Got home last night to a tragedy. Our 35+ year old, 7' long chest freezer is dead. Over $700 of beef lost. Turkeys, hams, fish, thank Gawd I didn't have any bacon ... but 12 lbs of cold cuts, with the effort of slicing and vacuum sealing... right in the bin. Luck had it today is garbage pickup. Must have quit some time last week. Bad luck; it was due for a defrosting ... 4 inches of bloody water in the bottom. The worst is ... my entire stash of pumpkin pies drowned in blood. 10 minutes to find out ... the bloody switch failed. The 35 year old R-12 compressor is still going strong and as quiet as ever when wired directly. I guess that's why we never knew she'd stopped. $50 to replace it and I'll be back in business ... but it'll take a while to rebuild my supplies. But I don't know how I'll get over the loss of my pumpkin pies.

 

Prof - so sorry for your loss. I feel your pain.

 

Lord Prof, you gave me a start! I am sorry you lost your goods but it's way better than what my mind jumped to.

 

a sympathy card is on the way..

 

It takes time to get over a loss like this but on the plus side fall is coming. The pumpkin harvest will erase all of the bad memories.

 

Had a similar incident a few years back when a renter died in one of our cabins of a busted lung inblu sem and the sheriff/ corner locked the place up and shut off the power. Why he shut the power off is beyond me, took 30 days to get the coroner's inquest back and get the OK to break the seal on the door and get inside to clean the place up. he also had a chest freezer full of something (now unrecognizable) and the freezer was actually hot to the touch. I will remember that one for ever...Tedd

 

You have to allow yourself time to grieve! For closure, try writing the pumpkin pies a good bye letter and tell them how much you would have enjoyed eating them - maybe with a little Reddi-Whip.

 

Since you are apparently going to continue to rely on an old POS freezer and risk hundreds of dollars worth of food (AGAIN), I suggest adding coverage for spoiled food to your insurance policy, if your ins. company offers it. That said, even a new unit can fail, but if you did upgrade at least you could use the energy savings to pay for the premium increase and put the rest of the savings (likely substantial) in the bank.

 

You should rig a temperature alarm that lights a light in case it fails again. This way you can at least have the last supper before it all goes bad.

 

Similar thing happened to the house I lived in during college. We were cleaning out our basement which had our freezer/fridge of our beef (housemate and I would split the cost of a half cow). Well, one of our housemate accidentally unplugged the fridge. A few hours later we noticed the pool of blood leaking out and went crazy. You could tell most the meat was going bad whereas some of the meat was getting close. Being college kids, we just took the remain steak that was border line going bad (about 13 1.5lb ones) and had a feast that night. Couldn't have been worse then Taco Bell.

 

What do you call the ratio of a Jack O' Lantern's circumference to it's diameter??????


Ans: Pumpkin Pi

Sorry for your loss perhaps the joke will cheer you up Professur

 

A little presumptuous calling it a POS when it's the first lick of trouble in 35 years .... and it's a lousy switch that failed. Compressor still runs like new, and the temp control hadn't been touched since it was installed new, and it still kept it plenty cold. As for efficiency ... where chest freezers are concerned there haven't been a whole lot of advancement over the years. It's an insulated box. Insulation is where it's at, and mine has enough extra padding about it (rigid styrofoam on three sides, lawn chair cushions on top) that I seriously doubt a new one would pay for itself before it died in saving. Keep the coils well dusted and it's amazing how little energy they take. And R-12 is still the tops IMO. And not that it matters, but my homeowner's insurance does cover freezer loss. But that's no consolation when there won't be pumpkin pies to buy for months yet.

But I do well appreciate your looking out for my well being, and everyone's thoughts of condolence. Oldcutlass, a light wouldn't have saved us as we'd been away all weekend .. but I'd be interested in seeing something of that nature if you have any links. The switch has a heat pipe that snakes into a tube that finds it's way somewhere into the lining ... I expect it would tap that.

 

If your handy, you can put together an alarm with this.

 

I'm sorry to hear about your loss, too.

Look on the bright side - at least you weren't away for a month!

There are gizmos you can hook up these days that will e-mail you if a warning unit gives an alarm.

And I agree: fix the switch and carry on.

- Eric

 

Oh no not the vittles. My condolences to you and your family.
My mom had a side by side fridge. She used to go to Florida for the winter every year. She had been gone about a month and I stopped by to check on things and somehow the breaker on the fridge circuit had tripped. Man what a smell. I cleaned and cleaned and washed with clorox left the doors open with multiple pounds of baking soda until she came home in the spring. She cleaned it some more and put it back in service. From that point on I could always get a residual taste in the ice or butter or whatever came out of that fridge that could absorb Oder. Good luck in getting the smell out of yours.

 

We should send him a sympathy pie or at least the fixings to make one

 

Well. Put the new switch in, fired right up. And kept going. And going. No obvious adjustments on this damn thing. Anyone know anything about capillary thermostats?

 

I have no special knowledge, but every capillary bulb thermostat I've ever seen has some sort of adjustment **** or screw on it somewhere.

You said the "switch" went - I ASSumed you meant the thermostat, if so, and you've got a new thermostat, it could always be defective. You do have a thermometer in there to check the temperature, right?

- Eric

 

Frost on the sides. It is the thermostat. http://www.invensyscontrolseurope.co...ct.aspx?id=148

The freezer has a copper tube sticking out of the insulation right next to the compressor. The old one had it's soft AL capillary tube up there, so I slid the new one into the same spot until it stopped. Left about 4 inches of tube. The new switch (thermostat) is oriented differently ... vertically where the old one was horizontal. Installing it with the Off position matching the mark on the freezer chassis had the capillary tube in the down position ... the tube doing a 180 to head up into the freezer.

The old switch had 2 screws on it marked cut in and cut off. This one has a single barely accessible screw head with no markings, and I haven't found any documentation anywhere online for it (no documentation on or in the box either). Some stampings on the switch body that I can't make head or tail of. Wiring is an in and out to the compressor, with a ground to the plug and chassis.

Leaving it in my fridge freezer for 10 minutes with the dial at 1 didn't open the contact ... but when I left it on the counter I did hear a click after a minute. Didn't have time to investigate further as my router promptly went south at that point. It never rains but it pours.