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Now with health care leaders advising that we minimize how often we leave the house for shopping and such, a deep freezer chest to store a month (or more)'s worth of perishables has become a pretty good idea. This raises the question of where my new favorite appliance should live?

  • Should I keep it in the garage next to the beer fridge?

or

  • Should I find a place inside the house?

If I put it in the garage it will have to work harder to get its interior down to freezing temperature because it is hot out there. That extra work and the humidity might shorten its operating life and efficiency.

On the other hand, if I put it indoors, then it will push its heat out into my air conditioned interior, making my air conditioner work harder to keep my house cool. I imagine that I will be paying to remove the heat from inside the freezer twice. Once to get it out of the freezer and a second time to get it out of the house.

So my question is...

Does a freezer chest last longer if it is operated in a low humidity and cooler air conditioned room than it would if it were operated in a high humidity and warmer garage? And if it does, is the increased life expectancy of the freezer enough to offset any possible increase in total cost of operations?

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  • You have to dial in the cost of the aircon wearing out too, if that's your concern rather than operating costs, although it is unclear whether you are asking about operating costs or the life of all the equipment, or both. Most people I know put the chest freezer in the garage, and leave the car on the drive, because there isn't enough room for either of them in the house. You already have the beer cooler in the garage, so you must be happy with that. Anyway, this isn't a problem-solving life hack question.
    – Weather Vane
    Apr 26, 2020 at 20:04
  • @WeatherVane, thank you for your comments. I'm asking about using the intersection of operating cost vs. appliance life expectancy as a method for determining optimal appliance placement. In my opinion, optimal appliance placement is a life hack because simply doing it the way everyone else does it (and how I have done it in the past with my beer fridge) is the unhacked way. Finding a good reason for keeping a ugly cumbersome noisy appliance inside would be a hack.
    – Henry Taylor
    Apr 26, 2020 at 20:16
  • Smart reply! Smart enough to do the maths, which is what it's all about?
    – Weather Vane
    Apr 26, 2020 at 20:20
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    I suggest you do a comparative study. You'll likely need two chest freezers anyway: put one in the garage and one in the house.
    – Weather Vane
    Apr 26, 2020 at 20:32
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    The solution to your question relies on how efficient the deep freezer's insulation is, how often you open it, and how efficient the compression system is. The deep freeze compressor only needs to remove whatever heat 'leaks' into it over time. If you don't open it often, if the insulation keeps much heat from entering it, and if the compressor doesn't generate too much waste heat during operation, it won't place a large load on your air conditioner.
    – Mark Ripley
    Jul 26, 2021 at 0:08

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Does a freezer chest last longer if it is operated in a low humidity and cooler air conditioned room than it would if it were operated in a high humidity and warmer garage?

In the cooler environment, the freezer will do less work, and therefore the expected lifetime will be longer.

If you think about total efficiency, you need to do some math, involving some detailed characteristics of the freezer and of the air conditioning unit. However, you do not have access to those figures (assuming that they actually exist) - or, in the best of cases, you have difficult access to them.

Bottom line, put the freezer in the house. It will not work all the time, so it will not generate heat all the time. Overall, the air conditioning unit will be able to cope, as it was designed for that kind of job.

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