I have been wanting to move the freezers out of the barn since 2020. But I ran out of money to finish their room in the new cellar. On the basis of an (incorrect) Fuel Assistance evaluation, I started planning to get the room finished for the (not arriving) new freezers.
It was sheetrocked back in early August and it’s taken me from early July to September 2nd to get a definitive answer on the barn freezers. And that was they wouldn’t do anything for them. Sigh…
So we know 1 chest freezer still works fine and I’m wondering about the other one. The initial testing showed it only got down to 34F. So I’m thinking I want to retest that 2nd chest freezer. The upright’s gasket is shot so it’s out of the running.
We’ve got to get them all cleaned up and we’ve decided to get them running the night before we move them. That way they will be cold because we have to move (inventoried) food into them once in place in the cellar in order to be able to move the 2 at the house. (I keep saying “them” in hopes I am right about the second one..)
They have to come down these steep stairs. My #1 intern and I looked at them and measured them and we think with enough young muscle, they can be kept relatively level as they descend.
We plan to let them sit for at least an hour before turning them on. That’s one of the reasons for having them running the night before.
There are several things to do before we can move the freezers. We have to take the scaffolding apart and find a place to store it and the lift. Originally I was going to put them against the workshop wall, but if the 2nd freezer is good, it will go there.
We plan to build a template the size of the freezer tops and use it to see how much room we have to move freezers around in the cellar.
And over where the scaffolding currently is, we have to make shelving like the shelving currently over the house freezers.
The stuff in the metal shelving (and there are 2 of these) upper left, will be put on the new shelves and the metal shelving will eventually go into the current location of the 2 freezers. It will hold my canning and freezer container boxes.
Everything in the upper right photo must be moved somewhere. That metal shelving is attached to the wall, so that will have to be dismantled.
And all the stuff in the old cellar will have to be condensed because I suspect that’s where a lot of stuff will end up.
So it’s going to be a big project. On Tuesday when I finally heard from Fuel Assistance, I called moving companies to move the freezers out of the barn. They have a 3 hour minimum and get $235.00/hr/person and said 2 or 3 people plus the truck. So it was going to be between $700 - $900. I told them I could buy a new freezer for that and they’d take away the old ones when they were delivered! Sigh… So that wasn’t an option.
I plan to pay anyone who shows up to move the freezers, etc but it’s bound to be much cheaper in the end.
So there’s this big project near the end of September as my 2 interns are heading south to see their new niece for a week. And there’s the cider making project.
