Kenmore 6.5 cu. ft. Upright Freezer

After prolonged discussions with my wife we finally purchased a freezer. She pointed out that we don’t need a separate freezer with one kid gone and the second going off to college in a year. However, I like to buy frozen food on sale and we have friends that offer us deer. After extensive Internet research we finally purchased the 6.5 cu. ft. freezer. I was looking for a freezer in the 6.5 to 13 cu. ft. size range. I almost purchased a traditional chest freezer which would have been a big mistake in our case because of the floor space required. Also you can find food easier in an upright. After doing research on Sears and Kenmore's web site we took a drive to the Sears that had the most upright models in stock in this size range. The Sears web site is pretty good for comparing but I wanted to see the freezer. The final decision was made in the store 15 minutes before closing time with a very patient and helpful sales clerk. We took the freezer home, unpacked it, cleaned it (I have a German wife), leveled it and got it running. I didn't see in the original shopping specifications that you can move the door hinge from the right to the left. This is a nice feature and it is a relatively simple change. I would give this five stars instead of four if it had an external power on light. LEDs are relatively cheap. I placed this in our basement wine cellar. I was a little worried that this would increase the temperature in the wine cellar because we also have a refrigerator inside this room. But this seems to be efficient enough that I cannot see any temperature increase in the wine cellar. The door seals very nicely so it seems to not draw much energy in our cool (about 61 degrees) wine cellar. This is a great value for an upright freezer. If Sears had the exact style and size (depth, width) upright freezer, but just a little taller, therefore a little larger capacity, I would've purchased it instead. As a size reference, this easily holds two deer turned into sticks, burger, jerky, bratwurst, bologna and bacon with about 25% of the space still available. Because Iowa is overrun with deer we eat them as a public service.Concerning some of the negative comments I saw during my research. “Fixed shelves” this is necessary because the cooling is done through the shelves. Air is not blowing as is the case with a traditional frost free unit. The advantage is you can load this up and not have to worry about blocking air vents, it is more energy efficient (since it is not automatically defrosting) and some people say that the manual defrost freezers preserves the food better. I will put more of the long term storage items in this new freezer so it will not be opened and closed much compared to our everyday frig/freezer. Someone said this is difficult to open. This is a great feature. It appears to have very strong magnets in the door because the seal is great. Someone said limited space for ice trays. I wouldn’t make ice in this thing although of course you could make little ice cubes. Again our normal frig/freezer does the ice. I wouldn’t put water into a manual defrost freezer to make ice. There is no inside light. Yea this would be a nice feature. But the way we’ve loaded this up I don’t know if we wouldn’t block the light(s) anyway. There is no door handle, but I see this as an advantage. The door has an inset along the top so you can open this easily and if the door had a handle this could get in the way in a limited space. The inset at the top of the door means you do not have to switch a handle if you switch the hinge to the left side. Concerning the “noise”, this seems pretty quiet to me. If you have vibration noise it may not be level according to the owner’s manual. It’s relatively important to level all refrigerators and freezers. It has no shelves in the door but for us this is good because the depth is smaller in our restricted space. All 'n all this is a near perfect freezer for us.

I have to agree with all the negative feedback, though when purchasing this freezer, I took it with a grain of salt. This freezer had an abnormally loud buzzing when plugged in. I thought I just had to wait for the 24-48 hour period when the freezer is supposed to get cold. I didn't have to worry about the buzzing though, because this freezer never got cold and leaked an oily substance all over. I called Sears to maybe get it repaired, and the earliest they can send a repair person is 10 days. That seems like a long time for a freezer repair. After reading other reviews, I am choosing to return it; it doesn't seem worth the hassle to find out that it is broken again after I have a bunch of food in there. Good luck.