Go to Home Depot, get 1" thick rigid insulation foam boards. Cut boards to surround the freezer, top, front, back and sides.

This will allow the freezer to stay cold for a few more days.

Throw some dry ice in the freezer, if you can find dry ice.

dcarch

If it were me, I'd just toss everything.

"------ but if I open it, I know that's the end.---"

No. Not really. Without going into the whole science theory, opening the freezer door for a short time is not going to do any damage.

When the power goes back on, immediately measure the food temperature inside. If they are below 40F, even thawed, the food is still perfectly safe to eat and re-freeze.

No need to waste $400 to $1000 of good food.

dcarch

The power is on now! It came on about an hour after typing this and i still have not opened the freezer. I will assume all is fine. I really appreciate the info dc and will write it down and post in the laundry room for the next time. Btw, how would I measure the inside temp? Too late now but with a refrigerator thermometer?

If most of the stuff are still frozen, the temperature would not be much higher than 32F when the power was out.

dcarch

Bumble, wish you would have checked it immediately when the power came on. I suspect it's fine. My upright manual defrost (close to fully loaded) was not thawing after 72 hours, but - I'd plugged it into a generator (through the basement window) and run it for an hour twice during that time, no opening the door. Neighbors were sharing a generator, there were none to buy. Everything was still hard frozen when the power was restored.

I keep a refrigerator/freezer thermometer in my freezer, both refrigerators, and both refrigerators freezer compartments. Always have ;0)

Our storm was in winter, coastal Washington. Outside air was somewhat warm for December but in the 50's, cooler at night. Freezer in the basement in an only (normally) semi heated space.

I have checked it now, nothing had dripped, a strawberry fruit popsicle was squishy but still holding its shape and the freezer had needed defrosting and the frost had not melted at all that I could tell.

You're good!! Popsicles are the canarie in the coal mine...if they melt...it has gotten too warm!

As for measuring temp, get yourself some kind of instant-read thermometer, like the thermapen or thermopop and use that to check the temp of the food itself next time. Agree that if the popsicles are holding, you're good.

Actually some popsicles (and ice cream) may melt even the temperature is freezing.

The best tool for checking temperature is a remote read non-contact thermometer.

They are not that expensive.

dcarch

We had a power outage in our town last year and several "young" people on Facebook were commenting about the contents of their freezer. Some houses had a 4 hour outage. Several of those "young" people commented on Facebook about having to "throw out" the entire contents of their freezer. I thought what a shame. If you keep your freezer shut, foo should last 4 hours without being thawed too much to have to pitch!

"---if the quarter is on the bottom, the stuff in the freezer is no good; if it is in the middle of the cup, it may be all right -- proceed with caution and if it's on top as you left it -- everything is okay! Sounds good to me -----"

Not quit.

Basic physics tells you that ice melts faster under weight. That's why you can ski and skate. Ice melts and becomes a good lubricant under the skate. In any case ice becomes water at about 32F. At that temperature food can be good for months.

BTW, if you open the door briefly, you will be losing very very little cool. If you check how much specific heat is in one cubic foot of air. Only 0.005 watt of energy for each cubic foot of air for each degree.

dcarch

Here at the lake, where hydro outages are a bit more common and can last a day or two, we have thermometers in the freezers that we can read externally. They also have an alarm that goes off if the temp goes below a certain point when the door isn't closed tight.

They weren't expensive at all and have paid for themselves in food that we didn't have to toss.

The best way(free)is what I do for our camper at the lake. Put an ice cube in a cup and leave in the freezer. If the ice cube completely melts and you have just a round frozen layer in the cup, everything thawed and isn't good.

A freezer is a big insulated box. If you have a bunch of frozen water--soup and the like, and big chunks of meat as well--that will act like ice in a camping cooler, so you probably have a lot longer than anyone is officially allowed to say. :)

Glad your stuff is probably ok! I preach this all the time, so forgive, but if you will fill that 1/4 (or whatever portion) empty space with plastic bottles filled with water, big, little, whatever size comes into your house for water or juice or milk jugs, it will keep your freezer from working so hard. AND you will have emergency water if you need it. AND it will keep everything colder longer when the power is out. Pack it to the gills and when you take food out of the freezer, stick bottles of water in its space. I never buy ice for coolers, I use and refreeze those plastic bottles. I put a tiny one in my grandson's lunch box when he has perishables. Refreeze and reuse.

DC had a great idea with the rigid styrofoam.

If you don't have a way to get to Home Depot & haul big sheets of styrofoam or Home Depot has taken a direct hit (hurricane/ tornado) or it's night and the store is closed, you can loosely wrap the freezer with a bunch of blankets & comforters, too. Even big beach towels.

As Cilantro said, wrapping the freezer in anything insulating will help. Here in Michigan I lost power once for six days and had a big chest freezer full of beef. It didn't even start thawing until day 3. That's when I started canning beef on a gas burner that I lit with a match. I lost things like ice cream and the girls ate baked goods to their heart's content and shared with their friends, but I managed to save some of it, at least.

I think you're safe, I wouldn't hesitate to keep the stuff if your freezer. The "experts" say that food will stay frozen in a full freezer for approximately 48 hours, so yours probably thawed very little. You may have ice crystals in your ice cream or have other quality issues, but I wouldn't worry about the safety.

Annie

My full upright freezer lasted about 60-70 hours before things began to thaw. That was after hurricane Irene, in August. Fortunately I found dry ice and transferred most everything into a large cooler. I had to ditch very little - stuff at the very top, or that wouldn't fit into the cooler, or I didn't get to grill for immediate consumption. But I had pre-filled all the empty spaces in the freezer with water prior to losing power. (Yeah, I knew it was coming...)

The freezer over the fridge didn't last as long... 48 hours I think.

Was cleaning up in the garage and saw the sleeping bags...another ready source of insulating material.