How to save your food when your fridge breaks down

If you’ve ever had a fridge break down, keeping this advice in mind can save you money and hassle.

5 Likes

Last time my fridge broke down the repair man advised to use the fridge itself as a container and place bags of ice in it, manly in the crisper. It did keep dairy food safe for the couple of days it took to replace the compressor ( luckily still under warranty).

6 Likes

From the article which I found confusing.

" Step 1: Find a cool alternative

With your fridge out of action you need an alternative place to keep your food cold. A cooler or Esky is the obvious choice, …"

Why transfer your food to a cooler that is warmer than the fridge that it is already in?

“But you can also use your freezer. It’s basically just a big cooler attached to the fridge, though you’ll need to keep stocking it with ice to maintain the temperature.”

If the freezer chamber of the fridge isn’t working either then it may keep your non-frozen food cooler than the fridge for a while but what do you do with the frozen food? And surely you want to keep the frozen food frozen too and putting warmer food from the fridge won’t help that, nor will adding ice.

If you have access to ice why move the fridge food at all? Just put the ice in the fridge.

Step 2 goes on the straighten out some of these issues but I found Step 1 not useful on its own.

8 Likes

I agree with the above responses, why would you try to cram it all into an esky when the fridge itself is better insulated and has more space for adding ice? You’ll sacrifice the contents of your freezer too, which should last at least 8 hours before things start to soften if left undisturbed.

I keep bottles of ice in the freezer all the time anyway, putting them in the fridge overnight. Daytime I run the fridge at 6, and back to 3 overnight, transferring a couple of bottles of ice from the freezer compartment to keep things cool, thus reducing the nighttime load, and depth of discharge, of my off-grid battery.

If you want to preserve items from the freezer below -15C (ice cream!), then you will need salted water ice, which melts around -20C instead of regular ice, which melts at 0C. Make a saturated solution of salt by tipping salt into a 2l bottle of water and shaking until dissolved, repeat until no more will dissolve. Your freezer will need to go well below -20C to freeze this solution, but since it melts at around -20C, it is ideal for maintaining this temperature in an esky. We sometimes transport our frozen trout in an esky with these ice blocks appropriately arranged, and using towels for extra insulation, and it is good for keeping the trout, even the thin tail ends, solid for at least 8 hours in warm weather.
Alternatively if you don’t have any of this cold ice on hand, buy regular ice from the servo and add a lot of salt to it and mix it well, this will reduce the temperature quite a bit below 0C.

If making ice in 2l plastic bottles, remember to leave space for the ice to expand - fill to ~90% and squeeze out most of the air before tightening the lid.

6 Likes

I concur with not unloading the fridge if it is still in place. It is likely to have much better insulation than any chiller box.

Also, keep the door opening to an absolute minimum to maintain the temperature as long as possible.

We have chiller blocks and 3L bottles of milk in the freezer all the time. If there is an extended power outage, we relocate the chiller blocks to the fridge section to keep the temperature lower. If the blocks contents are melted, we transfer the milk one bottle at a time.

6 Likes

Shouldn’t another step be eat as much as you can as quick as you can or give it to neighbours…invite as many people around for a dinner party and have a big cook up.

Better feeding many mouths rather than throwing that which can’t be kept for long.

9 Likes

We hung a duvet over the front opening when the fridge door on our 4 year old Westinghouse fridge fell off due to a horribly designed bottom hinge assembly… Took almost 2 days to fix it myself as it was not covered by warranty and there were many reports on the internet of the same thing happening on many other fridges.

1 Like

I understand the premise of the article but a couple of additional ideas.

  1. Avoid the problem in the first place by having backup power (if the cause of the fridge not fridging is a lack of grid power). Backup power may be PV or a generator or both.

  2. Have a second fridge. (It’s not a good idea to run a second fridge all the time if it has nothing in it but if you happen to have a second fridge, starting it up when the main fridge breaks down may be helpful.)

2 Likes

The article actually suggests that. :slight_smile:

Providing you have the “power” in order to do that.

3 Likes

… couldn’t you just go the ultimate paleo and eat it raw and frozen? it must be good for you that way according to the so-called ‘celebrity chefs’ :grinning:

2 Likes