Upright Freezer Mishap and Solution

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tallbm

Legendary Pitmaster
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Dec 30, 2016
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Texas
Well about 3-4 weeks ago I lost about 100 pounds of game meat from my upright freezer :(

My brother brought over about 30 pounds of venison meat about 5-6 weeks ago that we were going to turn into sausage at some point.  It was all in a large bag he had tied up.  Well it had been sitting in my upright freezer without issue but then on a Thu evening I went and got some brats out that I grilled and I rearranged the meat bag and it was a bit of a tight fit.

Well I think a short time after the bag shifted and knocked open the door about 6 inches.  I found out 2 days later and though some of the meat was cool and could have possibly been saved but I couldn't take the chance because everything was just too questionable over a couple of days sitting in the open freezer... in my garage, in TX in August :(

Well I threw out all that meat and it sucked.  I learned the lesson that I should put some sort of latch on my upright freezer door.  It was brought to my attention that there are adhesive child safety latches (Multi-Purpose Appliance Lock if you google it) that are used to keep fridge and freezer doors closed.  They are inexpensive so I went with that route to avoid drilling or harming the freezer to install a latch.

Here it is!  I just cleaned the surface with alcohol, aligned it up, pulled adhesive strips, and stuck on.  So far after about an hour no issue.  I'll report back if it fails but I'm sure the only failure would be the adhesive and I have Gorilla Glue that can solve that problem.


If you have a situation where an upright door is failing or may be popped open by an over stuffing situation, I highly recommend looking into something like this latch.  For a few bucks it could be the difference between 100 pounds of sausage or an empty freezer and a lot of wasted time and money with a freezer full of rotten meat.

I hope this helps people out there that are trying to find cheap and simple ideas or for those who have yet to have a failure but want to guard against it!
 
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Now that's thinking with your problem solving noggin'! 
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Now that's thinking with your problem solving noggin'! 
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Thanks lol.

I just wish I would have done it proactively rather than losing so much meat :)
 
Well, you know what they say; when you suffer a loss, don't lose the lesson. Your solution is a perfect example!
Thanks!  I hope others can learn from my mistakes hahaha :)
 
That's a huge bummer! I know exactly what you are going through. I had a deep freeze in the garage full of spare and back ribs, a whole raw butt I was going to make a ham with and some other goodies. Well, come to find out, the outlets in my garage (along with the one by my front door and the three bathrooms) were fed from the GFI in my master bathroom. One hair dryer plus one refrigerator plus one freezer..... Needless to say, the breaker tripped and we didn't know it without using a bathroom outlet for a few days... All was lost.

That's a good idea for holding them doors closed!
 
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That's a huge bummer! I know exactly what you are going through. I had a deep freeze in the garage full of spare and back ribs, a whole raw butt I was going to make a ham with and some other goodies. Well, come to find out, the outlets in my garage (along with the one by my front door and the three bathrooms) were fed from the GFI in my master bathroom. One hair dryer plus one refrigerator plus one freezer..... Needless to say, the breaker tripped and we didn't know it without using a bathroom outlet for a few days... All was lost.

That's a good idea for holding them doors closed!
I feel your pain, it sucks.  I hope your situation gets better and that doesn't happen again.  Yeah I hope the latch solves all my problems :)
 
 
Nyc  and cheap solution of that problem
Yep, I hope everyone can learn from my mistakes and spend a few dollars for such a non-invasive solution :)
 
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