Automatic timed door closer

[rabbituk]

My elderly father lives with me and I am finding that he occasionally leaves the freezer door open. The freezer is a frost free design so when he does this it causes a lot of ice on the cooling bars and sometimes interferes with the fan. There is an alarm but he doesn’t hear it. I’ve always remedied it by melting the ice off the bars with a hair dryer and after a while the ice subsides to a managable amount. However recently whilst I was working away he left the freezer door and it wasn’t practical to drive 5 hours back home to do this and thankfully I had a kind neighour who brought round a spare freezer. But this really can’t happen again but I don’t know how to prevent it, other than changing the freezer for an non-frost free design.

How do others manage this problem when a family member leaves the door open? Can you get automatic door closers for freezers? The door handle has broken off due to being forced. That I can live with but I really don’t want the door left open for a week when I’m not home.

[electrofix]

if you type freezer door alarm into amazon you may get a louder one

Dave

[mels]

Maybe something like the freezer alarm I have, which is a fridge/freezer thermometer with dual wireless sensors that have enough range to work in an adjoining room. It’s the same as this one, although different brand and was much cheaper: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ORIA-Thermometer-Temperature-Refrigerator-Restaurants/dp/B07B9QZHLS I did initially have trouble with the AA batteries in the freezer sensor going rapidly flat because of the extreme cold, but found reasonable quality low self discharge NiMH batteries, such as Eneloop work for months once they’ve been through a few cycles of being used in the freezer allowed to warm up to room temperature and then recharged.

A smart temperature sensor that works via a Zigbee hub with something like Homeassistant might be a better option though, as you could probably set it up to send you an alert if he doesn’t sort if out himself within a reasonable time after the alarm goes off, but much more involved to set up.

[rabbituk]

Thank you for the suggestions. I will get a louder aftermarket alarm as I think that is the more praticable solution. It won’t be perfect but until fridges/freezers have automatic door closers like car tailgates it is probably the best way to mitigate this issue.

[Author]

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