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Converting a chest freezer to my daily use refrigerator


waligomes

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I think the heat generated by a de-hum compressor would be an issue. 

 

All frost-free freezers and refrigerators are already a dehumidifier. Heat from the compressor is ejected outside of the box.

 

The only consideration is this:

 

For de-humidification to work, the cooling coil needs time to extract moisture. The problem is that the new freezers are too efficient. The compressor does not get to be running too often. So you may need to add a heat source inside the box, such as a low wattage light bulb.

 

dcarch

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You might want to consider a small fridge to handle things that you take in and out of a fridge several times a day, like butter, milk, drinks, condiments etc,  to minimize the number of times you have to open the chest freezer.  When our power goes out, which used to happen pretty frequently, we would put those types of things in a cooler with some ice so that we only have to open the regular refrigerator door very rarely.

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You might want to consider a small fridge to handle things that you take in and out of a fridge several times a day, like butter, milk, drinks, condiments etc,  to minimize the number of times you have to open the chest freezer.  When our power goes out, which used to happen pretty frequently, we would put those types of things in a cooler with some ice so that we only have to open the regular refrigerator door very rarely.

 

Actually, please consider Chris' comment above, "---I also caution you that your energy savings are probably not going to be measurable just switching between a chest and upright variety. It actually takes very little energy to cool the air in the fridge, so opening and closing the door is not as costly as you might guess."

 

I don't remember the exact numbers. The energy lost from opening a refrigerator door is extremely little. You can do a calculation, specific heat of air x volume x degrees = BTUs. BTW, Chris is a trained scientist.

 
dcarch
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All frost-free freezers and refrigerators are already a dehumidifier. Heat from the compressor is ejected outside of the box.

 

The only consideration is this:

 

For de-humidification to work, the cooling coil needs time to extract moisture. The problem is that the new freezers are too efficient. The compressor does not get to be running too often. So you may need to add a heat source inside the box, such as a low wattage light bulb.

 

dcarch

I miss understood your intent. I thought you were advocating placing a separate dehumidifier unit  inside the  chest freezer, instead of  using desiccants.  Typically  chest freezers aren't frost free though , so I am  still not sure how you mean to dehumidify the air. 

 

If I was considering this , I would look  to buy a unit that has two layers of baskets , similar to the following link      I hated building Rail units , but it would be ideal for this conversion. 

 

http://www.biggreenacres.com/uploads/2/9/7/7/2977443/4036833_orig.jpg

"Why is the rum always gone?"

Captain Jack Sparrow

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I miss understood your intent. I thought you were advocating placing a separate dehumidifier unit  inside the  chest freezer, instead of  using desiccants.  Typically  chest freezers aren't frost free though , so I am  still not sure how you mean to dehumidify the air. 

 

 

Even a manual defrost freezer can work well to dehumidify/dry food effectively. That's why freezer burn is such a big problem if you don't bag food.

 

For a curing chamber, you do have to add a little heat source so that the compressor has longer time to extract moisture.

 

dcarch

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The idea is to run it at a higher temp as a refrigerator, the moisture that is extracted when it is run as a freezer is what builds the frost on the walls of the unit.  At fridge temps , it  would  collect on the bottom as water instead.  

 

A more diy approach using desiccants , would be to build a  tube  from pvc and pvc end caps.    inlet / outlets on each end ,   halfway fill the tube with desiccant , use a low power fan to draw air through the tube . A cpu fan might work well enough. the power cord is  thin enough that you shouldn't  need to put any holes in the freezer, the gasket should have enough flex to form around it closed. 

"Why is the rum always gone?"

Captain Jack Sparrow

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Another DIY way is to use Peltier solid state cooler to condense air moisture, and use heat pipes to conduct either heat or cool to where you want.

 

Both Peltier and heat pipes can be found relatively inexpensive.

 

dcarch

 

Moisture gets frozen on a Peltier device.

http://www.elperfecto.com/wp-content/uploads/Peltier-Cooler-captures-water-from-air.jpg

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A more diy approach using desiccants , would be to build a  tube  from pvc and pvc end caps.    inlet / outlets on each end ,   halfway fill the tube with desiccant , use a low power fan to draw air through the tube . A cpu fan might work well enough. the power cord is  thin enough that you shouldn't  need to put any holes in the freezer, the gasket should have enough flex to form around it closed. 

 

 

My set-up is pretty simple.

The PC fan is in a square plastic housing.

I set a sachet of about one pound of non-indicating silica gel on top of the fan.

The fan is connected to a humidity controller.

The silica gel does a fine job of maintaining the desired humidity in a dehumidification situation.

 

I dried one of the silica gel sachets just last night.

 

Starting weight 608 grams (not fully saturated.)

Dried weight 460 grams.

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~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Wow, y'all really took "fire away" to heart. Looks like this was a good crowd to source. Thanks!

I have not pulled the trigger quite yet as I'm kinda waiting for the wife to leave town next week*. 

 

From what I've gathered in no particular order I should:

Add 2" of insulation to all sides and the bottom; clean the evaporator coils daily; add at least two ceiling fans; install rolling vertical files with a lock at the end of travel; fill the chest with food grade silica gel; add a second refrigerator to dehumidify the air in the chest; fill what ever space remains with dust mites and apples; then toss the whole thing onto the recycling heap because it takes up too much space, is no more efficient than my 1980 side by side and its a major pita to get anything out of other than eggs.  :biggrin: 
 
Actually y'all have really have been quite helpful. I'm following DiggingDogFarms' example which is essentially the "standard" for keezer's (keg freezer). Andisenji's link led me to Dr Tom Chalco's scholarly looking pdf that outlines complete implementation of the chest freezer conversion (including global implications). It covers all my questions but gives me some slight pause as all of his references are to himself. Still some good stuff there. And a PID is not the best thing for this app (guess I'll have to use it on the oven!). Then I stumbed into this thread on homebrewtalk that outlines how to hack the existing chest freezers thermostat to run at 35-40o F by finding the coarse adjustment screw. If for whatever reason that doesn't work, I've found plenty of temp controls and sensors from $15 to $50 so holding temp doesn't look like a problem. I've also found a couple of pc fans and I get the impression I'm over thinking the condensation issue. I'll try the desiccants and if that's insufficient I'll try something else. So my biggest issue is organization.

 

The 10cf chest that I'm looking at measures 43"x18" and it's 25.5" from the bottom to the inside of the lid. It'll fit inside the larder in the kitchen (closet) with no modification. I really only want two boxes, one for meats and one for veg (maybe one more smaller box for cheese). I'd like shelves for everything else.

I'm thinking of mounting 2, maybe 3 levels of rails along the length, then cut lengths of 12" and 16'" wide wire shelving to fit across the width. The cut shelves would just sit on the rails and either slide or I'd remove them to gain greater access to the next level or the bottom of the chest. I'd have to epoxy the cut ends or they'd rust in very short order.

One 12" wide shelf and one 16" wide shelf would leave about a 15" opening between levels. I also found a basket that measures 17"x21" and about 4" deep.  

The bottom rail (shelf) would be at 7" from the bottom, the next up 11" from that (about 7" from the top). The top rail would be about 1" from the top for the basket. 

That should yield about 3.5 sq ft of 11" tall storage (just shy of a wine bottle standing upright) on the lower shelf, a bit less than 3.5 sq ft of 7" tall storage on the upper shelf, ~2.5 sq ft  of 5" tall in the basket, about 2.5 sq ft of 7" tall on the bottom under the shelf, and almost 2 sq ft of 25" (!) tall storage on the other side of the bottom. Sounds pretty good to me, but should and is are not always the same thing.

 

So does that make sense? Again, anything jump out at you that's just plain wrong or a bad idea? Too many words, not enough pictures?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*One of those beg forgiveness instead of consulting (asking permission) things. But she'll see the light, right? :unsure:

Edited by waligomes (log)
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It is hard to know exactly where they will be.    the Evaporation coils are in direct contact with the inside skin  of the cabinet.   usually in a descending spiral or possibly a zig zag pattern.   The units purpose built with rails have the holes punched beforehand and the evap coils  are installed not to cover them.   A food safe adhesive is probably the best way to go. 

"Why is the rum always gone?"

Captain Jack Sparrow

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DOh!  :wacko:  That is a VERY important consideration! Thanks!  Glad you mentioned that before I started drilling.

 

Not exactly sure how I can determine where exactly the coils are.  But I'm sure they'll be 7",11", and 24" from the bottom.     

 

Perhaps epoxy instead? West Marine's G/Flex sticks to anything (especially plastics), it's incredibly strong,  and is pretty inert once cured. Don't know if its officially "food safe" though. I'll have to poke around it MSDS sheets.

 

There are a couple of easy ways to find out:

 

1. Get an infrared camera $10,000.

 

or 

 

2. A sheet of liquid crystal temperature sensing film to put on the surface, to show where the coil is attached. $10.00.

 

dcarch

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There are a couple of easy ways to find out:

 

1. Get an infrared camera $10,000.

 

or 

 

2. A sheet of liquid crystal temperature sensing film to put on the surface, to show where the coil is attached. $10.00.

 

dcarch

 

Thats funny! A couple of months ago my brother the fireman showed me his new Flir K-50 Thermal Imaging Camera.Too bad he's on the other side of country and the city of Glendale probably wouldn't approve of him sending it to me for a minute.

 

Option 2 is brilliant and most definitely worth investigating!  Thanks again!

 

Or maybe I could stop by a fire station on the way home from picking up freezer and see if they want to make sure their TIC is working properly!

 

 

Or: Turn it off, then turn it on for 3 minutes and feel which of the walls is the coldest.

 

 

That'd work too, but I don't know the tube are spaced and if my hand (or my thermopen) would be sensitive enuf to know where the edges were.

 

Anybody know where I can find a Modernist Cuisine stylee cut-away picture of a chest freezer?

Edited by waligomes (log)
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There are a couple of easy ways to find out:

 

1. Get an infrared camera $10,000.

 

or 

 

2. A sheet of liquid crystal temperature sensing film to put on the surface, to show where the coil is attached. $10.00.

 

dcarch

 

Perhaps I'm missing something, but wouldn't a simple infrared thermometer be better than both?  And useful for other things.

 

Frankly, I don't think the conversion is a good idea, but trying to help.

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That'd work too, but I don't know the tube are spaced and if my hand (or my thermopen) would be sensitive enuf to know where the edges were.

 

Anybody know where I can find a Modernist Cuisine stylee cut-away picture of a chest freezer?

Only one side has the coils and they're packed tightly enough that I wouldn't attempt to drill between them. Just drill from the side that doesn't have coils.

PS: I am a guy.

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Perhaps I'm missing something, but wouldn't a simple infrared thermometer be better than both?  And useful for other things.

 

Frankly, I don't think the conversion is a good idea, but trying to help.

 

IR thermometer is not reliable unless you know exactly the characteristics of your particular model. It is very misleading that the laser beam is not the beam that is doing the reading.

 

dcarch

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Thats funny! A couple of months ago my brother the fireman showed me his new Flir K-50 Thermal Imaging Camera.Too bad he's on the other side of country and the city of Glendale probably wouldn't approve of him sending it to me for a minute.

 

Option 2 is brilliant and most definitely worth investigating!  Thanks again!

 

Or maybe I could stop by a fire station on the way home from picking up freezer and see if they want to make sure their TIC is working properly!

 

 

 

 

That'd work too, but I don't know the tube are spaced and if my hand (or my thermopen) would be sensitive enuf to know where the edges were.

 

Anybody know where I can find a Modernist Cuisine stylee cut-away picture of a chest freezer?

 

 

Slightly off topic, but it's a good story about chest freezers anyway.

 

Back in the late '90's I finally grew my catering business to the point where I could afford a commercial upright freezers, and I was jut itching to get rid of one chest freezer that was hogging space in the kitchen.  I scrounged up a pick-up truck and drove off to the city dump.  When I got there, I asked the city attendant where I should unload the freezer.  The guy gets this gleam in his eye, and then instructs me, very carefully to unload the freezer at a very specific spot, yards away from anything.  I figure what the heck, those are my instructions, and I'm just glad to get rid of the thing. 

 

So I shove the freezer off the truck and the guy asks me to move the truck back to the entrance and to stand well away from the freezer.  WTF?  So I do that. About a minute later the guy comes barreling out from a storage shed driving a fork lift at full tilt--aimed right for the freezer.... At about 2 yards before impact, the guy raises the fork to about chest height and then impales the freezer on the fork and continues to drive the whole mess towards a stack of likewise mutilated appliances.

 

Pretty much sums up my opinion of chest freezers.....

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"--------and I was jut itching to get rid of one chest freezer that was hogging space in the kitchen. I scrounged up a pick-up truck and drove off to the city dump.------"

 

There are all kinds of rules/laws regarding the disposal of refrigeration machinery. Check with your local authorities first.

 

dcarch

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Starting with a warm chest freezer...spray the sides with water...plug the freezer in and you can see where the coils are when the water begins to freeze.

Having said that, I'd avoid drilling into the freezer unless it's absolutely necessary.

I put tracks in the bottom to avoid drilling the sides and to comfortably support all the weight.

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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