Figured we’d do a quick PSA on something we ran into this year. If your chest freezer is getting up there in years, it might be a good idea to put a kill-a-watt (or other energy monitoring device) on it. Especially if you hear the compressor running a lot.
We discovered that our aging freezer was sucking through an immense amount of electricity. Like 15-20kwH per day, costing us about $4-$5/day to run. The seals were good and the freezer cold, so the failure was likely with the temperature probe or shutoff relay. Paying for energy at that rate will easily pay off a new freezer almost within the first year! We weren’t aware that freezers could “fail” like this, usually they just go kaput when their time is done.
It’s good to check these things BEFORE you start heavily using them in the fall and during harvest season! Often times summer is when our freezer is at its lowest capacity and we need our freezer running in tip-top shape for our food preservation efforts.
The good news is, though, is that we used the opportunity to up-size a smidge, so we’ll be able to comfortably preserve as much (or more) food this year. We’ll be getting into our blanch and freeze preservation technique here in a while, but it’s our go-to technique for food preservation for a lot of different foods we grow!
