Try a blower dryer to hurry it along? Cover food with blankets.

If your freeze is packed pretty full or as long as the food in it least the food is packed densely the food should stay frozen while you do what you described.

Think about how long it takes to thaw a frozen roast. An hour or two or even 3 with the freezer open isn't going to thaw the food. Just don't forget about it and leave it all day or night. I wouldn't just prop it open . i would open it as if I was defrosting the whole freezer. Propping just a few inches will slow the process and actually could contribute to thawing what you don't want thawed.

I agree with watchmelol. Open all the way and use a hair dryer. The short period of time it will take you, nothing will be defrosted. Many years ago my kids left the freezer door open and I was unaware (it was in the basement). I talked to someone in the meat department of the grocery store. He said the rule of thumb was this. Vegetables and bread products can be refrozen even if fully defrosted. Ice cream, toss. Meats, as long as there were still ice crystals in the package, it could be refrozen. If completely defrosted, cook and then refreeze. It would take quite some time for a packed freezer to defrost even if turned off.

I'd thought about the coolers, but the ones we have belong to my son and are rather nice as they use them for camping. No way would I put them on the basement floor, and there are no better options.

Unfortunately, I can't open the lid all the way. The ceiling is too low! (My house is very old.) But I can prop it pretty far with a sturdy plastic pipe, and use a hair dryer. Plus blankets on the food.

Good ideas--thanks!!

I just turn mine off with the lid open. I'm usually done in 30 minutes or less. I also have one of those plastic scraper things you use with spackling to scrape. I don't unpack anything either. I'm thinking with the blow dryer, it would melt down into the food, but towels or blankets on top would help with that.

My 59 year old freezer is in the garage. I have just put an old quilt, or something similar, on the floor, piled the frozen food on it and put another quilt over it while I use a hair dryer on the frost and clean the box. Nothing ever thaws out.

You can buy a tarp for $3 at Walmart or Home Depot to place the coolers on. But to answer your question, no, it's not a stupid idea.

My little chest freezer has occasional problems with frost building up heavily at the top and interfering with the ability to seal. I don't even bother to turn it off, and like cooper8828, just use a plastic putty knife to knock off the chunky build up. It works really well when full defrost isn't a good option. Just make sure you get plastic ones and not metal- many, many years ago DH was using a metal one on a freezer and accidentally popped through the side, destroying the freezer.

Quasifish, I've done the same thing for years, and went down there with confidence to do it again, but found the build-up was too thick this time. That's what I get for waiting too long.

Well, I did it--and I'm still around to tell the tale. Everything was so wet down there, I scrapped the plan to use a hair dryer. I kept remembering something that happened many years ago: A friend's housekeeper was electrocuted in their wet basement when she plugged in an iron.

I was able to stand on a dry rock slab to unplug the freezer. and I covered the food with an old, clean comforter. Instead of the hair dryer, I microwaved some wet (but not dripping) microfiber cloths to get them hot, and laid them over the worst of the ice on the rim of the freezer. They cooled off quickly but still worked like a charm!

I also removed some of the built-up frost inside the freezer. One nice thing about having a dungeon is that I could take chunks of the hard frost and toss them into the "river" that runs through the dirt floor. :-)

I dried the rim before closing the lid and plugging the freezer back in. I hope the lid doesn't freeze shut! The alarm buzzer is going non-stop now; I'll be glad when the temperature gets down to zero.

Thanks for all your good advice!

Sounds like you may need to give some thought to having work in the basement and maybe around the perimeter of the house for waterproofing, to add a drainage system and maybe a dehumidifier? The problem isn't the freezer, such damp conditions foster the growth of mold, mildew, etc., that can be dangerous for your breathing and for the structure itself. Good luck.

Thanks for your concern, Elmer, but I've lived in this 1850 house since 1975 and after consulting with various experts about the basement over the years we concluded the best we could do is to keep a sturdy sump pump down there. I'm just glad we don't have radon. (I tested for that last year.)

The basement is always cool and damp, but not usually sodden as it is now. We've had a l-o-n-g stretch of high humidity and rain, and the Weather Service has been issuing flood warnings since last week. I had to cancel an appointment for today because of flooding between here and there. And then we had yet another huge t-storm last night, complete with a lightning strike that sounded like it came down on top of the house. My landline is still recovering.

I was planning to suggest that you use some newspaper or flattened cardboard boxes under the coolers to keep them clean while you removed some of the food in the top part of the freezer.

I've heard that, after laying some blankets on the remaining food, aiming the heated air exhaust from a tank-type vacuum cleaner into the freezer defrosts fairly quickly.

I've been having the same problems, so need to deal with my ice and frost buildup, as well.

ole joyful

Good luck with that, Joyful. Maybe, like me, you'll discover a few things in the freezer you'd forgotten about. :-)

My chest freezer (which must be over 20 years old) has a knob to pull out for flash defrost. Its in the garage and we have a very large cooler from a club store that handles most of it. It sure sounds tough working in your basement. You must be thrilled its done!