P9070606,
originally uploaded by paranoidangel.

Tonight, I defrosted my freezer. There's actually a long story behind that.

When I moved in, in December, there was an ice making tray that lived behind the kitchen door because the space where it went in the freezer was full of ice. I could just see a plastic ice cube tray stuck in there, but that was it. I wanted to defrost it at the time but it just wasn't practical with everything else I had to do.

I've had a few occasions where I haven't been able to shut the door properly but I've always managed to get it closed after a bit. Sometimes after it's iced up even more. But last night I couldn't get it closed at all. Or this morning. By the time I came to make dinner tonight all my food was covered in ice.

Of course, the best time to defrost a freezer is in the winter, when you can put your frozen food outside without having to worry too much about it defrosting. When I walked home from work it was nice enough weather not to need a jacket or jumper, with sunshine and blue skies. Fortunately, this meant that once it got to 8pm and it got dark, it also got quite cold.

So at 8pm I made a start. There are three switches in the small space between the wall and the fridge/freezer. One is the light switch. The closest one of the other two doesn't have any immediately noticeable effect. I discovered, after sellotaping a rubber to a ruler, than neither does the other one. Had I been thinking properly it would have occurred to me that a fridge should have a plug.

Fortunately, I have the instructions for it, which told me how to turn the thing off without going near the plug. Which is just as well because I have no idea where it is. The instructions also say to defrost it if the ice is more than 4mm thick, and what you need to do is insert the plastic tool provided into the slot at the back. I was nearly done before I found the slot. Presumably someone once had the tool, but it's been lost in the mists of time.

Last night, I put the pink things (don't know what they're called, but you put them in the freezer, then put them in a cool bag and they keep the food cold) in the freezer. So I put them in a bag along with my frozen stuff and stuck it outside. Then I boiled saucepans of water a lot. And stuck my arms in the freezer a lot.

Two hours later, this photo was the result. When I started, I couldn't see any of those metal grilles at all. The photo shows the top bit where there was rather a lot of ice. When I started, you certainly couldn't see those top two grilles. In fact, I didn't even know the top one was there.

Fortunately, most of that ice was at the front, and mostly on the left. I found three plastic ice cube trays in the space! A lot of the ice was a bugger to remove because it was wrapped around the grilles.

But three hours after I finished, there was no more ice in the freezer. When I came to put the frozen food back in the freezer - after it had been out for three and a half hours, it was still frozen. It was just starting to defrost, so it couldn't have lasted much longer. The best part is that now I have a clean freezer and I have more space in it! Especially in the top drawer now the ice isn't encroaching from above.

I am knackered now, though. I'm just glad I won't have to do it again any time soon (and certainly never to this extent - I won't let it get that bad).

One Response to “Defrosting the freezer”

Fuzz Says:
Saturday 8th September 2007 at 9:52 am

When I moved into my current place the freezer was so bad the top shelf was frozen solid and there was so much ice the door wouldn't close! We didn't really need the freezer (it was extra) so I moved it outside to melt. The next day it was a bit grim removing all the food that had been frozen in.