Defrosting freezer - HELP

Have spent most of the afternoon changing bowls of hot water, hacking thick ice in my freezer and trying to keep the floor dry.
I don’t think I will leave it so long next time.

Ten years or not, it’s reminded me I need to do mine. Horrible job but it’s got to be done.

I fill a sprayer with hot water and spray the ice. Wrap food in towels if insulated bags not available.

If OP turned it off it should have defrosted nicely by now 🤣🤣🤣

Doesn't everyone look at the date on threads . Like others have already pointed out this thread is 10 years old.

I fill my laundry basket with the food that is in the freezer, stand it in a cold room and cover it with a layer of newspaper and a quilt.

Turn off freezer and stand bowls of hot water on each shelf, leaving the freezer open, and changing the water as soon as it cools.

My freezer is a small one with four shelves, and I defreeze it twice a year. It usually only takes an hour or too, and anything except ice cream and white bread can remain frozen for that lenght of time if covered and placed where it is cold or cool. In the summer I add freezer blocks from the picnic basket to the things I want to remain frozen.

If your freezer is on a wooden floor lay down a good layer of newspaper or a large piece of plastic in front of it, while it defreezes.

Sarah75

This thread is 10 years old!!

This has got to be a record for resurrecting a thread.

This thread is 10 years old!!

I am still waiting for a really cold day to defrost my large chest freezer. I do it once every winter and use the hair dryer method , I really hate doing it as it takes ages but feel very satisfied once it is done . It is so full at the moment as well and to-day I made more soup and froze it .

Have had frost free freezers and fridges for the past 15 years. In the UK.

Some years back, my much older brother purchased a small fridge with a very small freezer with a separate door at the top. Not frost free.

He telephoned me to ask advice as he said the freezer was getting iced up. I told him to wrap the small amount of stuff he had in there in newspaper, as the defrosting of a small freeer should take less than an hour. Told him then to place a bowl of boiling water inthat freezer, and that should do it.

He phoned me the following day to say it was not working, and I could not understand why, until I visited him two days later to find a total mess in the kitchen warer everywhere.

I could not understand what was happening, so sent him into another room and I checked and then discovered that he had put those few freeer items Duly wrapped in newspaper) in the fridge section and then turned the dial upto as high it would go. I had ommitted telling him to switch off the whole machine!!!!!

Poor little fridge/freezer - amazed he had not burnt out the motor, he had left it running at it highest whilst continuously putting in those bowls of hot water into the freezer section.

Took me less than ten minuts to sort it all out and note to myself that any instructions should always start with basic one of turning machine off!!!

My first freezer was a very large commercial chest one. Only way of defrosting it was for either myself or hubbie to climb into it (once emptied), in order to be able to mop up all the water defrosting in its base.

I bought one of those cheap hand held steam cleaners and I use that. Steam is hotter than boiling water (I think!) and the lumps of ice just drop off the shelves. Very good for defrosting and probably much safer than using a hair dryer.

All of mine have been frost free except the very first one after I got married.

Speak for yourself, Stansgran. I got the frost free one from JL about five years ago.

I like the look of your small refrigerators but we keep so much in ours.Comdiments,jellies,cheeses,milk,eggs.Always cook to have leftovers for a couple of days. where do you put Christmas and Thanksgiving leftovers?I guess we just have to much food on hand.

Frost free freezers are wonderful envious but we are still in the boondocks in the UK over some things.

Yes I have been guilty of that too annodomini (defrosting freezer with a hair dryer).

I find a bowl of boiling hot water placed on the shelves usually does the trick.

Mine is frost free, but when I had the old one, I waited for a frosty night, piled everything into cool bags and left them outside the back door, then filled the freezer with hot water bottles. Once I managed to leave one inside and then had a rather large ice pack. I did get taken to task by an electrician when I confessed to defrosting the freezer with a hair dryer.

I just take stuff out of the freezer an heap it on the floor and do not worry about protecting it from defrosting or anything like that. The food etc is usually only out of the freezer for about an hour or so and in that time the amount of defrosting that takes place is too minimal to worry about.

I wrap each freezer basket in an emergency foil blanket and cover with an old duvet with a waterproof duvet cover on it so that the duvet is kept clean while out in the garden on a cold day. The waterproof cover can be washed.

The spray on defrosters are useless. Cost money and don't really save time.

Blimey!

Number whenever I leaned into my chest freezer to root around at the bottom of it for something, I remember a news story about a woman whose married daughter had (according to the husband) gone away unexpectedly to some faraway place without contacting her. She was highly suspicious particularly when he himself locked up the house and departed too. she happened to have keys, so let herself in. Found clothes in wardrobe, jewellery in jewel box, but no sign of daughter. Finally went out to the garage, found locked(!!) freezer, and persuaded the police that something was up. It sure was, When they broke the padlock on the freezer, guess where the daughter was? And I don't think she had locked it herself.

Shysal, I`m only 5`1", and nearly fell in headfirst when drying the flippin` thing out!

Thanks, harrigran Must look at that.

Just have a look in Lakeland, they sell a spray bottle for defrosting the freezer. A couple of sprays, walk away and in vey little time it is done

When I had a chest freezer I used to pour very hot water around the rim so that it seeped between the walls and the ice, which then fell off in very satisfying sheets. I used a dustpan to ladle out the bottom, and I had it up and running again within 20 minutes.