Spooky Freezer Failure

[ShannonG]

Yup soooooo,this morning i return to the studio after a long labor day weekend to find a massive amount of water surrounding my Fridge/freezer that i keep my paper and film in.(yup i didn't close the freezer door all the way on Friday) The whole freezer defrosted and there was water every ware inside and on the floor.all my materials were in plastic bags which were soaked.40 boxes of paper (5X7 to 11X14) lots of them are retro like brovera and ecktaluer,along with new paper like illford gallery and such.as well as 11X14 film,4X5 film ,35mm,and 120..Quickly got the materials out and wiped down the bags but some bags leaked which made the boxes soggy.Took some of them in the darkroom to check and all is well.But man o man i so did have visions of loosing my stash,some of these papers are irreplaceable,and i prize my stock.Think i lost one box of illford RC tho.I think i dodged a bullet here , man I was frantic there for awhile.
Anny one else got a disaster story or close to disaster story with materials?
thanks for hearing my story..

[Tin Can]

That's why I don't freeze good film. I only freeze old out of date film.

I refrigerate new normal film and x-Ray is too big to worry about. It also says on the box keep it between 50-75F and 30-50RH.

Modern reefer units are not reliable. Even million $ units fail all the time. We needed 6 of those to keep 2 online.

[ShannonG]

yup yup,some were in the freezer(the older ones )newer ones are in the fridge section.it tends to get hot in my studio here in Iowa mid summer.got a neer disaster story?
That's why I don't freeze good film. I only freeze old out of date film.

I refrigerate new normal film and x-Ray is too big to worry about. It also says on the box keep it between 50-75F and 30-50RH.

Modern reefer units are not reliable. Even million $ units fail all the time. We needed 6 of those to keep 2 online.

[Luis-F-S]

I've had film frozen for years, it's a vertical freezer, so if the door is left open, any water just drains out the bottom. I've had film frozen in it since 1985 and the freezer's worked fine!

[Tin Can]

yup yup,some were in the freezer(the older ones )newer ones are in the fridge section.it tends to get hot in my studio here in Iowa mid summer.got a neer disaster story?

The only film I have frozen is 400 sheets of 8x10 slide film from an obvious freezer failure at a Chicago pro lab that went digi and forgot the film. Most was still sealed and remains so, but the opened boxes were garbage, as the sheets all stuck together no matter how I tried to save them. In the end I just threw out all opened boxes and a bunch of ruined 8x10 Polaroid. That was a darn shame.

Even the sealed 12 year old Fuji and Kodak Tungsten film will be tested soon. As soon as water temp peaks here...

[ShannonG]

yup thats what mine is ,,vertical.the water drained down to the lower section onto the newer papers.but some packages in the upper part had water as well dripping from the ceiling.some of my papers have a exasperation date of 1972
I've had film frozen for years, it's a vertical freezer, so if the door is left open, any water just drains out the bottom. I've had film frozen in it since 1985 and the freezer's worked fine!

[Jody_S]

I now have a woodworking clamp holding my bar fridge closed. Had a small air leak at the bottom that caused the freezer compartment to block up with ice, ruining the box (only) of some old 4x5 film. Everything is now stored in plastic bags as well, except for what's in the door of the fridge.

I could use a bigger fridge/freezer, this one only holds about 1/3 of what I have, and I've taken over as much as my wife will allow of our chest freezer.

[Jim Jones]

A deep freezer failed and wiped out several boxes of film, despite their being in plastic bags. Much worse was a 20x40 outbuilding burning down with a darkroom, maybe 1600 rolls of developed 35mm film, two enlargers, antique radios and tubes, a fairly versatile little machine shop, and lots of junk. To add insult to injury, the total loss was a few hundred dollars too little for an income tax exemption. Oh well, maybe it was time to move on to something new.

[Bob Salomon]

Monte Zucker and Clay Blackmore shot my daughter's wedding. They did a remarkable job starting before the ceremony with the pre-bridal shower, the actual ceremony, the entire reception and some after the affair shots as well as the departure shots. As with all of his jobs he did not allow others to try to shoot what he and Clay shot.

After they left he sent the film out for processing and unlike his normal practice, which was to only show proofs to the bride and family in his Silver Springs, MD studio he had mailed us the proofs since none of us lived near him and getting everyone to have time to all visit at once would have been too difficult to arrange, so he mailed us the proofs.

The day after we received the proofs the spray booth in his studio caught on fire and burned the studio down. That included all of his negatives, including ours. The only way that we could get wedding albums was to copy and enlarge the proofs!

[John Kasaian]

Yes, only not in a freezer but in a cool dry place----an unused guest bathroom. A pipe broke and adios'ed all my 16x20 Brovira and some other irreplaceable papers. Ironically (or most fortunately,) my AZO was in a freezer in the garage and survived unscathed.

[Drew Wiley]

A cool place in Fresno??? I thought you folks slept in freezers there!

[ShannonG]

Crazy replies,,,keep em comin

[Luis-F-S]

...the water drained down to the lower section onto the newer papers.but some packages in the upper part had water as well dripping from the ceiling.some of my papers have a exasperation date of 1972

You keep the good stuff towards the top in plastic bags, and the food on the bottom. In 25 yrs I've never had an issue, though I guess you can mess anything up if you try hard enough!

[Kirk Gittings]

While on vacation one year, I had a pinhole develop in a copper pipe that sprayed this perfect arc of water across my darkroom directly onto an archival storage box with important developed film.......

[Jmarmck]

Never had freezer problems but I have never kept enough film and paper around long enough to freeze. I did have a problem with rats in a dry darkroom many years ago. Ate through a 250 sheet box of 8x10 poly rc paper and got into the rc filters. Who woulda thunk rats liked that stuff. I had problems with a bulk loader once, some square affair that the side kept poping off ruining the entire bulk roll. It made the trip to the dumpster via a hard impact with a wall. The Noblex is really bad about the back popping open. The latch on the side can work loose. It is a wonder the camera has not taken a long trip off some cliff.

[Drew Wiley]

I had a close call recently when my wife stuffed a big rack of frozen pork ribs into my darkroom freezer right against my packs of 20x24 dye transfer matrix film, something irreplaceable. I emphasize close call because that particular type of film is high-relief and very sensitive to pressure. But it escaped damage - barely.