How To Best Keep Chest Freezer or Fridge Running During Power Outage by for Modern Survival Blog
Your chest freezer (or two), or even your fridge /refrigerator freezer may have LOTS of $$ money worth of valuable food inside. The LAST thing you want is for it to spoil during a longer lasting power outage that lasts more than just a few hours!
Here are a few pointers how to best deal with this situation. And a few recommended items to have on hand which will greatly help in the process.
Much of this is common sense. But it’s important.
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A freezer or refrigerator will stay colder, longer, if it’s full during a power outage. The fuller it is, the more cold “mass” inside. The more mass, the longer it will stay cold. It’s simply an important concept to understand. If you know your chest freezer is full, it’s definitely going to stay frozen for a lot longer.
In my estimation, most chest freezers that are fairly full will likely stay frozen for… lets say ~ 24-48 hours. (For those who have direct experience with this unfortunate long-term power outage vs. chest freezer or fridge scenario, lets hear your story in the comments below!)
The freezer within a refrigerator probably won’t stay frozen as long compared with a chest freezer. They’re smaller. Probably less insulated too.
The first suggestion, thick, heavy, blankets! Drape blankets over the chest freezer. It’s additional insulation. Just be aware if there are any slotted vents (don’t block them), because we’re going to intermittently power it up with a generator. Read on…
Size of Generator To Run A Chest Freezer or Refrigerator
You do not need to run a generator full time to keep your freezer or fridge cold during a power outage! Save fuel. Here’s what to know and what to do…
There’s no need for a “Super Max Turbocharged Fuel Injected 500-Horsepower Big Block” generator to get the job done! The power consumption of a chest freezer or refrigerator is not huge. Here’s how it works:
Freezers work like refrigerators, by compressing air or fluid into a small space and then letting that air or fluid expand into another space.
Compressing the fluid makes it give off heat, which happens in the back of the freezer. Letting it expand causes it to draw in heat, which happens inside the refrigerated box.
They run in cycles, triggered by a thermostat inside the freezer.power cycles on and off.(the science behind it)
The energy used while it’s cycled “ON” will likely be in the vicinity of ~150 watts. I recommend that you do what I have done, and easily measure it yourself. Here’s an article on how to do it, “How To Measure Power Consumption of Appliances” .
