stuff frozen then ? I now am not sure whether it is worth buying one at all ?
If I buy one and it still stops working in cold weather I may as well not bother. Surely a good freezer – I am interested in the RC32P Hotpoint – should be ok ??
Re: Putting a Freezer in the shed
Afraid you’ll have problems – some appliances will work down to 10 °C(type s) but most will only work down to 16°C(type N). I’d be surprised if those fridegs etc in a shed are actually working properly .
Re: Putting a Freezer in the shed
But it is a brand new chest freezer I want to put in there now. I thought they were designed for this purpose. Am I wrong in that ??
Re: Putting a Freezer in the shed
Liberty wrote:But it is a brand new chest freezer I want to put in there now. I thought they were designed for this purpose. Am I wrong in that ??
Your chest freezer will indeed work OK in your garden shed, but a fridge freezer will not because of the ambient temperature differential 🙁
So YES to your freezer :tup:
and No to the fridge freezer :tdown:
Martin
Re: Putting a Freezer in the shed
lets try to clear this up….
A fridge cools to around 4 degrees. So when the ambient temperature is down below that the stat is never going to switch on the compressor, when it does the heat exchanger on the back will lose to much heat and therefore the equation of boyles law is completely wrong ,when it counts.
So a fridge freezer will not work and will defrost the freezer in cold weather, A freezer also will be affected, so its wrong to say it will work. Remember that the system has been designed to run in an ambient of around 20 degrees, the condensor will exchange too much heat with the ambient temperature and the delivery tube will deliver a gas at the wrong pressure, completly ruining the desin of the system. Expect a freezer that runs at -18 to rise to -13 in cold ambients. The knock on is that this causes extra heat in the oil of the compressor which in R134a systems is bad and is also proving to be so in R600a to. The absorption of gas into the oil is increased in such conditions and leads to blockages and early failure of compressors.
Sorry its a long answer…but avoid a fridge or freezer in a cold ambient if the appliance is designed to sit in side a house.
Kevin
Re: Putting a Freezer in the shed
Thanks for the answers LOL but I am still just as confused.
Zillions of people have chest freezers outside and many friends and family have told me that they have had them “for years” and have had no problems ……
but my question to them has been – but how do you know ?? Have they been and checked when the weather is cold ?? Without a warning light just how DO they know ? As soon as weather wams up again it refreezes ……. !!
So I am still in a quandry.
I have to have an additional freezer – I have nowhere else to put it – are the odds in my favour if I buy a quality chest freezer and store it in my shed …. ??? Or is the consensus on here that I just should not do it ??
Re: Putting a Freezer in the shed
at -18, -12 and -8 you have the star rating of the freezer, 1, 2 or 3.
So food stored at -18 is good for three months, at -12 for 2 months and -8 for 1 month. So without an electronic readout and memory you just won’t know that the cold weather is interupting your freezer. The alarm on this product is only activated when the temperature rises to -12 which is generally not the case with a freezer.The easy answer is that they don’t know and only complain when the fault becomes obvious
Kevin
Re: Putting a Freezer in the shed
Normally no problem if simply a chest freezer.
The biggest enemy though is damp! Condensation can be a problem resulting in rust on the cabinet or saturation of the insulating foam.
Another consideration is some upright freezers have the thermostat in the fascia at the top. To allow space they have a “well” in the foam and this can fill with water under certain ambient conditions, leading to allsorts of problems.
If you are talking of a no whistles and bells chest freezer with the controls at the bottom the performance should be o.k.
Alex
Re: Putting a Freezer in the shed
I must agree with alex as most chest freezer are double skind and designed to work in cold conditions.
Liberty. don’t ask for advice in currys as staff are trained to sell the products not to know about them. if you can read the label you will know as muck as they do.
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