It’s a strange old life I lead. For a start I’ve not had hardly any time for gardening as I’ve been too busy writing about gardening and I suppose that’s what I’m doing now, albeit vaguely. Still, nearly at the end of this book and then maybe I’ll get the time to catch up with all the jobs on the plot.
I posted on here about Savaplugs some time back and later wrote an article on freezer running costs. Well I had a number of responses and people sending me links to other people talking about them. It amazes me how many people pontificate on the web about things they obviously know little to nothing about.
As far as I am concerned, it is really simple. We’ve run one on a freezer for six years without any problem whatsoever and on our other much newer freezers for a shorter time so the dire warnings that making the freezer do what it isn’t designed to will cause it to break down don’t concern me at all.
They cite the fact that the manufacturer isn’t selling them at the moment as proof. Perhaps they’re right but I suspect component supply problems or the marketing effort not being worth the expense is more likely.
Then I read in the Green Consumer Guide how it takes 7 years to recoup your investment in them and they’re only worth putting on old machines. OK, they make a statement like that and I assume they’ve run tests on the product and know what they’re talking about. Silly me. My tests have proven a saving of £46.00 a year on my £25.00 investment on the old machine, a six month return, and a saving of £10.00 a year on a pretty new machine. That returns our investment in two and a half years.
Having said all that, our Whirlpool chest freezer has gone wrong. Ironically, that’s the only one we have running without a Savaplug. It seems the thermostat has died and the compressor won’t kick in. It’s chock full of our vegetables from last season and the temperature had risen to minus five when we noticed.
The other freezers being full, it starts to look as if we’re going to have to decide what is the least value in there to us. Panic!! Then I had a brainwave (no comments about how you didn’t know I had a brain, thanks) and pushed the super freeze button. The motor kicked in and by the next morning we’re standing at minus 27 degrees!
Obviously this is going to cost a packet to run and now is the time to get that huge chest freezer we could do with. Just one problem here, as Val pointed out, where can we put it? The shed is full and sheds aren’t ideal for keeping a freezer in anyway. The garage possibly if we rip out a cupboard and then where do we put the stuff from that? There’s room upstairs in the spare room where the old freezer lives but no way could we get a large machine up the stairs and around the landing.
So back to the drawing board. We decided on a 6.2 cubic feet Norfrost chest freezer from Currys. They’re A rated so pretty efficient and very cheap at £159.00.
The delivery men were really good and helpful, whipped it upstairs for me a task I was dreading. When we unpacked it we realised the compressor is below the base so it’s really easy to get down to the bottom. That’s useful. A bit tinny, but then again it just sits there and at least it’s light and easy to move.
The important thing is that we haven’t lost our harvest!
NVS Meeting
We had a meeting of our District Association of the National Vegetable Society last night. The plan was to show a DVD on allotment growing produced by the society but technical problems got in the way. About 20 minutes in the show ground to a halt and on ejecting the DVD and shining a light it was obvious there were fingerprints all over the shiny side. Cleaned those off using my shirt tail but further on it broke down again. Lots of little scratches on it as well.
Moral of the tale – handle DVD’s, especially DVD-R with care and keep your fingers off the shiny side!
Our chairman, John Carver, had invested a fortune in a DVD projector so I’m glad to say it didn’t go to waste, he then gave us a slide show using the machine about the NVS stand they’d won a gold with at Tatton. It really was an impressive stand but for the huge amount of work that goes into it you wouldn’t expect less.
I know what you mean about “a bit tinny”!
We shopped for a new one when our 15 year old dishwasher finally died.
In the shop we were horrified at how thin and fragile the inside baskets and components were
An assistant asked what the problem was,then laughed and said it all went like that some years ago. He then showed us the one exception,but we would have needed a mortgage to buy it!
We did well on ours when we moved – a Bosch but quite cheap and reasonable quality. The freezer seems to be doing the job well and its using 189 KWh a year, so not bad (for a change)
just thought you might like to know I have replaced fridge/freezer thermostats in the past one of local electrical retailers keeps the popular brands in stock giving a bit more life if wanted!
It’s hard to know if something we bought 2nd hand for £30 is worth fixing and the new one is nearly twice the size and uses less energy.
That said, I felt pretty guilty taking it to the tip.
With regards to what dwtomo commented on about replacing the thermostat, hoe easy is it to do. My thermostat has gone and I am currently running on fast freeze??
Also, what do you think to plugging the said freezer into a timer and self timing the compressor like a thermostat does myself in the dshort term until I fix or replace the offending freezer?
John, fantastic site, really looking forward to getting an allotment next year hopefully! (fingers crossed)
Ricki