LM: Household chest freezers

Pretty straightforward, I'm looking to know more about chest freezers than I do now. After a cursory scroll through the Lowes app, I would say that I'm interested in the single digit cu.ft. models rather than the larger ones. We have a kitchen fridge and a garage fridge so the chest freezer would, in theory, be for some hypothetical meal preppage and other hard freeze scenarios. (It almost certainly won't be used for that, best laid plans and what not.) 

What's the best bang for my buck? How does this answer change if I limit my search to Lowes or expand to other sources?

Is there a reasonable "last chest freezer you'll ever buy" option that is available to regular income folks?

Are there any notable features or keywords to avoid?

We bought one that was like $180 from Lowe's delivered in 2020 not long after this all started. Don't remember the brand, I'd have to go outside and look. I think it's in the 5-6 cubit ft range? It will hold quite a bit of stuff, but it's just two of us. 

So we use when we go to Costco to buy bulk meat/chickens, that kind of stuff. Then we are ready to use it or getting close we rotate to the in house refrigerator/freezer. Go bulk up again, rinse, repeat. 

These pop up pretty cheap at the home centers.  Also consider buying used.  I found a couple for sale near me that looked clean and only 100 bucks.

If it works, it's likely to keep working, although some of the very new, very cheap freezers may be junk.

Any advice on bigger ones while this topic is up?

I'm looking for a chest freezer that can take half a cow and a whole pig.

We had a big one in our first house.  Stuff on the bottom got forgotten about and stacked on.  

My father-in-law stacks stuff on top of his then has to unload it all in order to open it.  He then gets pissed when he finds chicken that expired 4 years ago then asks if we think it'll be okay to cook.  

Datsun310Guy said:

We had a big one in our first house.  Stuff on the bottom got forgotten about and stacked on.  

My father-in-law stacks stuff on top of his then has to unload it all in order to open it.  He then gets pissed when he finds chicken that expired 4 years ago then asks if we think it'll be okay to cook.  

These are my concerns.  I can easily see stuff languishing in the frost at the bottom for years, before finally getting rediscovered and subsequently thrown out.

I'd buy an upright.  Any extra electricity or purchase cost will be overwhelmingly recovered in not throwing out a block of freezer burned food every few years.

I've had both.

If I was going to get a chest one , I would figure out some baskets to stack  inside  and divide the food into  groups.

how much electric do they take ?

24 bucks a year.

Times eleventy on an upright instead of a chest.  Chest freezers are for dead bodies... like RevRico needs... Quarter of a cow, half a hog, Jimmy Hoffa, that kind of thing.  But chest freezers tend to become a place where laundry and transmission parts sit on top and freezer-burned chunks of what used to be broccoli die in the bottom.  If you're looking for cold storage of food-y things that aren't carcasses, upright is the way to go.

Regardless of the footprint or shape of it, what should we (those of us self-identified peeps here) be looking for? Does Hotpoint = Hisense = GE = LG? My experience with rental unit refrigerators says that the cheaper model has cheaper, bulkier insulation that reduces internal space. Then again, as the washing machine thread illustrated, many people agree that your TV and kitchen appliance probably shouldn't have the same logo. What's the poop on dedicated freezers?

Or are they all comparable and I'm overcomplicating a simple purchase?

In refrigerator terms - LG & Samsung had some funny business going on with the linear compressors.  They usually died at the end of the warranty period.  Not sure if the freezers use the same tech.  I would certainly check out the current requirement (amps) that these things need -  I found when replacing my dead LG fridge that there are some newer models that use way less current than older ones.  Kinda important for something that runs 24/7

If I were going that route, I would want vertical with clear drawers. Home Depot offers this LG model and they pop up at Costco sometimes. 

 this is my current upright. It replaced a 40 year old Frigidaire. I believe it was sub $500, but I don't remember. Got it at home depot, kind of an emergency because I'd just bought a pig and the old freezer decided it wanted to go into permanently thawed mode.

 for stuff you use a lot or often, it's great. But i need a second one for my annual pig purchase and to start splitting cows with friends, and a chest fits that bill better, for me. 

Big tip for everyone. Put a sheet of notebook paper on the front with an inventory. And hang a pen or pencil off the door to keep it updated. Makes it so much easier trying to remember how old something is or what might be in there that you can't see right away. 

I bought a used GE that was 5 years old, and it's been running in my basement for the last 5 years.  I think I paid $50 for it and another $14 for an add-on wireless sensor for my weather station.  If it gets above 20 degrees, an alarm goes off so I know when the thing dies and I don't waste all the food.

The downside is that it's not frost-free so every couple years I have to put everything in an ice chest for a couple hours while it melts... but the upside is that (since it's not frost free) it doesn't have any bells or whistles.  It has a compressor and a thermostat and a door.  It doesn't even have a light in it.  As reliable as a paperweight.  It's the carburetor/HEI of the freezer world.

I agree with the sentiment that nothing in your kitchen needs to share a brand name with your TV

Anything you buy that was manufactured within the last 10 years came from overseas.  Not that that is a bad thing, but they are all pretty much the same animal.   They are all assemblers now.  GE doesn't make the parts for a freezer, they buy the parts and assemble them into a freezer.  What you're really looking for is who assembles the best freezer with the most reliable parts

RevRico said:

 Big tip for everyone. Put a sheet of notebook paper on the front with an inventory. And hang a pen or pencil off the door to keep it updated. Makes it so much easier trying to remember how old something is or what might be in there that you can't see right away. 

I do the exact same thing with a dry erase board.  I made columns with permanent marker that say things like "Beef Venison Poultry Pork Fish" then I just update the columns with dry erase marker.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

So what I'm seeing is that things are pretty straightforward with bells and whistles and stick with the known kitchen brands. Coolio!

The upside is that I can't make a snap decision until more come in from China to be "made" here, so I suppose I have plenty of time to compare features and decide whether I want white, white, or sell my soul for literally anything else. 

Thanks all for the responses, you have been helpful and are appreciated.

I didn't even think to look for upright deep freezes. That makes so much more sense. Oh well. 

We bought an upright at the end of 2019. Occasionally we get our timing right. 
We don't do the bulk meat acquisition thing, so a chest freezer wasn't on the radar. I'm really glad with that choice. I can open the door and easily see what's in there.