An Easy Tip To Make Your Freezer More Energy Efficient
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Looking to make your freezer more energy efficient? Here are some top tips to help you save energy and money when using your freezer.
For the last little while, I’ve been sharing easy energy-saving tips that anyone can do, regardless of whether you own your home or not.
Many energy-saving tips offered by publications focus on the big stuff. Things like insulating your walls, or switching to double or even triple glazing.
These are all very valid points. However, as someone who rented for many years, I remember the frustration of having ambivalent landlords who didn’t care that my energy bills were increasing and didn’t want to invest in making their properties better places for their tenants to live in. Of course, not all landlords are like that. But all the ones I had were certainly very stingy in that respect.
I also remember the frustration of lacking the autonomy to be able to make these improvements. This is why I want to focus on more accessible energy-saving tips, whether you own your home, or you live in a rental with a less-than-helpful landlord.
In the spirit of this, I’ve got a handy tip to make your freezer more energy-efficient that doesn’t involve swapping it for a new model. I don’t know about you, but I’m very much over energy-saving tips that merrily tell you to upgrade your appliances to A-rated ones. As such, this is a nice easy one that anyone can do, regardless of budget.
Why Filling Your Freezer Will Save Energy
Is your freezer looking a little bit on the empty side? Perhaps it’s a few days before you do a food shop. All you’ve got in there is a bag of frozen peas and an unlabelled tub of indiscriminate contents? We’ve all been there. Or maybe you never really have much food in your freezer, to begin with.Â
Whatever the reason, if your freezer is on but it’s not very full then no matter what its energy efficiency rating is, you could be pouring energy down the drain.
You see, freezers work best when they are full. This is because freezers expend most energy when they have to cool down the warm air that gets in when you open the door to take food out.
A packed-to-the-brim freezer means there is less room for warm air to get in. What’s more, the frozen goods in the freezer cool down any warm air that does make its way in. This means your freezer doesn’t have to work quite so hard. So go wild and start filling your freezer to the brim to make it more energy efficient.
You won’t save hundreds of pounds filling your freezer. However, it will improve its energy efficiency, and save you a little bit of cash. And if you change your habits and implement little energy-saving steps here and there, then these savings will soon add up.
What If I Can’t Afford To Fill My Freezer?
The good news is you don’t have to spend a fortune on food to fill your freezer to make it more energy efficient. Filling your freezer can mean adding non-food items. Empty plastic bottles filled with water will do the trick. Freezer bags filled with ice cubes can also work wonders.
If you’ve recently had a delivery, then styrofoam packing blocks will also do the job nicely. Plus it’s a good way to recycle this otherwise unrecyclable material.
A handy bonus is that if your freezer is filled with frozen water bottles or similar, then if you have a power cut it will take much longer for your food to defrost. The frozen bottles will help keep your food cooler for longer.
If you are filling your freezer with non-food items, then it’s best to be strategic. My top tip is to keep your frozen food near the front of your freezer, so it’s easy to hand.
This is because having to rummage through your freezer, past styrofoam, and water bottles to find your food, will quickly negate any energy-saving benefits. You want to get in and out of your freezer as quickly as possible to avoid the warm air getting in.
I’d also recommend defrosting your freezer regularly to make it as energy-efficient as possible. I know it’s a rubbish job, that no one ever wants to do. However, you might be able to save up to £200 a year just by taking a few hours out to tackle the ice build-up in there. Not an amount to be sniffed at.
A Word On Fridges
Fridges are slightly different beasts. If you pack your fridge too tightly then you’ll over-work your fridge. This means you’ll use much more energy than you need to. Your food will cool too much, and perhaps even freeze. Trust me, nobody wants frozen lettuce.
Other food might not be cool enough, and nobody wants a tummy bug either. Especially not frozen lettuce and a tummy bug at the same time! So make sure you don’t overpack your fridge and that air can circulate easily.
Instead, the best way to make your fridge energy efficient might sound a little offbeat, but it’s to dust your fridge! Seriously. Read my article for all the dusty details!
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I’m a huge fan of freezing things and buying frozen foods – very practical indeed!
BUT I read somewhere that freezers and frozen foods are not very energy efficient (not only because of the energy used for storage but also for transport in specialised vehicles, etc) and that it is therefore not great to rely on them. I’m now wondering if I should try and limit my use of the freezer… Any thoughts?
Like many carbon calculations – It’s quite tricky to work out what is most efficient. Not having a freezer would undoubtedly be good for the environment in terms of energy savings. And I agree that the manufacture and transport of them isn’t too great in terms of energy/carbon either.
However I have lived without a freezer a few times in my life when I was a single student and found that I was travelling to the shops a lot more, and cooking more. I also had more foodwaste – leftovers only keep for a few days in the fridge and as a single person I struggled to eat all the leftovers if I had made too much pasta (a mistake easily made!).
My initial thoughts are therefore that it probably depend on your lifestyle. If you have to travel by car to buy your groceries then the carbon emissions might negate some of the energy savings of not having a freezer (short car trips are terrible for carbon emissions) and also if you were cooking meals from scratch every night then that may take more energy than reheating meals you’ve already made. Food waste might also be higher.
It’d also imagine that it probably also depends on how old and efficient your freezer is, how good the seals are on it, whether you defrost it regularly, where you’ve placed it in your kitchen (next to a cooker/radiator/heat source or not), how you’ve packed it, and how long you have your freezer door open whilst you decide what to eat!
Sorry I don’t have an easy straightforward yes/no answer! Nothing is ever easy when it comes to carbon calculations, and trying to take into account all of the tangiable factors!