So i have a stand up deep freezer and a extra fridge in my garage and i have them plugged into a power strip because i don't have any GFI's in my garage and don't want a power surge to take out all the food we have in there. Well got back on Sunday from a week long cruise and the garage smelled like a gut pile on day two....The power went out and tripped the power strip and never came back on. So i tripped the switch back and will refreeze everything before hauling it to the dump tomorrow morning. All that said I want to fix it so in the future i don't have this problem. We lost some veggie from the garden and some berries that we picked but worse of all we lost a lot of meat. No we will not go hungry but i spent a lot of time and money hunting and really enjoy rarely buying meat from the Publix. First step is a GFI's than some kind of alarm and battery backup system. How do y'all have your setup at home? Any advice on getting the smell out of the fridge and freezer? Anyone raising hogs and want to come pick up a couple coolers full of food?
Sam I have the same set up. the freezer has a GFI breaker and the other has no GFI. You can look at it like this of everything that you have in your house how much has ever been burnt up due to a power surge? Most power strips don't always turn back on after a power blink. You will have to add up the value of everything in the freezer and the value of a freezer. And weight the cost to see what the cost is. DON'T GET ME WRONG GFI's are there for a reason and that is why they have a code for it. If there is a power surge the GFI will trip and you'll be in the same situation. GFI outlets or breakers are cheap and easy to install, might be a cheap fix.
:saluting
Sam,
So sorry to read of the disaster with the meat. Back when I was workin', we had several walk-in freezers that were filled with thousands of dollars worth of food at the various district schools. Several times power outages or freezer problems caused the district to loose the contents, insured, yes but still a waste and an unpleasant task. Daily logs were established to make sure of the freezers' status, especially during times when the lunchroom folks were off for an extended time. To top that off, some little cheap temperature sensing device that would dial a number or a series of numbers, on a temperature rise, was added to all the large freezers, that all but eliminated lost food. As you know I'm challenged when it comes to computer issues but these little devices were easy to install and program and it seems all they needed was a phone line. Seems like this ought to work in a residential situation as well. Next time y'all head out for a length of time, program a trusted friend or family member's phone number into the device and allow them to respond.
Treefarmer
Speak with an electrician. I'm a big believer in dedicated outlets/breakers, gfi's, surge protectors for high electric drawing/expensive devices. Like most the garage may be the only place for spare refrig's/freezers but a hot room isn't really the best place for a cooling device, it has to work that much harder. I've thought of framing out/insulating/a/c venting a small area of the garage for the fridge/freezer. My clothes washer/dryer don't really need to be in a/c. Moving the dryer to an outside wall of the garage has lowered the venting from 20+' to app 18" & lowered drying time & electric usage greatly, then put a freezer where the dryer was.
