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This seems like a decent idea if the thing that's in your fridge is ice cream, but not if it's ingredients for cooking meals. Whoever does the cooking is going to spend a ton of time running up and down while stuff overcooks, and then they'll be even more tired and get more complaints from the rest of the family. So you should be absolutely sure that you have an equitable family dynamic and that everyone agrees that you do, before you try this.

Yeah, I can certainly appreciate the environmental and cost savings, but this would make me miserable. I could get myself the make the trip for ice cream, but the multiple runs back to the fridge while preparing food has me agitated just thinking about it.

you'll learn to plan your meals better. take everything out that you need before you start...

This is almost comedy for those with kids.

i have 3 kids. efficient meal preparation is quite important when your kids are hungry

"Refrigerate X while cooking Y, then remove X from fridge as Y begins to [something]," and variants of that phrase are common scenarios in recipes. Your point is only valid for a portion of recipes, not all.

Let's also take into account how many ingredients you may need from the fridge when you plan ahead. Certain meals may require multiple trips to/from the basement (however far away that may be) depending on how many - and the size of - ingredients involved.

Also, what mjmj said, re:kids.

Very few recipes involve taking stuff from the freezer repeatedly however, most things will need to thaw in advance. Making ice cream in a freezer in the basement would suck, however.

Not having the fridge readily available in the kitchen would suck, though, so that only works if you have a dedicated freezer.

There have already been two replies pointing out why this is a bad idea, but, why is this a good idea? Why is learning to plan your meals better (for... some definition of that term, which doesn't appear to be the usual one) worthwhile?

I cook often and, to OP's point, cooking can go a lot smoother if I spend a few extra minutes up front gathering all of my ingredients and prepping my workstation/workflow. That said, I also recognize that there are practical reasons for not always including every single item during said prep and making a few trips to the fridge during the cook.

thank you. exactly that.

You know people have limited capacity of hands and not everyone is cooking just for 1-2 people, right?

While this may be OK for single or couple without children, it's hard to imagine it for family with 4+ members.

exactly because of kids i am more frequently distracted, and for example just today i forgot one (optional) ingredient because i didn't collect all the ingredients at the start.

Perhaps a smaller L1 cache in the form of a mini-fridge could hold the prep for a given meal or even day or so in the kitchen, while keeping the cold storage cold storage downstairs.

Most mini fridges as atrociously inefficient, so that would negate a part of the upsides.

Eh, just get all the stuff you need before you start cooking, and bring a bag if necessary.

Planning really isn't that difficult. People do it all the time when they go to the grocery store.

My mother in law has a small freezer in the kitchen, and a bigger freezer in the basement.

That way she can load the cooking ingredients into the smaller kitchen freezer before cooking, can keep most of the stock in the basement.

Best of both world, assuming you're sufficiently organized to actually remember to move the stuff to the kitchen in advance, and not forget half of it :-)

This is how my grandparents did it too. Eastern europeans, so it was more like two basement fridges and a freezer full of frozen meat and herbs.

That’s a clever idea!

I’m not sure how practical it is, however. The first problem that popped into my mind was that the stove would often be unattended while I ran downstairs to grab something I forgot from the fridge.

> That’s a clever idea!

> I’m not sure how practical it is, however. The first problem that popped into my mind was that the stove would often be unattended while I ran downstairs to grab something I forgot from the fridge.

I often leave the stove unattended whilst I check the grill outside. So long as it's less than a few minutes (and you have a fire extinguisher on hand in the kitchen—as one always should), there shouldn't be a problem in most circumstances.

What kind of stoves do you guys use where this is a risk? Guessing it's not induction?

in the US natural gas stoves are very common. There is some risk when frying on high heat that you could start an oil fire... Never used induction but gas offers very fine control of heat with a nice stove, especially compared to electric which relies on radiant heat from a coil and cannot change temperatures rapidly

Inductions are electric and does not have the issues you mention. But I see. For some reason natural gas didn't pop up in my head. Where I live nobody use those.

I used gas for 20 years, then induction for 10.

Induction wins everywhere (reproducibility of heat, speed to heat, ease of cleaning...)

The only thing I miss a tiny bit from gas is the ability to tilt a pan to have oil gather in a puddle to deep fry something small.

Other than that everytime I use gas I long for induction.

+1 for induction. Gas heats up the handles pretty fast, too.

And not only handles, on a summer day the kitchen can become warm pretty fast when cooking with gas. Assuming no AC of course.

I had induction for nearly a decade and am now back on gas. I miss the ease of cleaning that induction offers, and the efficiency for things like boiling water. [1]

But if you use woks or other vessels that do not entirely touch the stovetop surface, gas is better. I made fried rice the other day on my gas stove, and it was a completely different experience than induction. The sides of the wok just heat up so much more than with induction.

Of course, it's a huge pain to clean all the tiny grains of rice that drop onto the stovetop. I wish kitchens had dual stovetops, with maybe 2 gas burners and the rest induction. But I've never seen a home like that; even high-end homes have either a nice gas range or an induction ranges.

fun fact: Menlo Park recently outlawed gas for new constructions. I imagine most folks will go to induction, which has previously been relatively rare here.

1: https://www.pcrichard.com/library/blogArticle/induction-vs-g...

Bosch for example has a modular system where you can mix and match technologies. They have a 6 kW gas burner available in it [1] which can be matched up with a nice induction top [2].

[1] https://www.bosch-home.co.uk/product-list/PRA326B70E [2] https://www.bosch-home.co.uk/product-list/PXY675DE3E

I have had the opposite experience with speed to heat.

I also like the ability to modulate heat very quickly by raising, lowering, or tilting the pan.

Induction sucks at making you have reasonable utility bills though.

I don't know. I pay <50€ of electricity bills every month for an appartment and family of 4.

I do not remember paying much less before induction, but I do not remember.

This is not a big issue for me, though

I've had direct on coil and behind glass induction, and vastly prefer gas. I get way more heat, like far too much at max, on the gas stove, which is a good thing because I can actually control the level of heat output, rather than just the length of the oscillations between on/off on the induction stove. I have a few steel pans and a few cast irons, and for all of them the gas stove heats more evenly, offers finer control of the heat level, and can reach a much higher heat faster than any of the three induction stoves I've had the pleasure of renting over the years, some brand new. Gas ovens are better too, all the electric ovens I've had ran cold relative to the indicated temp, which meant changing cooking times and temps, and had a pretty embarrassing broil setting compared to what you have on gas (a proper inferno)

Sure, you have to take off the grates to clean, but after you spend those 10 seconds to remove the grates its no harder wiping crusted food off of a flat steel surface than a flat glass one.

I found induction lacking in one specific aspect: wokking.

Can't toss a wok, and the lack of convection heating means the sides of the wok get pretty cold.

If you leave a pan with oil on the induction stove and then "quickly check the mail in the other room while it heats up" you might come back to an unpleasant surprise of burning oil...

Turn down the burner as much as you can, or even off.

My three year olds can trivially turn the burners up, or pull the pans down.

that is a child problem not a stove problem

Ok? No one was debating which of those categories it fell in. In either case it's a "don't leave it unattended" problem.

As an additional benefit, since any fridge or freezer generates waste heat on its 'warm' side (the room itself), the additional heat from the freezer will rise from the basement into the rest of the house. As compared to if you had a freezer on the 3rd floor of a tall/narrow town house, all that the heat would do is rise towards the ceiling and attic.

I would not advocate for moving a fridge to the basement just because of the hassle and back and forth trips involved. But if I had a dedicated top-opening chest freezer, sure.

This is only a benefit during cold seasons or in colder regions of the world.

That's true, but having a fridge in your house is going to generate waste heat no matter what climate you live in. Just a question of what you do with it.

With centralized forced air air conditioning it helps in the summer too, because it reduces the temperature gradient inside the house.

From what i'v read, freezers are designed to be placed in ambient temperature greater than +10C.

There are specificially designed freezers that can withstand up to -15C ambient temp: https://home.liebherr.com/en/lva/products/household-applianc...

A guy on the phone that sells used freezers told me that compressor has some liquid that gets thicker when temperature drops below X and compressor has to work harder.

The other reason i'v read somewhere is related to compressor not maintaining stable temperature, won't turn on when needed etc.

These may be false statements and I ask for some guidance from professionals - is that the case? I understand when temp may fall below 0, you need some special freezer. Liebherr guy assured me any of their freezers will work OK as long as it is > 0C. But he couldn't tell about other manufacturer freezers.

As i'm in the process of buying a freezer that has to work in basement, could someone chime in please? Is Liebherr my only option?

Uhh, if your basement frequently gets below 0 °C, you have far bigger problems than the freezer. This should normally not happen unless you're living somewhere in the Arctic.

I have a dedicated garage with basement that is detached from home. I still have to see what temp there is in winter.

Unless you're in deep Canada, any basement should always be deep enough stay above the frost line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_line

Why would you keep running the freezer when the ambient temp is freezing?

"Freezing" and "freezer cold" aren't the same temperature - I'd generally consider "freezing" to be about 0°C, where a freezer should be at most -18°C in order to stop food from spoiling.

I have a Beko upright freezer that the documentation states is fine until -10C. Probably around half the price of a similar Liebherr.

Thanks. Looks like Beko makes -15 freezers too. https://www.beko.co.uk/appliances/refrigerators/freezers/out...

Pity that they are nowhere to be found where I live.

Also, get a chest freezer. They are much more efficient.

Every time you open a standing freezer, the cold air "false out", since cold air is more dense than warm air. The chest freezer on the other hand will hold the cold air in place.

They are more efficient in keeping the food frozen. But they are less efficient in getting the food out of it. This is how you find 5 year old products at in the bottom of the freezer when you finally clean it up.

That's an organization problem, not a freezer problem. In my field, we go vertical on the horizontal freezer:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/j3SL_cL0MF9c3ASG-LfR...

Unfortunately, the link doesn't work - and I was looking forward to seeing how you organize a horizontal freezer vertically because I have the 'black hole' problem...

Sounds like a good idea in theory, in practice though, nowadays very few people have a house with a basement like that anymore, unfortunately. I don't get it myself to be honest, it's more efficient use of the ground surface area a house occupies.

I'd go with a chest freezer in the basement and a small fridge in the kitchen for frequently used / quick access stuff (milk, tonight's dinner ingredients).

Yeah, you don't really want to run down to the basement every time you want some ice cubes or cream for your coffee.

But that's more or less what I do. I have a (not small) fridge in the kitchen and an upright freezer in the basement. (I find chest freezers can become something of a black hole.)

When I had a 48-hour power outage recently, the freezer upstairs was pretty much defrosted--which was mostly fine because I didn't have perishable meat/fish up there. But the freezer downstairs was fine. (Made a point of keeping it buttoned up the whole time.)

> nowadays very few people have a house with a basement like that anymore

It depends on where you live, and the type of ground underneath you. Where I live, everyone has a basement.

They're probably referring to an unfinished basement vs. a finished one.

An unfinished basement is still adequate for storing a freezer. Unless by "unfinished" you mean one without walls or a floor.

I meant the opposite. I do indeed have a (very) unfinished basement that gets a bit wet with a freezer. Many people won't want a freezer in their downstairs living room. At least that's how I took the comment.

My basement is 80% finished, but the freezer lives in the unfinished part. But "unfinished" is relative, I still have concrete floors and walls with insulation on the walls, just no sheetrock and bare rafters on the ceiling.

Is the efficiency benefit bigger than getting a different model or taping some styrofoam to the outside of the fridge?

I’d hazard a guess that most of the losses are from when you open the door and the seal around the door. Also while cooler than ambient my fridge and freezer don’t feel cool to the touch so I think that the walls are thick enough.

Otherwise fridges and freezers would ship with thicker insulation.

if they are cooler than ambient (cool on touch) - it'd cause condensation.

Even 1-2 degrees difference can waste a lot of watts over such a big surface, and would be difficult to perceive.

There's a tradeoff between thicker insulation and space in the freezer

Putting the fridge in the basement probably leads to you opening the door less.

What about the calories used to travel up and down the stairs by multiple family members?

Say over a month you burn enough calories to eat an extra steak to make up the energy lost, would the environment be better or worse off?

What about time lost? Say you wasted an extra hour or two every fortnight just getting to and from the fridge, what if instead you had read a book or worked on your hobbies? Would you be happier? Would your family be happier having an extra hour of time every fortnight?

Would you use the same reasoning against exercising?