Solution for Freezer Won't Stay Closed

I doubt I'm the only one, but I remember rather fondly having to pull a handle on a refrigerator to get it to open.  Mind you, I was a child, and this was my grandmother's refrigerator.  I did end up buying one - temporarily - while on campus in college.  I think I spent something like $50 to buy this refrigerator which I expected to own forever - or that was the theory because it became an artistic and linguistic endeavor.  Or so I imagined it did when my friends started signing and writing statements/sayings on the thing when we were bored.  

But as the technology has evolved (and become somewhat less reliable, I note), that latch went the way of the dodo.  Or, kids, that means it's not all that popular any longer.  And for me, it became somewhat more necessary.  As in, I needed something to do it, because I had a freezer in the garage which might see a visitor several times a day - or not hardly at all.  So there was a challenge for me.  

Because I'm one of those folks who like to figure it out and solve it themselves, I was somewhat frustrated.  You can't exactly drill into the sides of the thing and mount a latch because the sides may be where the tubing runs that contains the ... well, cold stuff.  Back "in the day" it used to be freon, until we learned how terrible that could be to our future existence.  Now it's a similarly cold ... gas/fluid thing, I guess.  But let's get back on track.

I happen to be cursed as one of those people who lives in a suburban metro area.  By "cursed" I mean to say that within three minutes (by car) I have a big box home improvement store, a pair of auto parts stores, and a Harbor Freight.  If we extend that to ten minutes driving distance, or in other words it might take me a half-hour to walk it, I have a fully stocked hardware store, another big box home improvement retailer, and four more auto parts stores.

Which means for me that I have a number of potential sources for solutions, or stores full of things that I didn't know I needed.  Which is how I solved the problem of having the freezer pop open.

So should you not be anywhere near a Harbor Freight store, I'm sorry.  I've also got a Northern Tool store, along with their headquarters, so I have quite a number of options.  Options I try to stay away from most of the time because I can always walk into one of these places and drop $50 on useful things and find several winning lottery tickets worth of things that might be useful if I decided I needed to . . . . ...  You get the idea.

In order to solve my freezer problem, I ended up using four items.  Unfortunately, they came from three different stores.  Fortunately, they came from three different stores over several years, so I happened to have them on hand when the inspiration struck.  The key parts being a couple of magnetic tool bars I found at Harbor Freight.  I've seen them as expensive as $4.99 for a pair, but one day I was in there and they had a "dump display" in the middle of an aisle where you could get them for $0.99 each.  I'm no fool, having some heavy-duty magnets can always come in handy, so in addition to their magnetic part trays, and undoubtedly other things, I picked up a batch.

To keep my freezer closed, I got smart.  I applied one to the side of the freezer, running horizontally.  Another on the door, also horizontal.  I added a "split ring".  That's the technical name for the ring you put keys on - you can put them on, or take them off.  I have other small rings that can be opened by pulling them, which is exactly what I did NOT want.  I applied the split ring to the bar on the side of the freezer, and to that, I added a $0.99 caribiner - you know, the loop of metal with a spring-opening that normally stays closed, and comes from the mountaineering class of equipment?  Yup.  I am about 20 minutes from an REI, so I suppose I probably could have found one that I could use for legitimate climbing, but I didn't need that much strength.  I needed something with a large enough opening to loop over the end of one of the bars.  

Which is where we get to the end of the story.  I arranged the two bars so that they're about at mouth level.  That is, they're just below the eye level for me, so I don't smack myself in my glasses.  Or eyes, I suppose.  The door magnetic bar sticks about 3/4" over the edge.  Or if you're not sure how far, think about the distance of the width of your thumb.  That's right.  Most of the bar is on the door, a little bit extends beyond the edge.  On the side of the freezer, I attached the bar with the carabiner at very much the same height, and the carabiner extends just far enough to slip over the end of the bar on the door.

And then I close the freezer, and check.  If the door pops open due to over stuffing, I first try to rearrange things to keep the freezer closed.  Sometimes it just didn't work.  So then I relied on my solution, by first closing the door with as much pressure as it requires (provided it doesn't pop the door off it's hinges), and then I slip the carabiner over the end and then push the bar on the SIDE of the freezer back until it keeps the freezer door closed.

Sure, it's a half-assed solution, but it also occurred to me that it would work well to keep a refrigerator closed in a house full of toddlers, or smart dogs, who learned where all the good food is.  It doesn't have to require extensive strength to keep it closed, sometimes it's just there in case someone "bumps it open".  My solution cost me about $2.75 (The magnetic bars were 99¢ each, the carabiner came in a 99¢ two-pack, and the smaller split ring was 19¢ at the hardware store.  Plus tax for all of those, as YMMV.

But I figured I spend so much time pissing and moaning here, it might be a good idea to drop the occasional useful tip.  

My other useful tip for the day probably is a bit late, because I put the hoses up about 3 weeks ago, but I learned a long, long time ago that you need to get the water out.  I wasn't smart enough as a kid to realize this, but now, as I have my very own hose cart (yeah, I wanted one, wanted to even build one, but never did, as my father thought it was silly), I need to keep those hoses empty of water when they get stored in the garage over the winter.  Why?  Well, water freezes, expands, and then things get ... difficult.  Like broken.  

My simple "make sure the hose is completely drained" trick comes from the tree right over the lowest part of my back yard.  I have three garden hoses, so my wife can get the water from the spigot in the back yard all the way out to the mailbox in the front yard.  Granted, this is only about 80 feet straight line, but I have two 25 foot hoses and one 50 foot.  And they work.

What I do when I'm ready to put them away, I disconnect the one end from the spigot, which is actually in the lowest part of the yard.   I take that end and haul it up the five-foot embankments to the tree and loop it over the lowest branch, which is about 8 feet above the ground.  Before I toss the hose up there, I find the other end and remove what ever device I have - sprinkler, or hand sprayer device - so the hose is now open, end to end.

After I toss the "spigot end" (this is the female end of the hose up and over the tree branch, I take it AND the other end of the hose down into the lowest part of the yard.  Water starts to flow.  I attach the spigot end of the hose to the cart, because the cart I got could be used to store the hose while you're using it.  But it also has an open end to connect to a spigot. 

So with both ends of the hose down in the lowest part of the yard, I start reeling it up.  This is usually where having two people really helps.  One person cranks the reel, while the other manages the hose.  I will pull the entire hose into the lower part of the yard, because if there's any water in it at all, the height - a height difference of roughly 15 feet from the highest part of the hose down to the bottom of the back yard where most of the "undrained" hose is collected.  

Once water starts flowing, it comes pretty quick.  The trick is height.  All of the hose goes over the lower branch of the tree, and gravity pulls the water that's there down into the back yard.  I once used a garden hose to fully drain a king-sized water bed from a third-story window.  That took a lot more trickery.  I connected the then-new garden hose to the water bed, and took the other end of the hose and the new nozzle I'd bought, into the bathroom.  I connected the hose to the bathroom water faucet and turned it on.  This pushed a lot of air into the bed - an entire hose worth - but once my wife saw water flowing into the bed we were trying to empty, she told me.  I shut off the water, brought a towel into the bedroom, and disconnected the hose.  I held the hose up high, so as little water as possible leaked out, while she "burped" the water bed.  This got all the air out.  

Once that was done, we reconnected the hose.  I went into the bathroom, ran a little more water into the water bed, then shut it off, disconnected the hose from the faucet and quickly connected the nozzle - making sure it was closed tight.  The less air, the better.  I then went into the bedroom and took the hose, had her hold on tight to the end in the water bed, while I took it to the balcony and dropped the nozzle end off the balcony - NOT over the railing, but as low as possible on the deck, then went downstairs.  

At the nozzle end of the hose, I kinked the hose, and removed the nozzle.  And stood back.  Anyone who's ever filled a king-sized water bed knows just how long it can take.  Our waterbed emptied in about five minutes.  I had replaced that mattress some years before, and moved it a number of times after using a suction pump to empty it - which never really worked completely.  But this worked so well the mattress was crushed flat.  It was easy to fold and move to the house.  Where the cat claws did it in, eventually, but it was comfortable to sleep on for most of that time.  I enjoyed it.  

So good luck!