Upright Freezer

Overview

An upright freezer stores frozen food in a cabinet you open from the front, like a refrigerator. Unlike a chest freezer it trades some efficiency for convenience: shelves and drawers put every item within reach, but opening the door lets the dense cold air spill out the bottom. This is a frost-free design, so a fan and a timed defrost heater keep the interior dry and free of ice buildup with no manual scraping.

The body is a thermoformed Inner ABS Liner inside a painted Outer Steel Shell, with the cavity filled by injected Polyurethane Foam Insulation that does almost all the work of holding temperature. Inside, glass Tempered Glass Shelf panels and pull-out Storage Drawer baskets organize the load, while a foam-filled Door seals against a magnetic gasket.

Unlike a chest freezer, the evaporator here is not bonded to the walls. It sits hidden behind a rear panel, and a fan blows air across it and out through ducts to every shelf, which is what makes the cabinet cool evenly top to bottom.

How it works

Cooling runs on a sealed vapor-compression cycle in the Refrigeration System system. The Hermetic Compressor draws in low-pressure refrigerant vapor and compresses it; the hot gas sheds its heat to the room in the back-mounted Condenser Coil and condenses to liquid. That liquid is metered through the Capillary Tube into the Evaporator Coil, where it boils at low pressure and pulls heat out of the air passing over it.

A small Blower Motor in the Air Circulation assembly forces that chilled air through the rear duct so the whole cabinet stays uniform. Because the cold evaporator inevitably collects frost, the Defrost System system runs a heating element on a timer to melt it; the meltwater drains to a pan near the compressor and evaporates.

The Thermostat & Control Board board reads thermistors on the cabinet and the evaporator, cycles the compressor and fan to hold the setpoint, and decides when to trigger a defrost. An interior LED lights the contents when the door opens.