Frozen freezers?

[charlieb]

My parents are looking to get a new Chest freezer for the garage, where the temperature occasionally drops sub zero, as current one is seriously iced up and on the blink.  But all the new ones in John Lewis say that their warranties are invalidated if kept below zero.  Does anyone know if this is a real problem, or just manufacturers being paranoid? - the current ones been plugging away in there for 15 years+.     
Seems a pity to keep a freezer in a toasty warm house just to keep some warranty jobsworth happy...   But also seems a pity to buy a shiny new one only for it to break first time the temp outside gets to minus 5...?

[guydewdney]

bluntly - whats their budget? seriously look at commercial freezers - the Liebherr upright uses a TINY anount of power compared to any chest freezer we could find. Its huge....

[charlieb]

Not huge.  Wouldn't a chest freezer always be more efficient than an upright  (other things being equal)?    Chest freezer just seems to accept big chunks of pig, etc, more easily than an upright too; and fits the space.  How much was that commercial one though, and where did you buy it in the end? 
C

[guydewdney]

Well - we bought it from Alexanders Direct
its a http://www.liebherr.com/hgg/en/products_hgg.asp?menuID=101957!279723-0_18608-0
513 litres (18 cu ft), 1.2kWh power consumption per 24 hours. IE about 60 quid a year to run.

to put this in comparison - its basically twice the size of a normal chest freezer, and its in the top ten when you compare power per cubic foot on that http://www.sust-it.net/energy_saving.php?id=73&start=0&sd=0&tariff=38 site

Check door sizes! We ended up removing the door handle from the freezer, and the door frame strip from the freezer room door.....   It takes two decent men to move it. Or 3 girls...  

We had a chest freezer - a Gram - of a similar size - this was costing 200 quid a year to run - PLUS the 'lost' food at the bottom of the freezer - we ended up lobbing a massive bag of (nice looking) sausages - as neither of us remembered putting them in there - and that could have been three years ago. SWMBO is a bit delicate, so we cant risk it.

[charlieb]

I know what you mean about food at the bottom of chest freezers. 

I've just looked at the instructions for that Liebherr, and it looks like it's designed to function in ambient temp of +10 to +36.   (2nd page  (numbered 6 for some reason) of http://assi.lhg.liebherr.com/Serviceline/b2b/bab2b/Media/Documents/BA/708147700_gb.pdf )

 Will it really give up the ghost if the temp in the garage drops below 10 degrees for a bit?  And will I really have to hunt about for a special low-temperature proof freezer!?

[djh]

I started googling to try to understand why there's a problem with low ambbient temperatures. I haven't found an answer yet* but I did find this, which might be useful:

6. Are all Beko freezers capable of working at ambient temperatures below zero degrees C and down to -10 C?

Yes. All our freezers are designed, manufactured and tested accordingly [http://www.beko.co.uk/Faq.aspx]

* Clearly there's a problem with a fridge-freezer controlled by a single thermostat in the fridge but I haven't found a good explanation for single-function freezers yet. This page http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=182 explains about possible condensation problems, but that just sounds like a problem to be overcome when designing the freezer.

[Greenbeast]

i think it's to do with the compressor

obviously any refrigeration device should perform better in a colder environment, but i think the compressor and it's oil don't like the colder temperatures, i could be wrong!

[marktime]

I believe it's an issue with the refrigerants used since CFCs were phased out.
There are still many old style fridges and freezers in use that have no problem with low ambient temps.

Most (but not all) of the stuff in the shops today has some restriction on use in low temp locations.

MarkTime

[Antman]

I know when I repaced ours 18 months ish ago, the instructions are very clear that it is "not to be used below 10 deg C ambient" otherwise the warranty was invalid.

It is to do with the CFC-free gas and the way the freezer works. Not sure from memory but something to do with the gas not recondensing below a certain ambient temp I think.

I kept the old (non frost-free) freezer as it can work in low temps - so it is retained as an emergency spare in the garage. FF is somewhat cheaper to run as the leccy bill certainly dropped - plus you don't have to defrost it twice a year !

Antman

[Greenbeast]

There's not much i can do about my fridge-freezer and chest fridge, the last couple of months the kitchen and dining room have been easily below 10C

[charlieb]

jdh;  Interestingly the Beko Q&A page also has the following:

3. Will my fridge/freezer work in a garage?
The recommended minimum ambient temperature must not drop below 10c(50F) otherwise the product will not operate correctly.

Which seems to suggest that if the temp drops below zero it won't explode, it just might not work so well (which presumably would be cancelled out anyway by having to work less hard). 

Good news, as charity shops round here seem to be full of ex-display Bekos (Good for Beko for donating).

[Baz]

A fridge at rest has all its gas as gas at a pressure dependant on ambient temp. To run it has to compress the gas to a target pressure (at which it liquifies). The initial pressure helps a lot in getting it to the target so cold units can stall.
10 degrees sounds high so the mfrs must be relying on modern overheated houses to drop the power of the compressor to make them look more efficient. With the heating on my kitchen sometimes rises up to 10. 
One way to help would be to enclose the freezer in an insulated inner room in the garage so that its own heat keeps it warm. Or at least the working parts with some large water bottles for thermal mass. When needing more heat put extra containers of water in the freezer, freeze and remove. The freezer acts as a heat pump - so the COP makes this cheaper heat.

[knighty]

I'd look for a freezer which has a fan on the condensor (the grill/pipes bit which gets hot)
(most of the biger ones do)

that way you could put a thermostat (or just a switch) so you could turn the fan off in the cold/winter

the problem is the pressure/tempreture curve, as the tempreture drops lower, the compressor has to pump a lot harder to pull enough vaccume to get the liqud refrigerant to evaporate into a gas....

(sorry for the slepping, dislexic with a broken spell checker)

[northern installer]

In the good old days,when computer rooms needed air conditioning,we used to fit'through wall' units as an easy way to keep the temperature down;mainly made by toshiba.In very cold weather they would tend to ice up,we never solved this problem,but later units were never troubled by this,the design was altered somewhere inside but being a sealed unit,it wasnt possible to see just how it was done.The old ones never seemed to come to any harm by being frozen,just switch off ,then back on again seemed to do the trick. 

Guy,try writing the date in felt pen on the stuff in your freezer? 

[desperate]

I think the problem with running a fridge or freezer in very cold ambient conditions is the possibility of the refrigerant not boiling completely to a gas before the compressor, liquids in a compressor=

Desperate