It's not worth it. You will never make the fridge use-able again.
If you have to leave ahead of a disaster, consider emptying your fridges/freezer and propping the doors open.
Obviously this advice is strongest in warm areas.
I don't quite understand what you're saying here - that after 24 hours, things will be defrosted and rotted enough that the fridge/freezer will stink forever? That it should be taped closed and the whole thing disposed of after the event? Or are you saying only if you open it, it'll never be useable again? I have experienced a number of multi-day power outages, and have never had to tape a fridge shut and not use it again, so I disagree pretty strongly with that advice.
Absolutely agree with preemptively emptying fridges/freezers and leaving doors propped open.
How hot was it when this happened? Were you there to manage the situation or did you have to leave?
If you have to leave in a hurry and are not able to empty your fridge, and it is hot, and you are not able to return for a few days, then yes, your fridge will probably never be usable again.
If your fridge is in a cool basement, then yea, you probably just have some food spoilage.
That's much more useful, nuanced advice than "if it's been more than 24 hours, tape it shut and throw it away".
My experiences have been in more moderate climate, probably temps in the 15-25 range. That said, it also depends what's in the fridge - I moved into an apartment where some beer had exploded in a left-behind beer fridge, the entire inside was coated in green mold for several months. Treatment with succession of soap, bleach, and oxiclean, and it's still in use to this day - so contents of the fridge matters too.
I think your timing is off here. I lost power for about three days during Hurricane Charley. This was the middle of summer in Orlando, Florida so hot hot hot. As far as I remember, my roommate and I left the fridge closed and evacuated. When we returned, the contents of the fridge were spoiled, but I don't remember anything particularly horrendous about it.
Like we are able to find preserved remains in ice of people who perished in these harsh climates, as opposed to a warmer climate where all the tissue would be putrid immediately.
Soooo many students were like "This fridge is a loss" and would just give them to me.
Hurricane Igor (Sept. 2010) hit Canada, not Houston. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Igor
(In Hurricane Ike, we lost power for seven days, and ice and dry ice at the local grocery stores were rationed. We have a gas range and a gas grill in the backyard hooked to the natural-gas line. Every night for the first few nights, quite a few neighbors came over to grill and share stuff from their freezers; we cooked side dishes on the gas range in the kitchen. Everyone sat around and ate and talked on the patio by candlelight. It actually was kind of a nice time, especially since the weather was unseasonably pleasant for that time of year.)
“That is so awesome that the community rallied together like that”
“What the duck are they doing having a large gathering in their yard?! Surely they could have figured out a safer way to do that! If someone got COVID during a hurricane with no power that could be really bad!”
The 2020 hurricane season will be starting soon. With COVID, the emergency financial legislation running out, the election, schools, holidays, and hurricane season, I fear this fall will be something we'll remember for decades to come.
I had a similar loss of fridge when we went on vacation one time and the power went off some time while we were gone and I had not emptied the freezer all the way as it seemed idiotic to garbage all that perfectly good food when we were only gone for 2 weeks.
"Tom, why are you burying fish in your yard? Don't you have better things to be doing like evacuating or collecting fire wood right now?"
Trash doesn't run because trees and lines are down, btw.
The freezer at least contains the smell a bit. That fish outdoors in the heat could start smelling even worse.
My experience comes from living countryside with two cats dragging in rabbits, rats, pheasants and two/three daily mice and birds in. My cats prefer cat-food, so they drag in the dead animals, tuck it under the couch or behind the fridge, and then eat their favorite chunks, the assholes.
Throwing it on the compost heap smells way worse and attracts flies. than digging a ~3cm deep hole and covering it. A mouse under the ground, is gone in less than a week (I guess its eaten by worms and insects mostly). My garden is doing very well.
But seriously, why not eat BBQ fish every day?
Chest freezer would have had less of an impact, but still noticeable.
From my personal experience: while we were away on vacation, there was a power outrage for 24_ hours. Coin was on top, but all ice cream and frozen packaged food was ruined. Not sure about big chunks of beef.
I wonder if the better solution would be to tip it on a 45 degree angle. If it melts, it will now be flat with gravity. No coin required
We lost power for 4 days, but I packed in every water bottle I could find before hand, and everything remained frozen for the entire period. Literally almost no space left for air.
We also did not open it, of course.
By the time we were able to find a gas station with dry ice we were out looking for open wal marts at a 73 mile radius from the house (Columbus Texas). The dry ice was not significant enough to do much more than get the fish cool. It was too late.
Why not tip the freezer / fridge onto its back? So that doors open "up"?
Aware they're typically not perfectly flat on the rear face, but close enough you could support it with minimal work. And if it's unpowered, there's no need for clearance back there.
Unless they have drawers https://pc.vertaa.fi/250x250/102776708.jpg
I would not cook on burning pressure treated lumber, but the vast majority of lumber in construction is not pressure treated.
As a young boy scout of 12 or so, I ate some pork that my patrol and I had cooked over charcoal before all of the lighter fluid had burned off. It tasted like lighter fluid smells. We never made that mistake again.
Pro tip from 12 year-old me: styrofoam cooler lids make great fans to speed the progression of the reaction.
Pro tip 2 from 12 year-old me: don't get the lid too close to the charcoal, or it will melt. Also, wet wool finger mittens can cook and become brittle far from a wet wood fire, because the fire gets very hot when you blow on it to keep it from going out and very cool when you go to check the temperature near your mittens.
Best advice is during hurricane season keep freezer and refrigerator stock to a minimum to keep your losses low. Stock up on non-perishables, but not overstock.
If you absolutely must have cold stuff while the power is out, either get a generator or look into 12V gear.
There's two reasons why most people on the Gulf Coast and lower Eastern seaboard keep their freezers completely stocked: so they have food to eat in the case of an emergency, and because a full freezer stays frozen longer.
It also depends very much on the isolation of the freezer.
And to what temperature it was set.
And of course, how often you open it.
Maybe next time try it with a top loaded freezer instead and see what happens.
Sorry about the freezer, but it was in the interest of science.
It's unclear why you didn't throw it away at this point.
Was it an experiment?
Good ol government!
"for a freezer of this size, completely packed, you would probably have twice as long before running into problems with melting when the power goes out, so about 36 hours. This assuming it's in a room at 19° C (a cool basement). If it were in a hot garage at 30° C, the food would thaw in about 3/4 of the time.
And while the power is out, for each time the door is opened for five seconds, subtract 7 minutes. "
I watched and enjoyed the original video when it came out, so I knew to look for this information in the text, making it easier to find.
Freezer: normal upper level refrigerator freezer chock full of frozen fish caught on holiday in Alaska.
Place, Time: Houston, TX, Late Summer, Hurricane Igor just hit and knocked our power out for 14 days.
Findings: We kept the freezer shut and at about 4-5 days the fish was noticeably thawing and getting flexible. Still cold, but not frozen. I think we might have made an attempt at dry ice but it was too late in the process to matter.
At day 8 or so it had completely defrosted.
At day 10 the smell was so horrendous that if we opened the freezer door we would gag.
At day 14 the power returned. On day 15 or 16 we opened the now cold rotted fish in the freezer and cleaned it out. We vomited multiple times. The smell, despite multiple rounds of bleach, never really went away. The stench permanently inextricable from the lining of the freezer, and the flavor of every ice cube ever made in it from then on.