greenspree.ca at The Sietch

When deciding to go with a chest fridge for our future strawbale home one thing that came up was comfort and convenience. Having to reach down to the bottom of a chest freezer for items on a daily basis seemed a bit of a chore and having sliding tray on top so access to the bottom is unimpeded presents efficiency problems.

My first theoretical solution was to create a couple of racks of baskets attached to slim counter weights on some sort of frame inside the freezer and raise each rack up to access items under the top rack. Sketching of said system revealed a lot of fabrication, moving parts and complexities that would greatly increase the likelihood procrastination in it’s developement!

My second thought was to create the racks centered on a hollow steel pipe pillarwith a second capped sleeve over top and a gas charged lift arm from a hatchback or something to assist in lifting and locking the rack in place. This seemed perfectly simple and easily constructed and I excitedly ventured to my local u-pull autosalvage yard to get some prototype lift arms. This revealed an interesting fact, lift arms on car hatches, trunks, engine bonnets and rear doors all seem to fall within the 10-12″ extension range no matter the size or weight of the door. My plans called for at least an extension of 24″ to be truly effective and this sent me dejectedly back to the drawing boards after briefly toying with the idea o fusing two arms staged to provide 20-24″. When I really looked at that option critically it seemed like far too complicated.

So this brings me to option 3, not worrying about it till we try out the fridge as is with stardar baskets. Unless someone can point me in the right direction, I have too many other critical decisions and steps on the house this summer to give it much more thought right now. So leave a coment or send me an e-mail if you have any ideas!