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Well, we're considering getting one ... I would be using it for EBM and bulk bought meat, and pre-cooked meals.
Does anyone have one? What size and brand?
What do you use it for? How often?
Is it worth the money - to purchase and run?
Do tell ...
Thanks :)
Was going to post a very similar thread! Looking forward to seeing some responses!
we have one, use it for basically what you want. our only other freezer is one above our fridge, so we knew we needed more freezer space and chose a deep freeze over an upright.
I can't remember cost, but havent had a problem with it. its a F&P (i think...sorry i cant be bothered to go check...but i will soon =P)
umm.. i dont know what else to say, we never regreted getting one.
EDIT ~ it is F&P, amazing DH went and checked for me while he was up =)
We have a drawer freezer and would never go for a chest one as I cannot reach the bottom.
We have a Westinghouse and for years had a Phillips.
The last one I bough I got from appliances online at a really good price and no delivery cost.
Ours is not that large as we are starting to down size.
I went to shops and looked at the ones I was thinking of buying but I like to know what something looks like before I buy it.
We have a chest freezer that we store our meat in (we bulk buy every few months). It's a Heller brand and is a 95L according to the sticker at the back :dunno: it's about 1m tall and 80cm wide, holds about $500 worth of meat once it's separated into meals.
Think we paid about $400 for it and it was well worth it!
Subscribing, we are looking to buy one too - DH asked me if there was anything particular I'd like for mothers day and I suggested this - practical yes, but I really want one LOL
we had a deep freeze and got rid of it - found it a pain in the backside. DH and I aren't short by any means, so it wasn't the problem with getting stuff in and out - it was just very hard to keep things organised. we make a lot of meals in advance, and DH was taking them away to work with him - we chose to get rid of that and get an upright so we could see exactly what was in there. we never ended up with any waste from food being left in the freezer too long after we got the upright, but the chest freezer seemed to be a bit of an abyss...
We have a chest freezer, Heier brand cos they were the most energy efficient out of the options we had. Love LOVE it! I cook in bulk a lot, so we eat one/freeze one, super easy for the can't be bothered cooking days when we would previously have gotten take away. When bread etc is on special we buy up and chuck it in, it's seriously saved us way more money than the initial output.
OMGawd I'd be lost without it!!! We have a massive one and we use it all the time. I buy bread and meat in bulk, plus we kill our own meat and will do 3-4 sheep at a time. Ours is a westinghouse that we've had for 13 years and its still going strong. Highly recommend you get one.
We've just bought an upright to replace our chest freezer. Like the PPs said, getting to the bottom of it and keeping it organised was a total PITA. We had a 160L chest and it held a truckload. We've gone to a 210L upright and it only holds the same amount due to space lost to shelving and baskets I guess. I wouldn't be without ours, but being a bit more remote and having less food choice than most we use it a lot.
Ours is a FP - purely because many of our appliances are as we've had such good experience with them. Energy ratings for freezers suck.
I have one, it's just a cheap one (Centrex?) and it's not frost free so a bit of a pain in the bum :( I'd really like an upright one to be honest, I really need this one to break down ;)
Ours is outside and DH is at work so can't tell you any specifics, but I love our chest freezer :D I don't know what I would do without it. We got ours when I was pregnant with Moo and it's been full ever since. I'm not sure about running costs as we got ducted air con installed around the same time, and our power consumption has increased but I wouldn't know how much the freezer contributed iykwim?
DH is paid monthly so to save money I buy meat in bulk then vac seal it in portions, can keep it for so much longer this way. I will also buy up on frozen things that are on special and pop them in there as our fridge/freezer is only tiny!
I often do huge cook ups and again vac seal in portions. There is always something to eat for dinner in the freezer when time is tight or I can't spread the grocery budget far enough. I always write the date frozen on the bag too.
Only annoying thing is ours only came with one basket, we just bought more from a storage place and they fit fine. Usually have certain things in each so it is easy to just lift out baskets to get to the one we need. When I was pregnant I even had lists of what was where stuck to it :lol:
We have a Westinghouse chest freezer. It's good but it's not frost free. We'll defrost it this week before we move. Once we got it, I wished we'd got an upright. They're frost free and easier to find things, though the volume you can store is less. I forget things and though I label food, often the labels fall or rub offf.
Our freezer is in the garage.
I have one, it was my parents and they got it about 18 years ago, never had an issue. They used ut for everything because our fridge had no freezer. We use it now to store froxen mice and rats for our snake food. It is an O'Malleys Tucker Box.
Mum has a chest freezer and hates it as she is too short to reach the bottom so if you are vertically challenged it can be an issue :rofl: Hers also doesnt fit in the hosue and she gets frustrated going in and out the shed so they are upgrading to a french door frridge/freezer now there are only 2 of them living at home and dumping the freezer
we have chest freezer and couldnt live without it, we get half a cow about twice a year and my dad gives us large styrafoam boxes of freshly frozen fish he catches. We can fit roughly half a cow and still have the top 2 baskets free.
when we built we made sure there was room in the laundry to fit a chest freezer in
if you buy or cook in bulk I think its a must have, we couldnt live without it
Does anyone have one? What size and brand? Ours is a 200 ltr GVA Chest Freezer (got it at Good Guys)
What do you use it for? How often? We wanted it so we could buy meat in bulk and also to be able to store meals. We use it all the time. At the moment we have 10 frozen meals in it, plus about a week's worth of meat and it looks empty.
Is it worth the money - to purchase and run? We paid around $250 from memory, prior to Christmas. It was on special and then we took the floor stock so they reduced it further. We've just got our first electricity bill since having it (and we had it for the entire quarter) and we noticed no difference.
I can't reach the bottom atm, so we work around it by DH moving anything I need for the week up from the bottom into the baskets so it's easily accessible. I don't know how we've gone so long without one, it's been fantastic. There's no way I could have stored up meals in our normal fridge/freezer.
I do have to add, that I am now having trouble getting to the bottom of it being pregnant =P but wasn't an issue for me before I popped, (i'm about 5"6)
We have a hp 83L chest freezer, from ebay, and its great. The chest freezere get much colder I think than the uprights can, and all thr cold air doesn't "fall out" every time you open the door. My Mum has had a chest freezer since I was a baby (the same freezer for 30+ years), and she is far from "tall". She regularly sorts through hers, but the best way to not loose things into "the abyss" is to keep a list of what goes in, and when, and then cross it off when it comes out. I much prefer chest freezers to uprights.
160l chest
We buy a whole lamb and freeze some meals. I love it.
Has totally paid for itself. Whole lambs can be as cheap as $6 kg! That's $6kg lamb racks. Yahoo!!
We need the room. And upright would have been better for my back but not for the poor lamb lol
Ours was a bargain - I saw it on the nature strip a few doors down and told DH to go get it :lol:
At the moment it's only got a box of potato cakes in it, but I've just done a massive online shop and by Thursday it will hold almost $200 of meat!
I have been saving to get one before bub comes.. then yesterday my washing machine went bang :angry:
we're taking the plunge and getting one ...
where do people get their bulk meat from?
we sometimes get meat from a local butcher, DH's friends or his second cousin. Most butchers will do you a good deal. We pay or the cow by the kg which includes bones but not offal and depending on who we go through between $7-9kg. Someitmes we take the bones and give them to friends who's dogs actually eat the bones sometimes we ask the butcher to chuck them. Depending on the butcher we get various cuts, roasts, diced meat, mince, steaks and have also had the butcher include making crumbed schnitzels and sausages too
We often go 1/2's or 1/3 with family as we dont eat beef quickly enough to get a whole cow! Sometimes one of the guys at DH's work gets bulk chooks and as I said earlier my Dad gives us big boxes of fish
Google wholesale butchers as that gives you a starting point.
Pakenham has an outlet which has good prices. Also keep an eye out for chicken breasts as they can be $6.99 or cheaper on sale. Next door goes to a wholesale place and says the prices are really good. They eat alot of red meat so for them it is cheaper. They also get them to cut up any large peices as there are only two of them
One thing I did was I sat down and thought about the cuts of meat I used. With a slow cooker you can buy the cheaper cuts.
We got ours last time through a friend. Ask around - you'll find someone knows someone who can help.
Farmer's Markets are another good one. Often the stall holders are happy to put aside an entire lamb or 1/2 beef and more often than not they're organic.
PRM - is yours frost free? I googled them and someone wrote that they aren't - if they aren't how often do you need to defrost it?:
The size and price sounds good to me :)
Nay - I don't think it is because there is a tiny amount if build up on one side. We got it in November, it's been running non-stop since then and the ice build up wouldn't fill an ice cube tray.
With regards to defrosting, the upright I used to have had terrible seals, so would have to defrost twice a year (used to do it every Christmas; once in December, and once in June). The chest freezer isn't a frost free I don't think, and I have only defrosted it once (as in got bored, emptied its contents into cooler shopping bags, and chipped and scraped the built up ice off without so much as turning the freezer off) in about eight months... But it really didn't even need it!