If you've got the space and like the idea of having large amounts of frozen foods at your disposal when you need them, then a freezer might be perfect for you.

As compared to other home kitchen appliances, choosing between freezers is relatively easy. There are very few designer freezers, for instance: with the exception of a few stainless steel fronted vertical freezers, they are just box shaped white goods, pure and simple. They also come in only two styles - vertical and chest. Aside from that, your major considerations will be storage capacity and accessibility. Our Freezers Buying Guide will steer you through the process of choosing your freezer.

Obviously, the little freezer in your fridge doesn't do it for you or you wouldn't be here, but what will? A small upright freezer, measuring 895mm in height by just over 500mm wide will have a capacity of 5L, which is a lot more than your fridge freezer has, but not enough for a month's supply of meat and other essentials. On the other end of the scale, a 1695mm wide chest freezer has a storage capacity of up to 700L. This is what a large family living far away from the nearest supermarket will be looking for.

Chest Freezers

If you want lots of storage capacity, then look for chest freezers. The downside to these is that it is hard to organize and access the goods stored in them. Frozen foods in chest freezers are stored in two levels. You can easily access the goods on the top level, but have to move them or even remove their containers in order to access the goods on the bottom level.

These are some of the advantages and disadvantages of chest freezers:

• Chest freezers have larger capacity than vertical freezers and can hold odd shaped goods such as frozen pizzas and large turkeys. On the other hand, it's hard to access goods in chest freezers.
• Chest freezers will fit neatly under windows in the garage, but they do take up more floor space than vertical freezers.
• Chest freezers tend to be more energy efficient than vertical freezers and foods keep longer in chest freezers than in vertical freezers.
• Chest freezers are usually cheaper than vertical freezers.

The bottom line with chest freezers is that they are usually for those who are looking for long term, large capacity freezing. What they lose in the way of day-to-day convenience they make up for in longer term storage. If you are just going to be restocking the freezer in your home fridge from the freezer occasionally, then a chest freezer may be just what you're looking for.

Vertical Freezers

If convenience is more of an issue to you than storage capacity, then look into vertical freezers. Vertical freezers stand a little taller than the average fridge (unless they are underbench freezers). Decent sized vertical freezers have storage capacities of up to 389L.

These are the major advantages and disadvantages of upright freezers:

• Vertical freezers make it easy for you to find, organize and retrieve your frozen foods. On the other hand, they do not store bulky and odd shaped packages as efficiently as chest freezers.
• Vertical freezers take up less floor space than chest freezers.
• You can find some frost-free models of vertical freezers, while all chest freezers must be manually defrosted.
• Vertical freezers can usually fit in the kitchen, while most chest freezers must be kept in the garage or other area away from the main living areas of the house.
• Expect to pay more for vertical freezers of similar capacities to their chest freezer counterparts.

The bottom line with vertical freezers is that they are the best choice for consumers who want more freezer space than their refrigerator's freezer provides but will be accessing their frozen foods frequently and restocking their freezer regularly.

Final Considerations

As home appliances go, freezers as a whole are not very energy efficient. Usually the best energy rating you will find for a freezer is a 2. Chest freezers are more energy efficient than vertical freezers and manual defrost freezers are more energy efficient than frost-free freezers.

On the other hand, don't dimiss the idea of getting a freezer just for the sake of energy conservation. Driving to the supermarket consumes petrol and human energy. If you can save time and petrol by stocking up on frozen goods once a month instead of once or twice a week, you will be saving a lot more energy than your freezer will be using up.