Anyone bought a Red Shed freezer??

we are urgently need a chest freezer as we presently have 1/2 a cattle beast spread between our house and my Mums as we dont have a big freezer....and we are swimming in fruit and veggies that we would normally freeze but cant get in the freezer on our fridge as its full of meat...

Have been looking for something about 300 t0 500 litres for a household of 2 adults and the dogs and cats...

wondered how the Red Shed freezers stack up against other brands ???? Elba (Fisher & P) are expensive and Im not keen on F & P brand as we had endless trouble with a fridge made by them....

Any suggestions as to other freezer brands welcome

Yakut did I think - had problems, can't remember what - PM her. Another friend also bought one and it had an issue with the seal

Consumer recommend the following upright chest freezers on efficiency, temperature performance, insulation, cool-down and ease of use (as of July 2009):

Elba (F+P) RC160CW - $749 ($64 annual running costs)
Elba (F+P) RC220XW - $949 ($67 annual running costs)
Haier HFC208A - $749 ($57 annual running costs), couldn't find this one for sale in NZ, although Haier freezers are available.

The Elba range is available in quite a few sizes, up to 699 litres ($2099).

Never buy anything from the red place if we can find it anywhere else.

We have a Simpson 320 from about thirteen years ago and a Westinghouse (which appears to have been made to approximately the same pattern, so I presume the same manufacturer?) 600, bought last year when we had the last beast done and already had loads of bacon, pork, turkey etc. frozen and suddenly needed more room.

We had ongoing problems with F&P fridge (and a number more caused by the local fix-it agents at the time, Brents Electrical; that's a local friendly warning: don't go near them!) I would be cautious about F&P when we next replace any appliance.

A deep freeze would be one of the last things I would buy from the Ware Whare. All well and good getting free replacement of the El-cheepo freezer when it stops working but that's not much help with the spoilt contents of said freezer

Goes to touch wood quick As we have had our Red Shed cheap chest freezer for 4 years now and it's still going good

We decided to go budget as we couldn't afford upwards of $1000 for a chest freezer that really doesn't get a lot of use like our everyday freezer. Which is an upright Westinghouse.

We have the Elba range of dishwasher and it's been fantastic, would definitely go for other appliance in that range.

Not sure if Bosch does a chest freezer but they're a great make as is Miele.

We've had ours four or five years and had no problems.

At the time it was only going to be an interim solution but it fits in the laundry quite nicely and has to date behaved impeccably.

(must admit I don't worry too much about appliances misbehaving as husband has the knowledge and the ticket to fix that sort of stuff)

What about a second hand one? Freezers have quite a long life expectancy. We have an 18 year old F&P and never had any trouble. It just goes. Anything F&P older than 10 years should be fine.

I, too, wouldn't go anywhere near a new F&P appliance. We've had too much trouble with the stuff we bought during the last 10 years.

We have owned many F&P Freezers over the years, and never had the slightest problem with any of them. Some of the newer Fridges are not so good, as others have said, but the Upright or Chest Freezers can last up to 20 years or more. We have an old Fridge/Freezer bought brand new in 1978 and it's still going perfectly, never missed a beat.

All of our current Freezers are F&P: One upright, and 2 Chest Freezers (360L + 510L). The two Chest Freezers were bought second-hand off TradeMe and are now between 5 and 10 years old. Never had a problem with any of them.

I would be very loath to touch any fridge or freezer from the Red Sheds, or for that matter from Haier (these are made in China).

Yeah, we bought one... useless! Check the seals! Our one never ever sealed... well not unless you put something heavy on top of it. It is now empty and turned off and I use the top of it for sorting out the feed bins. It iced up so badly the lid lifted up. Trouble is, they are usually sold in the box so unless you open it up and take out the packing, you're not going to know if it's sealing properly.

Kim has also started telling the checkout operator not to bother taking DVD's out of their cases so they can show us there is no damage. Some of them take the disc out, show you then try and put the DVD back in with a lot of shuffling the disc about.

It's a bit of a lucky dip buying anything from there, especially if it's in a box. We bought a barbecue ages ago, just one of those kettle charcoal burning ones. Kim started putting it together but couldn't match up the holes to bolt it.... the holes had been drilled in the wrong place on one of the legs so it had to be taken apart and repacked and taken back. Pain in the......... The new one is now awaiting a trip to the rubbish dump.... it rusted out really fast and fell apart.

I'd look around and check out second hand ones from reputable dealers. So many ripoff artists out there now. Just check the seals!

Yakut

Yep I brought one about 12 months ago...all good so far. Only thing is it only has a 2 1/2 star energy rating.

GrantK;306337 wrote: We have owned many F&P Freezers over the years, and never had the slightest problem with any of them. Some of the newer Fridges are not so good, as others have said, but the Upright or Chest Freezers can last up to 20 years or more. We have an old Fridge/Freezer bought brand new in 1978 and it's still going perfectly, never missed a beat.

All of our current Freezers are F&P: One upright, and 2 Chest Freezers (360L + 510L). The two Chest Freezers were bought second-hand off TradeMe and are now between 5 and 10 years old. Never had a problem with any of them.

I would be very loath to touch any fridge or freezer from the Red Sheds, or for that matter from Haier (these are made in China).

About 7 or 8 years ago F&P switched to parts made in China, Thailand or Indonesia - wherever they can get it made cheapest. A serviceman told us - that's why F&P whiteware is now difficult to buy without buying the extended warranty as well. F&P now puts a life span of 5 years on their dishwashers (because of all the moving parts). European manufacturers put a 15 year life span on their products. Our old F&P diswasher lasted well over 20 years, the new one is 6 or 7 years old now and I've lost count of how often we've had to have it repaired. Some things never worked properly and we were just told to put up with it - like the timer where 1 hour 42 minutes are more than 3 hours long[}] To their credit I have to say that they didn't charge us for the repairs even after the guarantee had run out. But this is little comfort when the seals didn't work and the kitchen got a good flooding. Our cupboards are made from MDF and particle board and some of it is now permanently swollen[}]

Our F&P fridge needed new seals after less than a year, the veggie bins dissolved where there was contact with unwrapped courgettes, the drawers of the freezer fall apart each time I pull one out and one makes a horrible noise every now and then.

Our stove needed the fan bake element replaced after less than a year and this was the last F&P appliance we have bought - promise.

I have an underbench freezer that came from Kmart (Mistral brand) have owned it for years and its great and was inexpensive but better than what Warehouse had on offer. Don't know if you've got kmart there or if they still seel some appliances but could be worth looking at.

I'd watch the energy efficiency pretty closely. I remember when they had that program on about reducing your carbon footprint.. and the presenter said that paying a bit extra and buying something thats more energy efficient soon pays for itself with a smaller power bill. So if you do buy second hand, try to get something that's 'modern' in its power consumption figures.

When we were looking around for a new freezer, I found the F&P ones to be highly overpriced. I ended up getting a Westinghouse Chest freezer, and Mitsubishi fridge with a freezer draw and a separate vege draw (awesome fridge). And couldn't be happier. It was definately worth shopping around and asking about deals for cash. Tip - also ask them if delivery is free before telling them them that you live in the wopwops.
When the dishdrawer (waste of space) broke yet again, I got a Baumatic, I love this dishwasher, it was significantly cheaper than most other brands, has great capacity, and cleans really well - melts plastic LOL. My only gripe is that the bottom tray falls off its runner sometimes when loaded up, this also happened with the old F&P that we had at the previous house, so isn't really a biggie.

I bought a cheap one from Harvey Normans -Acqua brand (approx 400l) - Norman Ross also stocks them. Goes well enough and probably saving me $20-30/month electricity compared to the old leonard that I used to have . Had a problem at first with the seals but they came out and fixed it no problem - nothing major they just readjusted the screws on the hinge at the back.