stacking two small freezers

[chrisbainbridge]

£ years ago we bought an extra freezer for the garage to keep soup in we have one helping each per day of home made soup for lunch).  This is perfect except that it is being filled up with fruit from the garden as our trees start to produce. However this is seasonal and in the spring it will be empty.  So rather than buying a larger freezer i thought I would buy another small one to stack on top of the present one.  However there is no information about stacking freezers on top of each other.

Do the panel have any advice? Have they done it and it all went horribly wrong?

I thought that if I put a piece of plywood on top of the first fridge it would share the load  but perhaps the frame is not sufficient for the load?

[Cpt Sisko]

I agree you need something to spread the load. It might be okay, but the top of the bottom freezer wouldn't have been designed to take any load, so yes, best to spead it out and asthetics aside a bit of plywood is as good as anything.

My other thought is vetilation, allow space behind the freezers. Fridges & Freezes actually kick out quite a lot of heat from the back, particularly the older type that have exposed condesner pipes. Heat rises so the top freezer may not work quite so eficiently if it's trying to do it's cooling cycle at the same time as the bottom freezer it doing its and pumping out heat. You can't control these cycles, all you can do is make sure there is space for the hot air to dispurse, i.e. don't box it in.

[psyclist]

I would suggest looking into the cost of running an efficient larger freezer all year round compared to the cost of 2 small freezers  running all year and half a year respectively. I suspect the additional running cost of 2 small freezers for half a year compared to a single larger freezer would make the larger one more economical overall.

For the half year when part of the freezer would otherwise be empty, it would be wise to fill the empty space with something, as a full freezer is more efficient than a half empty one.

[chrisbainbridge]

Thank you.

I had not thought about the rising warm air at all.  I think you may be right about the costs as well, psyclist, as this would be a single new freezer and we could freegle the old one.

[Diver300]

You do need to allow adequate ventilation. If you don't let the heat escape easily from a fridge or freezer, they create more heat and use more electricity. A good gap behind should be enough, if they are not in a corner. A barrier to stop hot air rising could be a good idea, and if you have space either side, slope the barrier so that hot air from the bottom one goes to one side, while cool air is still available to top one from the other side.

Other solution would be fettling a fan to come on when both freezers are on.

Our chest freezer has no actual radiator, it just uses the metal on the outside. The outside gets quite warm when the freezer is recovering from a defrost, and I've been known to help it with a fan while that is going on.

[Ham]

Chest freezer seems the way to go, I'm thinking of one principally for produce, too.

Given concern about white goods build quality and flammable-ness I'd think of a decent brand,  but small chest freezers seem to be unavailable except in hokymoki2000 brand. May try to consider how to shoehorn in a bigger one, replacing an upright.

[chrisbainbridge]

We just do not like chest freezers.  They end up with stuff at the bottom which never gets used.

[Cpt Sisko]

We just do not like chest freezers.  They end up with stuff at the bottom which never gets used.

That I would wholeheartedly agree with. The number of things I've bought because they were on thier sell by date thinking, 'Oh, that's a bargain, I'll freeze that' only for them to lurk unused at the bottom of the chest freezer. Half a pig was another one. I was bloody well sick of pork chops after a week.

[Pedaldog.]

I was bloody well sick of pork chops after a week.

Duz nott kompyute!