My understanding is that the frost free freezers have a heating element built into the wall that kicks in at a regular interval and allows them to melt the frost off the wall.

Frost free are going to use a little bit more electricity to run the heating element, this is why the efficiency is a bit lower.


Having had both I would not even consider one that was not frost free. It’s a real pain to dig all that ice off the side of the freezer, you have to take all the food out, power down the freezer, remove the water somehow. And like Herb said, you have to do something with the food while this is going on. As time goes on, you loose food storage space with a non frost free freezer because defrosting is a real pain to do and you put it off and all the sudden you have 3-inches of ice on all the walls that’s displacing food space. This will happen as everyone hates to defrost a freezer.

PS Don’t take the shortcut of chipping it off with a hammer and screwdriver, this is a great way to have to buy a new freezer when you slip and punch a Freon line.