Two years ago, we were moving to our newly purchased home from our rented accomodation. Our rented house had come fully furnished, so with the exception of the baby furniture and a few other minor bits of equipment, we had to go a-hunting for things to furnish our new home with. Even at charity shop and second hand eBay prices, this would be terribly expensive, so I will hold my hand up and admit that after offloading all our unwanted clothes and "stuff" via Freecycle, I shamelessly accepted various goods that we needed. Okay, so I did not expect things like a 10 year old freezer and a 12 year old washer to be the most energy efficient or to last forever, but hey they worked and were free, so we would have the use of the goods until we could shell out for something better.

I wanted a large capacity upright freezer, one that I could use to fit an entire month's worth of groceries in when used in tandem with my fridge freezer. I do literally mean an entire month's worth, too. I buy absolutely everything in one go, including fresh milk and bread, all which go into the freezer. I wanted the freezer to be frost free so that I could avoid the faff of defrosting it, and I wanted it A rated. In addition, I knew I wanted a Hotpoint or Whirlpool, having experienced the very best of customer service previously when needing a repair from these two companies, not to mention the low cost of out of warranty repair by an engineer.

There is also a warning light visible above the door. When it flashes, the manual says that it emans the contents have gotten to warm and to throw them out. Personal experience though tells me to check first. We have to early primary school aged children who frequently go get new loaves and bread and what not out of the freezer and do not shut the door properly from time to time. This means it lets all the nice cold air out, which means it gets warmer than the desired internal temperature inside. The reality of the warning light is that as soon as that internal temperature drops below what it is set for, the light comes on. So it blinks long before the food is actually defrosted, which has been a life saver for us as we have been able to catch it before any harm was done.

Now, I have this in my utility room, but not everyone has such a space. I can hand on heart say that if you want to sit this baby in your kitchen or a hallway, it will not draw attention with its humming. It runs silently, free of the gurgles and rumbles so often heard with frost free refrigerators and freezers. I can also tell you that the A rating made a noticeable difference in our electricity bill, so it started paying us back already in more ways than one. I opted for polar white, but you can also get this in a silver finish to complement such a decorating scheme. It is available at most places selling large appliances, but if you are unlikely to have that much cash in one go like us, I can tell you we purchased this for about the same price as everywhere else from Littlewoods and took advantage of the interest free payment option.