Heading out the door, the children started yelling that something was beeping.
Well, if you spend any amount of time in this home, beeping of some sort is a daily occurrence, so I definitely wasn’t that concerned.
You know what I am talking about…beeps from the computer, beeps from the fire alarm, beeps from the Ipods…the list continues.
But this was a new sound. A unique sort of beep that we hadn’t heard before, so I came back in the house to check it out.
Good thing I did. We followed the sound trail to our new fridge, and the door was slightly ajar. Yep, ajar just enough so that all the cold air could escape, but not far enough so that I would have even noticed it. And I was leaving…for the day.
Can I just tell you how thrilled I am that Frigidaire puts an automatic alert sensor on the fridges so that if the door stays open or the fridge temp rises it lets you know…nice and loud? I guess I would have known that if I would have read my manual, but I didn’t.
I found out the “hard” way, which didn’t end up being so hard at all because the alarm caught the infraction in the nick in time.
And yes, I am a Frigidaire test drive mom, but this same mom just lost about 40 items from her extra (non Frigidaire) freezer last week because it DID NOT have a sensor, so I speak from experience. For our family with multiple children, this sensor is a not just a food saver, but a money saver.
Last week, I admit…I reacted, rather than responded when I went out to see the mess. It wasn’t one of my finer mommy moments, although I don’t think my head did quite the 360° turn.
But then I realized that you can choose to laugh or cry when bedlam moments occur, and I have committed to laugh. So I salvaged what I could, made more meat in one day than you can ever imagine and let the kids eat TONS of mostly melted ice cream. And now, I have a fairly clean second freezer with a few salvaged items in it.
So what about you?
Have you ever had your freezer power go off? Were you able to salvage any of it? What did you do?
Thanks for posting this 🙂 It’s been a bad week in our house too (oven left on, crockpot left on, candles left burning, doors left unlocked, you name it, I’ve done it!), and I am so encouraged to know that I’m not the only one! And I love your phrase, “You can choose to laugh or cry…and I’ve committed to laugh.” I will definitely be pulling that phrase out for future use, and do my best to laugh! Thanks again for the encouragement 🙂
I’ve never heard of this kind of sensor, but WOW! What a great idea! Frigidaire designers really had their thinking caps on when they decided to include that feature.
Now if only there were a sensor that would beep at me when I’ve left the cordless phone somewhere other than on its charger. . . .
Wow, that is a great fridge! Very smart of them to instal the sensor. I have had a few close calls with my freezer but all in all only lost a few items. I am always tempted to buy the alarm for the second freezer. I would be devistated if I lost everything in there. I too love your quote and I try to do the same but sometimes the other gets the better of me. I do grab the camera whenever the kids do something that is over the top not good just so we can laugh later.
Ooo my fridge also has this sensor and it’s a lifesver! I totally agree, even if it seems like it’s shut the sensor notices the smallest gap and starts beeping. I love it!
Very cool that the fridge has an alarm. Gotta love technology! 🙂
Sorry you lost the freezer items. I have to admit that I don’t really keep a stocked freezer because most of the time I can only afford to buy the food we are going to eat that week. Though I have lost food before due to a power outage and it stinks!
About a year ago our kids unplugged our second freezer so they could plug in a radion in the garage! Which is a big no-no….but to make it worse when they unplugged the radio to take it back upstairs the feezer never got plugged back in! I found it just in time that most things were basically thawed out….but still was able to do a mass cooking overnight (yes it was discovered at about 9pm! Meaning I was baking a turkey and boiling chicken and making tons of taco meat till about 3am!)! I was very mad….but kids were in bed by the time I found it and by the next morning when they woke up I was calmed down! Sure wish I had a tempurature sensor to let me know before it was all defrosted!
I keep waiting for more exciting posts about the new appliances 🙂 Tada!
Our garage fridge has one of the over the top freezer type things. Hate it. Small, but we originally only used it for bait fish. Then we didn’t fish for a while and now, its sort of my overflow freezer 🙂 You want bait fish, buy it the morning you are fishing as there is N O room in there. A few months back hubby had bought a bag of ice (for the cooler and party) and stuffed it in (on Friday night). Of course, the next morning, I go out there and first thing I see is the water stain (concrete floor of garage) and knew immediately what happened. The door popped open and as the ice melted, so did everything else. At least it was a good time to clean out the freezer (and fridge too with all that water). Yeah, I tossed a bunch of stuff, but also saved quite a bit too by cooking and then refreezing. Oh well. Live and learn. I’d love an alarm on every freezer and fridge in my house!
What a great feature to have! I’ve noticed our fridge slightly open before, but thankfully I caught it before any damage was done. 😉
Our son had a bad habit of turning the little lighted switch on the bottom of our freezer to ‘off’ – we covered the switch, locked the room, and kept a better eye on him – but is did it at least three more times resulting in tremendous loss. He was 3 at the time, and he was disciplined, but very very button focused! We got smart and got a freezer alarm and it was such a blessing! I love the alarm on our fridge – it has saved me many times! I hate it when I am cleaning the fridge though it does cause me to hurry hurry hurry!
We were able to salvage some things when our freezer power went off last, but quite a bit got ruined. 🙁 Thankfully, it hasn’t happened since!
When my husband was in college, he and two other fellows shared an apartment. They had a freezer attached to a light switch, which all of them understood must remain in the on position. During some holiday when they were all away, they lent the apartment to a friend who was having family in town. At some point, someone in the friend’s family switched the switch off.
When the guys returned, they noticed that the switch was off, but just thought one of them had just done it and so they turned it back on. Fastforward a few days. Someone goes in to get something out of the freezer (they had prior to the holiday, purchased a 1/4 or 1/2 cow from a local farmer). And there was a frozen block of solid rotten meat. UGH. They then had to let it all defrost… double ugh. The one roommate, a medical student, got a scarf/handkerchief and soaked it with cologne and wrapped it around his face and dove into the chest freezer to get the stuff. My husband was the one to run the garbage bags down the hall to the chute (I bet the super wasn’t happy about bags of rotting meat coming down the chute). Let’s just say the friend who borrowed the apartment has never lived down the infamy of turning off the switch.
Is it ok if I laughed out loud on this one. I can just imagine those bachelors trying to deal with this mess. UGH!!!
Yes, i Have had a freezer left open and came out to a ton of strawberry juice (because I had bags of berries in there…I’ve also lost meat)
We had (past tense, note that) a GE refrigerator at one time. It was a side by side, and the right side door -which was the fridge side- would sag down little by little and eventually sag so far down that the door would no longer hit the “light off” switch when closed. Several times, we woke up to find that the light had been on all night. Our milk was about 85 degrees, butter would be melted all the way down the inside of the door, etc. etc. Everything that wasn’t in a sealed, unopened container would have to be thrown out. I’m talking new condiments, new produce, new meat, cheese, eggs, EVERYTHING.
I now have a fridge with a beeping alarm like yours. I have never been so thankful for a new appliance before!
Several years ago my then 9 year old son unplugged the freezer in the garage to plug in a power tool (mistake # 1 & 2 combined!) Then he forgot to plug it back in… We had recently bought a half a beef (the only time we ever did that), & after a few DAYS there was a terrible smell in the garage… ALL of it spoiled!
We have a refrigerator now that has that “beep” feature!
oh Sandy – we buy the beef too and if we had just gotten ours, I would have been SO sad. Yep, the beef feature is AMAZING. 🙂
3 times, yes, 3 times in the past 7 years. Our freezer has become unplugged and we found out to late. All three times we had 1/4 of a cow in them!! We buy beef from my sister every year – and each time I have just about cried when we have had to throw out all that lovely organic beef!! But, at that point there is nothing you can do about it! The last time it happened just a few months ago we took the freezer to the dump……. end of sad story….
Yikes, this is the third comment that it happened right after someone bought beef. I would have been just like you….just about cried….especially organic. This time, the meat was my marked down, so it wasn’t as devastating.
freezer story very similar to Jenns husband.. About 8 years ago I talked my hubby into buying a whole half side of organic grass fed beef. Back then the best source for us was from a rancher who lived a few hours away. He hand delivered the cut and wrapped pieces. I was so excited..but storage was the issue.The plan was to turn our old side by side frig freezer into an entire freezer by drilling holes in between the walls… well that worked fine. The problem was the on off light switch on the wall of the garage operated the plug that the freezer was plugged into…. Don’t ask, funky wiring from a 1910 home. My husband unscrewed the overhead light and taped the light switch up in the on position, he informed us that noone was to turn the switch off and the reason why….long story short …the tape came off one day and the switch was accidently flipped down, lost three forths of the beef, never bought a side again. Thankful today for a beeping frig but miss having a holey freezer!
Rene’ xo
Oh, my goodness. I laughed, because the same thing just happened to us. We went on a spring break vacation and came home to discover that at some point the power went out to our freezer. (Side note: My guys had gone deer hunting this winter, and just a couple of weeks ago we had gotten back all the deer meat that my husband had taken to a great meat market here in town to be processed. Not cheap.) Everything had thawed, and then the power came back on and re-froze everything as it was. Mmm. You can imagine how disgisting that was. Deer blood frozen ALL OVER everything in the freezer, and the shelves, and the walls, and the door…My children and I spent an entire morning cleaning it up and bleaching out the freezer. It made us sad to lose all that food, but we just laughed and joked about it. It definitely made a memory! 🙂
Jennifer….DEER BLOOD!! Ok, THAT IS SO GROSS! and then to have it refreeze makes it almost worse. Next time…look for the beep feature. Seriously, it’s been amazing and I hate to admit it but I have heard it quite a few times just this week….lol
We left to go out of town for 10 days…left the freezer door open slightly and well…the result was nasty! It happened to be a VERY well stocked freezer as well. We lost hundreds of dollars of food and had quite the stench to come home to! A sensor would have been wonderful!
We live in greater Houston and lost power for almost two weeks after a hurricane a couple of years ago. The first day without power we and all of our neighbors pulled everything out of the fridge and freezer (that wouldn’t fit in a cooler – if you had ice!) and threw it on multiple grills. We had a great time and ate like kings and queens that night! The next day reality set in… being without power for extended periods of time really stinks.
Oh yes. We had an open-door incident in our garage freezer about a year ago. We lost everything. I was devastated. And oh!!! The mess!!! The melted popsicles, the meat, GROSS! The funniest part was the thawed and risen bread dough that filled every empty inch.
We lost power over the winter and our generator didn’t kick on right away. Mr. Momtrends had to amnually flick the switch to save the day and the contents of our fridge.