Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Building a walk-in cooler?

We put a big LG ac into the smokehouse. Its well insulated.

I have always had the bot on the list to buy, unfortunately we were not thinking walk in cooler at the time and its got R50 fiberglass in the walls, but the inner walls are sealed and painted, so I'm hoping it works out for occasional use...

Tag

having used walk in coolers for most of my life, and that use here in Florida, I just don't believe this product can work as it says.
Maybe if the outside temps are not very high, or if the 'cooler' is built inside an already air conditioned building. Maybe.
Scary to think of using one of these for restaurant use. I don't see how an A/C unit can pull down temps fast enough to insure food safety.

A big window a/c puts out a lot of cold air. The big problem is that when its in a window, there are lots of air leaks, sun comes through the windows, it's trying to cool a large space, and it shuts down before it gets cold. Its amazing that they work as well as they do.
In a small sealed room with LOTS of insulation and when it's allowed to run, yes they can get cold.

A 12k btu unit is made to cool a 200 sq ft or larger room. Here, it's being used to cool a room 1/4 that size and far better insulated.

My cousin has a walk in cooler in Ohio and has been using the coolbot device for several years. Works great.

Not sure how we progressed to restaurant use. I just wanted to share my satisfaction with this product for home/hobby use. After cooling a few deer this past fall, my wife has been using it to store apples. My brother put me on to these. He has had a walk in cooler for about 15 years, The first 10 were with a conventional compressor system that required a visit from the maintenance man every year. He switched to a coolbot and has not had any problems since.

That being said, visit their website, I do see where they can be used for restaurants if the door is not opened more than 6 times per hour. Again, this thread was intended for options at home. Every tool has it's purpose...

When I was in my twenties, I worked for a division of Owens Corning Fiberglass that used to design and build commercial walk ins...we used to use a type of urethane that wouldn't decompose when exposed to fiberglass resins...not sure what it was called, but it was great insulation...I'd think that either styrofoam or urethane panels 3-4" thick with maybe FRP glued on the inside and a thin gauge aluminum outer skin would work good...a window air conditioner for cooling??? Wouldn't it be better and cheaper on electricity to gut an old refrigerator?

Urethane foam absorbs moisture.

Monthly cost to run the AC with the coolbot here in WI has been about $10-$12 per month for the last 3 months (Nov-Jan), based on comparing this years energy use for the last 3 months to last years use.

Here's another idea to chew on.

Some years ago, our apples got ripe during a major hot spell, in the upper 90's. I needed a way to keep 5 or 6 bushels from spoiling until the temps got down to normal. I rigged a large chest freezer as a temporary cooler. The freezer's thermostat wasn't designed to run above freezing so I used a thermostat from a greenhouse that was designed to keep temps down, the reverse of a heater stat. I cut a short extension cord in half and wired the stat in the middle of it. I dropped the stat in the freezer and ran both ends of the cord out under the lid, plugging one end into the wall outlet and the other to the freezer cord. I put some boards under the apple boxes and left air spaces between them the best I could for circulation. I set the stat at 40 and left the freezer's stat at 0. It would turn on the freezer at 42 and it would run until it dropped a few degrees before it shut off.

While freezers aren't designed to work that way, it actually worked very well for short term storage and the cost was only the price of the stat.

QUESTION: Can someone tell me if it would damage the freezer to keep it that way full time? I don't know enough about refrigeration to know if running it at higher temps is hard on the equipment. It would be more efficient to run the cords through the freezer wall rather than under lid which breaks the seal.

It it's big enough for your needs, it will be far simpler and cheaper...assuming that running it warmer than designed won't hurt it. The largest chest freezer you can find will cost much less than building a walk-in with an a/c and a Coolbot.

tag

* Interested in doing one myself !!

Tagged as well. I've done 24yrs commercial meat cutting in my past life and would like to get a couple moose in each fall. This might be the ticket. Pretty warm here in Sept. so a cooler is needed.