Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/08/04/video-how-long-can-food-stay.html
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and this is why I always pack in 1 and 2 liter soda bottles of water for “filler” when my chest freezer is low on food. Added bonus, if the power goes out, I can use some of those frozen soda bottles in my fridge to keep it cool longer, and there are enough that I can also pass out frozen soda bottles to my neighbors to put in their fridges to help them get through the outage.
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tl;dw: For the fridge in question packed full it’s approx. 36 hours, reduced by 6 minutes for every 5-second open.
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I would love to see the same analysis done on a horizontal freezer to show the benefits of the different form. I’ve heard plenty of anecdotal comments about it, which is why when my wife and I were in the market for a new fridge, we got one with a bottom slide out freezer.
Good stuff, though!
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Probably warrants a comparative video in its own right. Oh, right:
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Ironically, while I was out on a run this morning, my nesting partner sent me a message of “We may need to talk about the fridge when you get home,” with a stressed face emoji. I had noticed the light went out between the time I grabbed milk for breakfast and my water for my run, but I didn’t catch that the motor had stopped. Luckily it was just a reset to the GPF on the outlet!
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They need freezers in Canada? Whaaa…?
Seriously, though, I was explaining to wife and kids that to keep the food cold, you gotta keep the door shut. We went on an RV camp weekend and we didn’t want to use the propane while driving, so we packed in some frozen thermal mass to both the fridge and freezer (ie, 2-liter bottles of water) and the unit held it just fine for the 3-4 hours that the LPG power was off. Made sure everyone understood how/why that works. I’ll be reviewing this vid with everyone, for sure. Quite timely it is!
Without watching the 27 minute video, I’m amused to see that specific model of chest freezer, since it’s the exact one we have in our kitchen. We’re very happy with it, if that means anything.
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Definitely check out Matthias Wandel’s other videos. He’s primarily a woodworker, and makes many of his own tools. And he’s just a little bit crazy in the best way.
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It must be different from my bottom slide out freezer. Mine has sliding baskets attached to the door, but just suspended on the rails, so that when you pull it out there’s nothing to stop the cold air from the entire freezer section from just dumping on the floor.
Ours is an entire big section that slides out, separated into halves by a divider. Half-tray that crosses over the two divided sections. Definitely an improvement over our previous one with the side-by-side doors, freezer on one side style.
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IIRC, He also used to work for Research In Motion during their peak.
This video actually hits close to home, as the 14 year old upright freezer I have finally packed in it’s compressor this weekend, and I not only had to scramble to find a replacement, but also ended up tossing most of the food that was in it out. 
Probably close to $200-300 USD worth of food on top of getting a new freezer, which was a shade over $200 USD as well.
After having my old cooler dumped several times by bears in the middle of the night I finally invested in a Pelican. Pricey for sure but damn, it keeps things cold for a loooonnngggg time. I buy a $2 block of ice at 7-11 and it lasts for almost a week - bear free. And it has a built in bottle opener!
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I can get behind this type of experience based plugging for a product over Boingboing’s hawking of every other type of overpriced schlunk.
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A simple google search reveals that all the relevant information was already available, ready to consume in less than a minute, google even displays a snippet:
Frozen Food and Power Outages : When to Save It and When to Throw It Out. A full freezer will hold a safe temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full and the door remains closed).
This one claims to keep your stuff frozen for 64 hrs in a power outage:
Now I am wondering about advantages of moving all the food together versus disadvantage of keeping the door open while doing so.
The sniff test is still my main barometer.
Our home lost power for over a week after Hurricane Irma. We came home to find meat that had partially “cooked” in our freezer (ewwww…).
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