anyone have a small freezer?

[TDKPE]

So it can be a blessing or a curse . . .

I built my palatial office in one part of my basement, the big part was already professionally finished, and I built my shop in another part, where most of the ductwork and such is.  The sump pump seems to sit in water all the time, but I've only heard it run a few years back when we had incredible rain for something like a week.  But water has only gotten on the floor when the window wells filled up and it leaked in around the seal.  One window actually looked like a fish tank from in the basement, it had so much water over it.  It's got a clear plastic cover over it now.  

[kdouglaslee]

We have a full size and it's old but barely bumps the electric bill. It works great for keeping the upstairs freezer uncluttered.

Same here, got the largest one I could because the price wasn't that much more and it barely sips any electricity, we don't even notice it on our bill.

[Robert Adams]

My oldest lives in the Houston area, and has told me that nobody in Houston uses their garage for parking their cars.  

         Yup since our houses are half the size the garage is the only place we have to store anything. A basement is basically like having twice the house size without the taxes associated with it. If I were building a new house here it would have a basement but... It would take weeks of jack hammering and other issues due to the soil being solid rock and hard expansive clay in most areas here.

[R Clark]

This thread brings up memories.  

LOML and I grew up in military families, late 50s-60s-70s.  As I recall, we always had a full-size freezer, and LOML's family did same.  Everybody did.  I recall a freezer being a regular part of life since military members back then only got paid a few hundred $$ per month.  It seemed like everybody ran out of money before they ran out of month.  The freezer was filled with bread, milk, and meat on the first day of the month.  When you ran out of money about the 25th, there was enough food in the freezer to make it until payday on the 1st, and the ensuing run to the commissary for bread, milk, and meat.

We've always had a freezer, even when we went overseas to Europe; we bought a 220V unit in Germany that I sold when we left Germany for nearly as much as I paid for it.  Of course, we had full-size chest freezer waiting for us upon return since we owned before we left and put it in storage.  Matter of fact, I got started woodworking using that chest freezer as a work table when we lived in New Jersey.  We didn't have a garage or a basement then.  The freezer occupied space in one of the bedrooms.

Sorry for the diversion.  But we wouldn't NOT have a freezer.  How else would we be able to accept and store the elk steaks and venison that were just given to us?

[TDKPE]

If I were building a new house here it would have a basement but... It would take weeks of jack hammering and other issues due to the soil being solid rock and hard expansive clay in most areas here.

Having grown up and done construction in Connecticut, that would just mean drill and blast.  In the immortal words of Mr. Zucca, the excavating contractor with the heavy Italian accent who broke his bucket on rock in the movie Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, “It’s not a rock.  It’s a ledge.”  You can’t dig a fence post without hitting a boulder, or worse, “a ledge.”  
OK, you had to see the movie I guess.

That movie was set in CT, by the way, right around where I lived based on the one-hour to NY train ride, in the big post-war rush to buy land “in the country” by New Yorkers.

[EricU]

I don't know how they built our basement, because about 2' down in our yard, there is a solid sheet of rock.  It breaks nice, but that's a lot of rock. Even today, I'm pretty sure all the houses in this area have basements, no matter how silly that is. Lots of people have water problems in their basement.

If I got a full size, would definitely have to get rid of some cabinets.  It would be nice though. Only problem is my wife starts to obsess if stuff is in the freezer very long. Not sure why, it's frozen.  

Anyone with a freezer in the basement have a problem with condensate?

[R Clark]

Anyone with a freezer in the basement have a problem with condensate?

In all the years we've had freezers in our basements, or elsewhere, I've never been concerned about condensate.

Our current freezer, nearly 20 years old, is not a frost-free unit, so occasionally we have to defrost it.  That's the only time we have ever had to deal with removing water from the freezer.  We haven't defrosted in the six years since we moved into this house.

 Is condensate a problem with your refrigerator?  If not, I wouldn't think a freezer would act any differently.  Same process, just cools the interior to colder temps.

[EricU]

I didn't think about the fact that they probably aren't frost-free.  Central PA has a lot in common with rain forests, so condensation can be a problem.

[R Clark]

OK, but I go back to my question:  Do you have trouble with condensation from your refrigerator?  If not, then I think you're OK.

When I was in the service, my family and I lived in Panama for two years, and it WAS the rain forest.  We had the chest freezer with us then, too.  It was not in the house, but was in unconditioned space.  Never had an issue with condensate there.

[Robert Adams]

94* and 54% humidity here right now... Sadly that's actually cooler and dryer than it has been lately. Condensation in the mini fridges and freezer parts isn't an issue and they get opened and closed allot more than a chest freezer. Freezers with a lid on top don't have any outside air make it inside when you open it so condensation is a very minor issue with chest freezers.