2 ms·

I'm not sure the pain-in-the-back argument is necessarily true. Even for many upright refrigerators, you must still bend over or crouch to get things from lowe

I'm not sure the pain-in-the-back argument is necessarily true. Even for many upright refrigerators, you must still bend over or crouch to get things from lower shelves and drawers. I've never felt inconvenienced removing things from my chest freezer. Also, my chest freezer has some sliding racks that make it great for organizing its contents. It seems possible that the pain-in-the-back argument is great for marketing, because it sounds like there could be some truth to it. I would argue that a person that has back trouble would likely only be able to use the chest level shelves in fridges, but they could just as easily use the top level racks in a chest freezer. My guess for why traditional upright fridges could be seen as more convenient is because they take up less floor space for the amount of volume they provide. Also, upright fridges would be easier for small/short children to access. If floor space is less of a concern, and there is no need for small children to access the fridge, a chest-freezer-style fridge sounds like a brilliant idea. Next time I need a new fridge, I will seriously consider this as an option. Perhaps by then some contrarian manufacturers will realize how much sense this makes and I won't even need to convert a freezer myself.

dpark 10y ago
It's not about "back trouble". Digging through a chest freezer regularly is a pain even if your back is in great shape. Most of the stuff people use frequently ends up on the top shelves or in the doors of fridges. Lots of fridges have really deep door shelves to maximize this utility. Similarly, nicer fridge/freezer combos have mostly moved the freezer to the bottom to increase the convenience of the fridge. Most fridges also have quite a few shelves so that you can get out the thing you want without moving everything. In a chest freezer, the baskets don't hold most of the food. Most of it is stacked on the bottom. So to get the thing you want, you inevitably have to move other things off of it. Refrigerators minimize this hassle. Plus the condensation is gross and extremely inconvenient to clean when the fridge is full. I can't imagine leaving the walls of my fridge wet for 2-3 months at a time. You can address that with a chest fridge that operates like a normal fridge (cooling and therefore dehumidifying the air directly), but I bet you lose most of the efficiency gains as soon as you do.

dpark 10y ago

It's not about "back trouble". Digging through a chest freezer regularly is a pain even if your back is in great shape. Most of the stuff people use frequently ends up on the top shelves or in the doors of fridges. Lots of fridges have really deep door shelves to maximize this utility. Similarly, nicer fridge/freezer combos have mostly moved the freezer to the bottom to increase the convenience of the fridge. Most fridges also have quite a few shelves so that you can get out the thing you want without moving everything. In a chest freezer, the baskets don't hold most of the food. Most of it is stacked on the bottom. So to get the thing you want, you inevitably have to move other things off of it. Refrigerators minimize this hassle. Plus the condensation is gross and extremely inconvenient to clean when the fridge is full. I can't imagine leaving the walls of my fridge wet for 2-3 months at a time. You can address that with a chest fridge that operates like a normal fridge (cooling and therefore dehumidifying the air directly), but I bet you lose most of the efficiency gains as soon as you do.