Sorry to hear about the the fridge and wish you luck with the replacement. Does North Carolina have a lemon law for appliances? If not, then, hopefully, the E-Lux warranty will get you replacement. In case you go back to considering an upright freezer, I can give you my experience on electrical cost increase from going from a s small chest freezer to a larger self-defrosting upright. I replaced a 5 cu. ft. Whirlpool manual-defrost chest freezer with a 14 cu. ft. Frigidaire FFU14 upright (very similar to the Lowe's version you are considering). With a Kill-a-Watt meter, I figured out that my old chest freezer used around 270 kWh per year while the new upright has been using about 440 kWh. I figure the net extra cost per year for me has run a little under $20 per year. So, not much extra utility cost. Of course, power consumption is partly a function of how full the freezer is and where you keep it. Mine is in the basement which holds a pretty steady at around 60F over the year. Placed the freezer in a garage that is hot for five or six months of the year, and keep it only half full, your cost could be a few dollars higher. One thing about my FFU14 is that it's compressor and fans run frequently and make a fair amount of fan and motor noise. THe Energy Star implementation is abasically to use smaller fans and motors which use less power even though they run more frequently. Trouble is, those smaller components can be annoyingly noisy, at least on the Frigidaire version that I have. This probably will not be a problem with the freezer out in the garage in your case, but it is a problem for me with the freezer in my basement. Chest freezers are a good deal quieter,

I bought a 13.7 cu. ft. Kenmore upright freezer over a year ago. I certainly love having it. I have only 4 cu. ft. in the freezer in the kitchen. When I got the new Kenmore freezer I thought I could never use all that space! I almost got a smaller one (8 or 9 cu. ft.), but I liked the light inside (of the larger 13.7 one) and I figured I would eventually appreciate the size. Well, although I do have enough space for alot, because it has fixed (non adjustable) shelves I have to pile things on top of and in front of things. If I had to do it again I might have gotten the 16 cu.ft. It's only about an inch wider and deeper, but it's a lot taller. That is it wouldn't have taken up any extra space. Air space I have plenty of...floor space is another matter. In the end the reason I did decide was because I decided not to pay for the extra energy for the larger model. It wasn't much really but it just seemed like so much space. The Kenmore is made by another company of course I don't know which one. A poster above said Whirlpool? Here are my observations: - A lot of space, including on the door, but fixed shelves limit flexibilty. - I wouldn't pay for the glass shelves all other things being equal. Glass shelves are great in a refrigerator (contains spills) but not important in a freezer (IMO) - It is noisy. It's much noisier than my refrigerator, but I wouldn't worry about that if it is going to be in the basement (unless the basement is used for watching TV or sleeping or something). I have read about the noisiness online so it's not just mine. - It seems to keep a good cold temperature without any problem (mine is indoors). - Food seems to keep well pretty long (e.g. freezer burn). However I put everything in ziplock bags. And of course any automatic defrost model will cause more degradation of food over time than a manual defrost. I hope this helps. - Jim

I prefer manual defrost. If you are keeping food for longer than 2-3 months, the quality will be better - and you don't have to have freezer burn to have a loss in quality (particularly with dessert and dairy items). Besides lower energy costs as others have pointed out, manuals are usually quieter - although this may not matter depending where you put it. I've seen larger frost free chest freezers, but I don't think I've seen any in the size you are looking for. My old Sears manual defrost chest freezer had a flash defrost feature which was nice because it speeded up the process considerably. Are you sure 5 Cu ft is enough? It probably wouldn't cost much more to go up to 7 or 8. My guess is once you start using it, you'll want the extra space. Best wishes.

Refrigeration systems have Evaporators, Condensers, Compressors, and a metering device such as a capillary tube, that meters the delivery of the high pressure liquid refrigerant to the low pressure evaporator where the liquid refrigerant starts boiling off/vaporizing. This boiling off is when it absorbs the heat from the refrigerator compartment. When the refrigerant has completely vaporized and had absorbs as much heat as possible it goes to the compressor where it compressed and becomes a High Pressure gas. The high pressure gas moves to the condenser coils where heat is removed and the High Pressure gas condenses to a high pressure liquid which then goes to the metering device to start it's journey all over again. I've added a link to a video that explains the process. How a refrigerator works A self defrosting refrigerator/freezer has a heater under the evaporator coils. This heater is controlled by a timing device. In older more simple refrigerators is was basically a clock that would turn on the heater about every 12 hours and melt any accumulated frost from the evaporator coils and fins. newer refrigerators use sensors to, in a round about way, measure the amount of frost and only turn on the heater when the frost is at a certain level. Self defrosting refrigerator/freezers have a fan that circulates the air through the cabinet and over the evaporator coils. As the evaporator removes the heat it will also collect the moisture from the air and freeze it on the coils which effectively dries the air. When air has a very low moisture content it will draw moisture from unsealed food items which will then again travel through the evaporator leaving that moisture on the coils again. eventually the frost builds up and the defrost heater comes on again to defrost the coils. This water then goes through the evaporator drain and into a reservoir under the refrigerator in the warm machine compartment where it evaporates into the kitchen air.