Home Improvement Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for contractors and serious DIYers. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
An old (probably 30-50 years) chest freezer is not working. When plugged in it makes a constant, very quiet sound and does not change temperature.
How could I tell what's wrong with it? Is it likely to be possible to repair it?
Some pics of the compressor compartment:
Repair (by a licensed refrigeration technician) might be possible, but is highly unlikely to be practical or cost-effective .vs. replacement with a modern and probably far more efficient unit.
For one thing, the R12 refrigerant that your unit uses is now absurdly expensive.
Energy savings alone will pay for a new freezer inside a year, even if you had to pay for it!
FIRST, contact your power company and see if they have any upgrade programs, rebates and the like - many will cost-share and some will even buy you a new one for free.*
Then if that option is exhausted, get yourself a new chest freezer on your own nickel. Still a savings!
* At first blush, this seems insane. But if you grind through the macro-economics of buying you a new appliance vs. building new power plants to support your old appliances, this is actually a net win at the whole-society level. For instance if the same institution was paying for both the power plant an the freezer, they would have direct financial incentive to upgrade. With separate ownership there's a market inefficiency. Power companies and regulators just got together to correct that.
