Brands? There are a lot fewer than you might think. Basically, three companies make almost all of the chest freezers sold in North America. These are: Frigidaire which owns a variety of brands (like Kelvinator, White Westinghouse) and also makes freezers for big-box store house brands plus some of the freezers sold under GE and Kenmore brands. I've been told by Sears salepeople that Frigidaire makes the large capacity chest freezers sold as Kenmores. Whirlpool: bought the WC Woods factory in Canada out of a bankruptcy liquidation in 2009, and has continued production. Sold under Whirlpool's various brand names (Amana, Kitchenaid, Maytag) plus some odd brands it owns (Admiral) plus some brands like Danby, Crosley, etc. Haier: selling under its own name plus a variety of brands for big box stores plus the rest of what GE and Kenmore sell. Haier has had some intermittent quality control and warranty service issues on some products but a scan of ConsumerAffairs.Com did not turn up any complaints about their chest feezers. Some of them apparently are assembled in North or South Carolina. Consumer Reports membership survey results do not report on long term reliability and problem rates for chest freezers. CR's product performance ratings favor Whirlpool and Frigidaire branded chest freezers. The buying advice is pretty much look for features (like lights) and energy consumption, and buy whatever has the best price. I bought a small (5 cu ft) Firgidaire about 16 years ago (from Costco, IIRC). Near as I can tell, it is essentially the same small model that Frigidaire is still selling. According to the Kill-a-Watt meter, the old one consumes about 2% more power than the current models are supposed to use, at least according to the DOE tags in the store models. (Consumer Reports cautions that their testing has shown that the ratings are an average of 17% low. Maybe they test the freezers differently than I do or maybe the current sealed sysmes and motors aren't so good.) Never had a hint of problem with Firigidare chest unit and it is still going strong for a friend of mine. We had a 9 hour power outage a couple of years back. When the power came back, my friend dropped in a probe thermometer and found internal temps were still -4F. I'm told they'll go for days without power. I'd still be using that Frigidaire except that I needed larger capacity and only had room to get it in the basement by going taller. That's how I wound up with 14 cu ft Firgidaire upright. I find it a lot more convenient to get at things in the upright but at the price of a lot more noise (which I did not expect) and power consumption (which I did expect.) The Kill-a-Watt meter tells me the upright is using about three times the power of the old chest freezer. This post was edited by JWVideo on Sun, May 5, 13 at 19:53

We have a biig honkin' chest freezer in our basement. I buy in bulk from Sam's Club and the grocery store when things are on sale. I also froze and stored many meals for the remodel. I recently replaced a 40 year old chest freezer with a more energy efficient one, and consider it a 'must have' in my house. Here is the criteria I'd use when shopping: I like baskets that can be moved around, and I like dividers. They take up space, but I actually bought a slightly larger sized freezer than the one I had previously to make sure that I had room for them. Otherwise, you could use plastic bins to help organize. Organization in a chest freezer is key, otherwise things will drift to the bottom and be lost forever. I have a spot for poultry, pork, beef, etc. I have a separate space for cooked meals, so I usually know where to look when I'm down there 'shopping'. My most recent freezer came from Sears. We never buy anything from Sears, but it's actually made by Frigidaire, it had the nice baskets and dividers, and the price was really good at the time, so we bought it. It's a big cold box, not a lot to go wrong with it unless the compressor gives out. For insurance, I put freezer packs or the occasional bottle of frozen water around to act as 'heat sinks' if the power goes out for more than a night or two. Hope this helps, Cj

Piaa, I have had both a chest freezer and an upright. My current freezer is an upright freezer. My chest freezer (manual defrost) kept frozen foods solidly frozen and rarely did I defrost an item that had freezer burn. My upright freezer (auto defrost) also keeps food solidly frozen but I frequently defrost an item that has freezer burn. Live_wire_oak is right, it is much easier to organize and locate food in an upright freezer than in a chest type. I always felt that I spent a lot of time moving the wire baskets around to get to the basket that held what I needed. My upright has been stored in our unheated garage for 21 years - in summer heat and winter temperatures that can drop below 0 degrees fahrenheit. Prior to that it was stored in an unheated wooden storage area in the southern heat and humidity. The freezer has never had a problem or needed a service call in the 33 years we have owned it. Whatever freezer you select will be fine. Get the freezer that has the best footprint for your storage area and fits your needs.

I currently have an upright freezer, and will be getting a 6.9 cu ft chest freezer next week. Sometimes the upright has been a pain to organize, so I'm glad to hear about solutions for the chest one. I do use sharpies to label contents, month & year. I'm thinking plastic bins, I like the idea of different colors. I did buy small plastic bins for the upright, as items had a nasty habit of sliding out and onto the floor. The idea of the app seems at least worth the try, tho I doubt I'll last long with it. Most apps are free or real cheap... (I will be raising meat chicken, and I already purchase half pigs, so space is essential. It is also great for freezing home made sauces that should not be water bath canned.) So anyhow, thanks for the ideas!