Exciting Saturday conundrum: Freezer for garage - upright or chest?

[PorridgeAgainAbney]

I need an extra freezer as the one in the kitchen is fairly small so I have batch cooked meals and some fruit/veg in, but I want to cut down on trips to shops by having room to store meat, fish, bread and cakes too.

I'm thinking of a chest freezer as there's no wasted room and the drawers on uprights I've seen are so flimsy.

Obviously main downside is having to bend to get stuff out but I'd only need to get stuff in/out a couple of times a month max (plus I'm very organised so everything would be dated and stored in order).

Any other downsides to a chest vs. upright?

We have a small Beko chest freezer in the garage. Was one of the few freezers that you can keep in an unheated garage - you need to check it operates below freezing (ours is ok to -15C) if yours is unheated.

I loathe chest freezers. No matter what you do at some stage you will end up bent double over it, with the edge digging into your stomach, hearing yourself make an unattractive "OOOOOF!" sound as you scrabble for a tupperware that seems to be somehow lower down than your actual floor.

Upright all the way!

We have a small beko upright in garage - bought for same reason as beyondmywits. If get an upright, with it being in garage there's an even bigger risk of you forgetting what's in the bottom!

We have a cheese freezer that's massive, pps comments on the depth problem is familiar to me too

Ha ha I have visions of tipping in while trying to get a 3 year old curry from the bottom!

I've found a few of both types that say they are ok for outbuildings (ok to -15 degrees) and it was only when I saw the flimsy plastic drawers on some today that I considered a chest version. I sort of know I'd hate a chest but then it just looks like a more space-efficient solution...

Yes I replaced an upright with another upright and it broke down in weeks. It was then Currys advised me only certain ones are usuable in a garage. I now realsie this is why the garage fridge sometimes appeared to not be working.

I keep two plastic stackable crates in mine to utilise the bottom space (keep newer spare stuff in the bottom one). I just wrapped some cord around it so I could pull it up from the bottom

I do have a clear out near Christmas to get rid od old stuff Ive forgotten about

I have a chest freezer and an upright one, I live in the sticks so lots of freezer stuff! I love my chest freezer far more than the upright, I have baskets at the top for most used things, so I'm not regularly going diving into the bottom! When I have some space in the baskets I move a couple of things up at a time.

I changed from a chest to an upright and there's nowhere near as much space. That said, if you have a chest freezer you need to keep it in good order and not just bung everything in!

We have an Ice King chest freezer. It's a kind of mid sized one maybe 1m wide. It is deep but we have a little Ikea step I use so I can reach over and it comes with a basket and has a little ledge inside too. If you're keeping it in your garage, just be sure of the minimum temperature the garage gets down to. Ours is detached from the house and an old concrete pre-fab construction so gets very cold. The Ice King is stated to continue working in minus conditions so that's why we bought that brand. It's worked brilliantly for about 4 years now.

I would love a chest freezer. My mum and dad had one when I was a wee girl and I'm sure it was bigger than my bedroom.

Cheers all. I think I'm going to go for the chest one. It's going to have whole packs of fruit, veg, meat and bread so it should be easy to keep track of everything as any meals and opened packs of things will be in the kitchen freezer. I'll get some cute multi-coloured labels too so I can be as geeky as I want about my stock control .

I was able to get a decent upright for free. Fridge bit good for drinks. It didn't cost a penny as I just posted a wanted message locally.

I replaced an old Hotpoint upright freezer with a small Beko chest freezer as it was one of the few I could find that would operate in cold temperatures. The old one was 25 years old - spent 14 years in the house and then the rest of its life in the garage.Most modern fridges and freezers will not operate under the same temperature conditions as the old ones did. Read the specifications carefully before you choose one. Operating temperature is a much more important consideration than which way the door opens.

We've had our Bosch chest freezer since 1999 and it's still going strong. It's big which means we can keep a lot of stuff in it. I'd get another chest freezer every time.

If you want to be a real freezer geek and you can spare the wall space, a small ish dry-erase board can be really helpful for stock control

@LadyMonicaBaddingham why didn't I think of that.... ponders how to attach a white board on the wall of our ancient garage that's built out of some super hard concrete that nothing can penetrate....