Sorry, this is really boring.

We are looking for a new freezer, but I’m being indecisive about whether to go for a frost free one or not.

I think the one we have is frost free (stuff doesn’t seem to end up frosty, but it does build up loads of solid ice at the bottom that I remove with a chisel every now and then). The majority of freezers we’ve seen have been manual defrost, though, which implies frost free is either (a) actually a bit of a rubbish idea or (b) good but not worth the price.

Curiously every internet forum thread I’ve found has either been fully in support of frost-free or fully in support of manual defrost. This makes my head hurt. Therefore if somebody could just say “go buy a <frost-free / manual defrost> (delete as applicable) because <insert overwhelmingly logical argument here>” that would be most appreciated… 🙂

Phil

Frost free as I understand it has air circulating which prevents built up of the moisture that ends up as frost. You mentioned that your frost free freezer still has ice – that probably means that you’ve overloaded it or blocked up a vent so that the air can’t circulate.

Definitely frost free IMO given that it seems to be a common option without lots of extra cost – having to defrost is a complete waste of life. I’ve had two frost free freezers. Neither have ever had any ice or frost build up and I’ve never had to defrost them.

We have a frost free fridge freezer. It has circulating air. Brilliant IMHO. It just does the job and never accumulates ice. i think that the air is cooled before entering fridge or freezer. The water content leaves the air before entering the fridge or freezer and I believe evaporates from a tray underneath.

I think that there are inferior ways of doing “frost free” that don’t work

Inferior frost free? Is that just leaving the door open?

Ours was/is apparently “frost free” pfft load of bollox!

Frost-free means you should never have to defrost it, we’ve had our’s over 10 years and there’s been no ice build up in that time.

The only disadvantage is the air re-circulation system takes up space so reducing the capacity vs a same size non frost-free.

We now have a low frost fridge freezer after previously having frost free. The reasons being it was more efficient than the frost free, had a greater capacity than the same size frost free one and was cheaper.
Ours is a Bosch and has had one defrost after around 20 months and it was very quick. There’s a little pull down funnel at the bottom and you unclip one of the plastic shelf units from the door and it collects all the water.