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Walk in cooler

967 views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  Fishindude 
#1 ·
We have been needing a walk in cooler for a long time and I finally built one. I put it in a corner of our "entry way".
It's out of the way and should be big enough to hold several pigs/deer. It has an outside door and a door to the kitchen so we can load it from outside and then unload right into the kitchen.

We used an 8,000 btu air conditioner and removed all the controls/circuit boards. We bought an inkbird temp controller ($20) and wired it up. The walls are r25, the floor is r15 over concrete, and the ceiling is r40. We used foam sheets and sealed every crack/joint with foam/caulk. The caulk still smells a bit but it's getting better as it dries. (It takes forever)

The dimensions are 5x5 by 8 ft tall. Starting from ~70*, it will cool down to 34* in about 10 minutes.

Operating cost is less than $1/day. This will go down in colder weather, to maybe 20 cents/day.

I wasn't sure my wife would let me build it in the house, but when I showed her my plans, she gave me the go ahead.
She is very happy that I can store the bacon and ground meat in the cooler now, rather than taking up the entire fridge.

The pictures were taken during construction. So there wasn't any paneling installed. One light switch and one power switch. The settings are saved in the controller and it restarts after a power failure. All we have to do is flip the switch and walk away.

I prefer this to a coolbot. It's much, much more affordable, there are no wires hanging all over, and it is stupid simple if you have any understanding of wiring. It controls the compressor directly, rather than tricking the a/c controls with a piggyback controller (coolbot).


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#2 ·
Good deal, hope it works out for you.

I've had a big cooler for butchering for a long time. First one was an old 6' wide, twin glass door soda pop cooler from a convenience store that closed. Took the shelves out, installed hanging rods and it worked great. When it pooped out, I bit the bullet and bought a regular commercial cooler 4' x 6' x 8' tall.
 
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