We're considering moving about 13 hours away.
Buckets, boxes, and cans will be heavy and tiresome to move but what about freezers?
We currently have 3 small freezers full. Do we sell them and replace once moved?
I can't think of any way to move all of this frozen meat for 13 hours short of a reefer truck.
Any insights?

I’d cherry pick the steaks and other expensive cuts of meat. Get a couple of coolers and dry ice. Maybe donate the rest to a soup kitchen or neighbors if you know them.

Move in winter?
Freezers are just starting to come back into inventory but are not very cheap, so i'd try to keep the ones I have. Are you moving in one trip or making multiple runs? Could get it in coolers with ice and survive that long. Dry ice for sure. I'm assuming you're like most of us and have wound up with more coolers than you know what to do with.

You could buy an inverter, plug it into your truck battery, and power the freezers during the trip.  Although realistically, you may not even need that.  If they are full of hard frozen stuff, they may not thaw in 13+ hours.  Maybe get a refrigerator thermometer and monitor them during the drive.  If they start to thaw, stop somewhere and buy a couple of bags of ice to throw on top to slow it down.

Two days prior at least, set the thermostats on full send.  Get them as cold as possible.  Load them up on truck or trailer the evening before.  Plug them in still at full send overnight with some stout extension cords.  Unplug before pulling out of the driveway and go.  Plug them in immediately upon arrival to give time to decide where to locate.  13 hours will be fine.  If you're worried, get some bulk dry ice and pack into empty spaces available.  Personally, I'd use my open trailer and have a generator powering them the whole trip, but that wouldn't really be necessary.

Might be tricky if these are upright freezers, but easy if they are chest freezers.

Either way, I would sure as hell take the food with.  The price of replacing it all in todays market if you leave it behind will greatly exceed the cost of moving it.

3 day travel to new home.  

We used this to power the freezer.  Charged batteries overnight in hotel.  



We use it all the time to power my corded tools and light up structures with no electricity.  
Make sure you buy batteries with it.   I have six 7.5 amp/hour batteries with an additional fast charger that charges 2 batteries at a time.

A freezer full of already frozen stuff will easily travel 13 hours.  It's just a big giant cooler.

Might be worth it to go through them and toss any old or freezer burned stuff you won't ever use.  Maybe get it down to one freezer full and two empties.

Just set the freezers on the truck, full if you have the equipment to lift them.  If you have to you can empty them, set them on the truck, and put the frozen food back in.  13 hours without power is nothing to a full chest freezer that you are not keeping open.

Edited to add, if they are upright freezers, just strap them shut so they don't spill.

When you get them in lace at the new house, let them set a few hours before plugging them in.

Everything will stay frozen, you are not going to have an issue with meat.  Possibly with ice cream, but not meat.  You are overthinking this.

As said.. 13 hrs is nothing.

If your really worried...run them on a little generator. You do have one of those don't you?

This^^^

The freezers will be fine for 13 hrs. Load the freezers up (even if you have to empty them, load empty freezers, then refill them) keep plugged in on lowest setting for a while, then roll out. Just keep in mind you need some space around the freezers while they're plugged in.

I can't imagine trying to replace 3 freezers right now. New ones it's hard to find sales if you can even find them in stock. Used ones anything that is a good deal is gone before you can even try to contact the seller.

And the food! I have 2 freezers, probably holding $2k or more in beef, pork, chicken, veggies, etc...I wouldn't want to be replacing that right now...

The frozen feeders I purchase for my snakes are in-transit for longer than 13 hours (but not by much).  They're just in a big insulated styrofoam cooler and they are still solid when they arrive.

Make sure the freezers are packed as full as possible, even if you have to fill open space with bottles of frozen water.

Also surround expensive cuts of meat with lesser/cheaper stuff.  It's one thing if bulk packs of chicken thighs thaw out versus t-bone steaks.

As others have said, for 13 hours, you'll be fine.  If you are concerned, when you stop for lunch, put a small generator on the ground and run some extension cords to the freezers and leave them plugged in for 1/2 an hour that will be enough to keep them frozen.

You can also put a few chunks of dry ice in there (around here Walmart sells it).  I kept meat frozen in a sealed ice chest for a two-day drive to Florida; I think the stuff was frozen harder when I got there than when I put it in.

I moved a freezer full in July in 100 degree weather from CT to SC in a box truck.  I loaded the whole truck except for cooler.  Left it plugged in in garage full of milk crates of food.  In AM pulled out milk crates unplugged it and brought it up the ramp.  Put milk crates back in and placed a bunch of commercial ice packs on top.  When I unloaded it 15 hours later it looked like it had never been unplugged.  No wetness whatsoever.

You might want to invest in a freezer temp alarm or two. I have 3 freezers, so I have two dual units. There's fancy ones that send you a message when something bad happens, I just have a cheap Wyze cam pointed at the display on mine, and I check it a couple of times a day when away from the house.

I mention this because it is around 90F at my house, garage is on the afternoon sunny side very hot. In the afternoon the freezers are at 3, 10 and 8. The 3 is my newest, the 8 is my oldest, and then the 10 is my not too old upright that is usually down around 0. It started acting up the day before we left on our current vacation. We didn't have time to do much to it, just moved stuff away from it so it gets more air and put a fan blowing on it to try to help the compressor.

I mention this though because if you have a frost free and it runs a defrost cycle it will get several degrees warmer, and if its older its not going to be as cold, so you would need to watch that one the most. Plus you could have the temp sensors in while you move, giving you peace of mind that stuff didn't thaw.

Generator or have a massive going away BBQ

when's the move? We were doing similar but from a house in Texas to a tiny apartment in Georgia. We just ate every meal out of the freezer until it was go time. Pretty much ate out the pantry, freezers, and some of the storage stuff. Some of the longer term food stores were donated as I knew where we were going would have rice/beans cheap (at the time).

The crappy freezer-burned stuff will provide thermal mass to keep the good stuff frozen. Clean out the freezers when you get to your destination.  All food may still be usable.

Trailer with appliances on a generator is simply brilliant. I have a trailer, generator, and chest freezer full.  I'm not very creative, never put those ideas together. Thanks!

This is exactly how we did it when we moved; I loaded the chest freezer and the upright freezer on last in the U-Haul truck and plugged it in overnight. I put a ratchet strap around the upright freezer before moving it to keep the door closed. We unplugged and rolled up the extension cord right before driving away. Plugged it in immediately upon arrival.

Filling the voids is important, I used aquafina bottles and bags of ice.

It was only a 5 hour drive, but I'm sure the concept would work the same.

Also, I made dead-man freezer alarms out of shot glasses to tell if the contents thawed out. Just freeze some water in a shot glass, and put a penny on top of the ice. If you arrive at your location and the penny is at the bottom of the glass, you know you've had a problem and your food is suspect.

This might be snarcky but is eating it an option?

If the move is tomorrow okay understood moving in January valid question

Plus if they are cheat freezer whey not load them

If they are standup again understandable

Moving across country i got rid of many things that was a 25 hr trip one way. 13 hrs is one straight ride for me