Almost time for the annual defrosting the freezer Holiday extravaganza!

As the Seasons roll round, and the deep freezers build up ice on the insides, eventually it reaches the time to shutdown and defrost. The younger crowd might not be aware of this Holiday since much of the newer more modern freezers (and almost all the refrigerators) have auto defrost. The problem with auto defrost from an off grid perspective is that it requires a heating coil in the freezer and that takes more power. An additional problem with auto defrost is it shortens the time you can store frozen food.

So the Holiday begins with digging through all the unused frozen goods from who knows when you put it in the freezer. You pick those items you really need to eat for the holiday meal to avoid having to throw away things of value. You also might toss the helplessly out of date heavily freezer burned items so to free up more space once the freezer is placed back into service. Once the freezer is bone empty the defrost begins!

The freezer thermostat is turned off or it is unplugged. Door is opened for more rapid ice removal (though some innovators place a hot kettle of water inside with the door closed to start a quicker thaw). As the ice melts and floods your floor below the freezer it is only a matter of hours until the holiday runs its course. Once all ice is gone the freezer can be turned back on and the frozen food restored to it.

Happy Defrost day everyone!

I feel yer pain. Ours is a vertical, and we just keep losing shelf space until I have to defrost...

Sadly, you've reminded me it's about time...

what about the manual defrost? paint scraper and a container to catch the ice in. :D :D :D leave the lower half of the food in. scrap for 10 minutes, put food back in.....

yodamota said:

what about the manual defrost? paint scraper and a container to catch the ice in. :D :D :D leave the lower half of the food in. scrap for 10 minutes, put food back in.....

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I was contemplating trying a paint / ice scraper and a wet dry vac to quickly vac out the ice shavings.

My method is not for the nervous or poor planners -

• Wait until August or so
• buy beer
• plan ahead and put jugs of water in to freeze hard.
• put everything into ice chests or a handy clean bathtub if I must (seldom)
• take the freezer out into the driveway
• connect a hose from the hot water faucet
• hose it all out avoiding the thermostat
• once the ice is gone, towel dry
• put it all back in and turn it on
• once down to temp remove the ice jugs
• Drink a beer or 3 to congradulate myself on a job well done
• Make a note to buy more beer for next year

yodamota said:

what about the manual defrost? paint scraper and a container to catch the ice in. :D :D :D leave the lower half of the food in. scrap for 10 minutes, put food back in.....

Click to expand...

If you do not allow the coils to clear of ice completely it puts additional loading on the unit. Scraping of surface ice does not reach the coils on many freezers and if it did you could damage them and cause coolant leakage.

Scraping of some of the ice accumulation is a stop gap you do if the annual Holiday defrost day has not happened yet. Or if an item you want is frozen to the sides or shelves of the freezer.

cs1234 said:

I was contemplating trying a paint / ice scraper and a wet dry vac to quickly vac out the ice shavings.

Click to expand...

It works fine if you stay on top of the shelves, but if you miss and puncture a tube it will cost you a freezer And the other downside is you can scrape the paint and make the shelves rust.

cs1234 said:

I was contemplating trying a paint / ice scraper and a wet dry vac to quickly vac out the ice shavings.

Click to expand...

thats a good idea, i find a bread tin works for catching it.

Damn...2 days ago someone in my household forgot to close the freezer door properly and the ice levels grew a lot.
Had to defrost it.
Hate the cleanup and the water on the floor (front door type, halfsize).

Must be something that goes around eh?

LydMekk said:

Damn...2 days ago someone in my household forgot to close the freezer door properly and the ice levels grew a lot.
Had to defrost it.
Hate the cleanup and the water on the floor (front door type, halfsize).

Must be something that goes around eh?

Click to expand...

Feel lucky, nobody does that around my house until the day AFTER I defrost it.

Yeah I have a standup commercial unit from 1983 and its shelves are the cooling coils. Once a year we stop buying food that would get frozen and eat our way to a semi empty freezer. Move all the oddball stuff left to the freezer compartment of the fridge and shut off with the door open. I run the drain hose across the kitchen and out the side door and use a water hose to speed melt the shelves clear. Usually takes about 3 hours of elbow grease and a small but steady stream of water. Once you get enough off you can pull off high chunks of ice. It’s also a great time to get rid of the stuff that never gets used I use a marker to date stuff and more than once have gotten stuff untouched from the year prior.

Edit this is at main house, cabin has a small chest type that I just run empty and then fill with water and drain via hose