Why you should always keep one torch in the freezer – emergency planners explain the odd advice

The freezer door opens and, next to the peas and half a loaf of bread, there it is: a small torch, cold to the touch, wrapped in a thin sandwich bag. It looks faintly ridiculous, like someone forgot it there after a power cut years ago. Yet more and more emergency planners quietly recommend exactly this. One torch in the drawer, one in the car – and one in the freezer.

It sounds like folk wisdom or a social‑media gimmick. It isn’t. It comes from people who spend their working lives thinking about the hours when everything suddenly stops: no power, no lifts, no streetlights, no Wi‑Fi. A frozen torch is not a magic talisman. It is a simple, boring insurance policy against the moment you need light most and your “good” torch fails you.

The real problem in a blackout isn’t darkness – it’s disorientation

When a whole street loses power, it is never cinematic. One second the fridge hums, the radio chatters, the hallway light casts its usual yellow glow. The next, it all goes blunt and silent. Phones become little islands of blue, batteries draining faster as everyone reaches for the torch app at once. Stairwells turn into black shafts. Outside, you can hear neighbours moving, doors opening, a child somewhere starting to cry.

Most homes technically have some way to create light. A candle in a drawer, a camping lantern in the loft, a head torch from last year’s festival. The first difficulty is remembering where any of that is while you are suddenly half-blind. The second is that batteries quietly die between crises. The £20 “emergency torch” you bought after that storm three winters ago? Its cells are probably flat. Light is not just about seeing. It is about knowing where you are, where other people are, and where the real hazards – broken glass, hot hobs, awkward stairs – actually sit in the dark.

Emergency planners break the problem down in a blunt way. You need:

• One light you can always find.
• One light that definitely works.
• One light that is physically separate from the usual chaos.

The freezer, oddly, ticks all three boxes.

Why the freezer is secretly a smart place for a torch

Walk through your home in your head. Cupboards, drawers, under‑bed boxes, that mysterious space under the stairs – almost everything moves or changes over time. The one appliance that almost never does is the fridge‑freezer. Even children can find it in total darkness: you walk into the kitchen and let your hands do the rest. That familiarity is part of the logic.

Then there’s behaviour. We open the freezer most days without thinking. Every time you reach for ice, chips or leftovers, your eyes clock that small bagged torch. You get a constant, quiet reminder: it exists, it’s there, it’s part of your mental map of the kitchen. It stops being “that torch somewhere” and becomes “the freezer torch”.

There’s also a physical bonus. Kept in a simple sealed bag, a torch in the freezer is:

• Protected from leaks, spills and most condensation in the rest of the house.
• Less likely to corrode, because moisture and kitchen steam can’t casually reach it.
• Physically separated from your “everyday” torch, so one flat battery does not doom you completely.

Cold does affect battery performance, especially for older alkaline cells. That sounds like a deal‑breaker until you remember the real point: the freezer torch is your finder light. Its job is to give you 30–60 seconds of decent light so you can reach better lanterns, candles, or that larger torch in the hallway cupboard. It’s a key, not the whole toolkit.

A freezer torch is not your main light; it’s the one light you can locate and switch on within five seconds, even in utter blackness.

How the freezer torch trick actually works

In drills, emergency planners sometimes ask people to simulate a sudden power cut at home. No warning, no counting down from three, just “lights out now”. Even when people know what’s coming, they fumble. They walk into furniture. They swear at drawers they can’t see. Often, the “good torch” turns out to be missing, broken or buried under something.

Add a freezer torch and the script changes. You don’t rifle through cupboards. You go straight to the kitchen, hand on the freezer handle, pull out the small bag you already know lives in the door rack or top drawer. Within seconds, that hard blackness softens. The stairs appear. The shape of the hallway returns. The mild panic in the room drops a notch.

The method is brutally simple:

1. Choose a small, reliable torch. LED, with a click‑on switch that’s easy to find by touch.
2. Load it with fresh batteries you’ve tested. Switch it on, off, on, off. It must feel boringly dependable.
3. Slip it into a simple freezer bag. Squeeze out excess air, seal it, and label it if that helps.
4. Place it somewhere obvious in the freezer. Door shelf or top drawer, not behind the year‑old frozen soup.
5. Tell everyone in the household. “If the lights go, freezer torch first.”

From then on, the freezer becomes your lighthouse. Even half‑asleep, even stressed, you know that opening one door in the kitchen unlocks the rest of your emergency plan.

Why planners like “weird” rules that are easy to remember

On paper, emergency advice is dry. Keep a three‑day supply of water. Maintain a battery‑powered radio. Store medication safely. In real homes, life is messier. People are tired, busy, distracted. Generic tips slide off the brain in about 30 seconds. Odd, specific instructions – “keep one torch in the freezer” – stick.

Behavioural scientists talk about “sticky cues”: small, memorable hooks that help you act quickly under stress. The freezer torch is one of these. It turns a vague intention (“we should be more prepared for power cuts”) into a concrete physical habit that is hilariously easy to pass on: you mention it to a friend, they laugh, then think about their own dark stairwell and suddenly it sounds less silly.

The other reason professionals like this trick is that it solves several common failure points at once:

• Lost gear: the torch lives in a single, fixed location.
• Dead batteries: it’s separate from the main household torch that gets played with, dropped, or left on.
• Panic: the routine is baked in – go to freezer, get torch, then think.

Nobody in emergency planning believes that a frozen torch will turn a major blackout into a cosy adventure. But they know that small, almost embarrassingly simple habits can make the first five minutes safer and calmer – the minutes when most accidents happen.

Other tiny, boring habits that quietly work

If the freezer torch idea makes sense to you, it usually goes hand‑in‑hand with a few other low‑effort moves:

• A pair of sturdy shoes or slippers kept by the bed, so you’re not walking barefoot over broken glass or debris.
• A cheap battery lantern stored in the same place as the fuse box, so you’re not juggling phone light and fuses at once.
• One portable battery pack that lives plugged in near the router or TV, not roaming from bag to bag.

None of these are dramatic. They’re not “prepper” territory. They are the domestic equivalent of wearing a seatbelt: boring until the one day it matters.

How to set up a freezer torch that actually helps

To make the freezer torch more than a Twitter anecdote, you need to do it once, properly, then leave it alone. Think of it as a ten‑minute job with a long shelf life.

Step‑by‑step:

• Pick the right torch. Compact, bright enough to light a room corner, with a simple on/off button. Avoid twist‑to‑switch designs that are fiddly in the dark.
• Use decent batteries. Fresh alkalines or, better, lithium AAs or AAAs, which tolerate temperature swings better.
• Test before you freeze. Turn it on for a full minute to be sure there’s no flicker or dodgy connection.
• Bag it. A basic zip‑lock freezer bag or small food container keeps moisture and spills away.
• Place it consistently. Top left of the door shelf, front of the top drawer – somewhere your hands will naturally go.
• Tell people and rehearse once. “Lights out; where’s the freezer torch?” It feels silly. It also locks the habit in.

If you want to go one small step further, tape a short note to the inside of the freezer door: “Torch – top shelf, left”. In a mild panic, even obvious things can hide in plain sight.

Where the freezer torch fits in the bigger picture

On its own, a freezer torch is like locking your front door. Sensible, but not a full security system. Emergency planners see it as one element in a small, layered approach to outages that is realistic for most households:

Layer	Simple action
Immediate light	Torch in the freezer + one by the bed
Short power cut (a few hours)	Basic candles or lantern, kettle or flask, charged battery pack
Longer disruption (overnight and beyond)	A few days of easy‑to‑eat food, some bottled water, key medicines in one grab‑bag

The aim is not perfection. It is reducing how much of your life has to be completely improvised when the lights go out.

Freezer torch myths and misunderstandings

As the tip spreads, so do half‑truths. No, a torch in the freezer will not somehow “keep forever” like a cartoon hero on ice. Batteries still age. It does not need to be buried under a month’s worth of frozen meals to “insulate” it. You are not doing secret military‑grade prepping by putting a £6 LED torch in with the fish fingers.

What you are doing is choosing a place that:

• Survives moves and room reshuffles.
• Everyone in the household visits regularly.
• You can reach even if you are half‑asleep or a bit shaken.

If you live in a shared house where people rummage through drawers and “borrow” things without asking, the freezer has another advantage: people are slightly less likely to wander off with a torch they have to reach past the frozen spinach to get.

Some people worry about condensation when you take a cold torch into a warm, humid room. For a quick, short burst as a finder light, this rarely causes real problems, especially if it was bagged. If you expect to use it for hours, you can simply take it out of the freezer and let it warm up for a few minutes while you rely on candles or another lamp. Again: its main job is to get you safely from “total darkness” to “I can now think clearly about plan B”.

The quiet reassurance of knowing exactly where the light is

There is a small psychological shift once you’ve done this. Power cuts move, in your mind, from pure chaos to something you can at least start to handle. You know the first move. Children can learn it too: “If the lights go off and an adult isn’t right next to you, go to the kitchen and get the freezer torch.” It gives them something active to do rather than just stand and be frightened.

In a winter storm, during rolling blackouts, or on a hot summer night when the grid is struggling, that tiny sense of agency is not nothing. It won’t stop the fridge warming or the Wi‑Fi dropping, but it does mean the house doesn’t instantly turn into a maze of hidden hazards.

You will still jump slightly when everything clicks off. You will still have to think about the freezer defrosting and whether the food will last. Yet somewhere behind that, there is a clear, almost mechanical first move your body already understands: walk to the kitchen, open the freezer, find the cold little bag, click.

The light comes on. The room reappears. And from there, all the other decisions are easier.

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FAQ:

• Won’t the cold damage the torch or batteries? Modern LED torches and quality batteries tolerate short stints in the cold well. Performance may drop slightly while very cold, but for the freezer torch’s main job – giving you a minute or two of light to find other gear – it is more than adequate.
  
• Should the freezer torch be my main household torch? No. Think of it as your “locator” light. Keep a larger, brighter torch or lantern somewhere sensible for longer use, and use the freezer torch to get you there safely when the power first fails.
  
• How often should I check or replace the batteries? A quick test every few months is enough for most homes. Switch it on for 10 seconds when you’re already at the freezer, then put it straight back. Replace the batteries at least once a year or after any long use.
  
• What if I have a chest freezer in the garage, not in the kitchen? The trick works best when the freezer is easily reached indoors. If yours is outside or down steps, pick the most consistently accessible cold appliance – often the fridge compartment – and store the torch there instead.
  
• I live in a tiny flat – is this overkill? In a small space, the benefit is even clearer. You may have fewer storage places and more cluttered drawers. Knowing that one reliable light is always in the same, easy‑to‑reach spot can save time and reduce accidents in a blackout.