Used Chest Freezers

[Normans54]

I am looking to turn a chest freezer into a lagering/cold storage chamber and I found a 4 year old used haier HCM071LC on Craigslist for $75 in what appears to be decent condition. However, someone told me that chest freezers in general are pretty unreliable and for that reason I should go with a new one. Does anybody have some input as to whether there is any truth to the idea that chest freezers are unreliable to the point that buying one used is not a good idea? Thanks so much!

 

[JLeuck64]

Really? I was under the impression that those chest freezers were the ultimate as far as fermenting and cold lagering goes... as least when ya do a little research into ferm chambers on Google it sure seems like homebrewers are converting WAY more chest freezers as compared to stand up refrigerators ( ;

 

[day_trippr]

The gamut of "used chest freezers" is pretty broad - I've seen some utter crap looking machines used for keezers and ferm chambers on HBT.

Some of them just keep running, but then you'll come across the apocryphal thread where a just-finished coffin keezer with all the trimmings went tits up.

My first keezer was a 10cf I picked off Craig's List for $100. I thought it was 5 years old, turned out it was 15. It ran for three years in keezer service, then died a slow death (fortunately slow - gave me plenty of time to get its replacement on-line).

The replacement was a new 13cf chest freezer.

Cheers!

 

[JLeuck64]

Oh that makes perfect sense. Would be smart to find the serial number on the unit and do a little research to figure out when it was manufactured then.

 

[LostBouyBrewery]

Troll craiglist and keep telling the sellers. "all I have is $50." Got a friend a nearly brand new 7.2 chest freezer. Got about 8 "no's" until one bit. I think the listing price was more than $100

 

[ferm.adventures]

I had a new 7cf kenmore die after 1 year of traditional, non brewing use. I found a really old, like 20 years old, 7cf one on CL for $50. It worked great when I picked it up, and immediately at home. It was then shut down for a few months and then never worked again. So treat them as disposable in my opinion. Especially if you convert it to a keezer, it'll have a limited lifespan. I'd guess you'd get equal service time from 3 used freezers at $75 to 1 new freezer at $225. So if you find a deal on a new one at a good price it may be worth it.