Pack Your Freezer – Daily Financial Tip

Unlike refrigerators, freezers run more efficiently when it’s tightly packed. That means if your freezer isn’t completely full, you should place something inside the freezer to fill up the empty space. That is exactly what we’re going to discuss today.

Pack Your Freezer

One way to accomplish this is by placing bottles of water in your freezer when it isn’t full. This is referred to as “heat sinking.” The frozen bottles will help keep the food frozen when the freezer shuts off. The frozen bottles will also slow down the natural heat transfer between the freezer walls and the food meaning that the freezer doesn’t have to power on again as quickly as if there weren’t there. These frozen water bottles can also help in a number of other ways.

• As mentioned above, they will help your freezer run more efficiently by making sure it’s always full.
• If power happens to go out, the frozen water bottles will help preserve the food in the freezer longer.
• To make room for the food you purchased, you can move the frozen water bottles down in the fridge. They will help reduce the cost of running your refrigerator by keeping it cool.
• The frozen water bottles can also be used to help cool ice chests.

When you pack your freezer with water bottles, remember to not fill the bottles completely full. Water expands about 10 percent and you don’t want the bottles bursting in your freezer.

“Freezer blocking” is another method that can be used. The concept is the same as filling the freezer with water bottles, but this time you use boxes filled with insulation.

Less electricity will be required to freeze the food when using frozen water bottles. There would be less air in the freezer, and the appliance simply won’t have to work as hard.

As with the boxes, you can use any type of insulation to fill them. Regular household fiberglass wall insulation will work just fine. It is fairly inexpensive and easily purchased at any home improvement store. Another option would be using shipping and packaging insulating peanuts. Try to get a variety of box sizes as this will make filling the freezer much easier. Once the boxes are filled with insulation, you’ll want to tape them shut since you don’t want the insulating material mixing with your food.

Whichever of the two methods you choose, you’ll want to place the insulated boxes or water bottles in the open spaces on either side of the food and not on top. Placing it on top will make it much more difficult to reach the food that you want. Shuffling items around will likely leave the freezer door open longer — wasting more energy. Placing the packing material on either side will allow you to get to your food quickly without moving everything all around.

By making sure that your freezer is packed tight, you’ll be confident that it is running as efficiently as possible. Saving you more money.

Jeffrey Strain

Jeffrey strain is a freelance author, his work has appeared at The Street.com and seekingalpha.com. In addition to having authored thousands of articles, Jeffrey is a former resident of Japan, former owner of Savingadvice.com and a professional digital nomad.