Coolers

[tx2sturgis]

Ok, that works, but I use my coolers with regular and block ice, and the water at the bottom would probably soak or surround those foam pads and render them useless. 

Plus the pads would take up valuable interior volume. 

But for 'dry' storage of sealed frozen bottles I can see a benefit.

 

[John61CT]

Can choose inside or out, but losing space is inevitable when improving insulation.

There are plenty of materials and techniques for sealing up the inside when making your own custom box,

but for me a major advantage of starting with a cheap OTS unit is that part's already done for you, easier to work from the outside, start with a smaller cooler if your target space is that small.

 

[highdesertranger]

by far the best way I found to extend the life of ice in a cooler is this,

I would pack one cooler with goods for week 2.
pre-freeze everything you can
use only block ice
duct tape the lid down and around the lid gap
bury the cooler at least a foot below the lid

with this method I have had stuff still frozen after a week in 95° weather. hint pick a spot for the hole that is shaded during the hot time of day. highdesertranger

 

[bullfrog]

Dang HDR , you sure like to dig holes! Do you run what you dig out? Sounds like our old hand dug root cellar.

 

[tx2sturgis]

I wonder how many fresh food time capsules are buried out there in the desert that HDR has forgotten about....

 

[highdesertranger]

hahaha,

bullfrog yes most of the time I run the contents of the hole. you would be surprised in gold country you can find gold almost anywhere. I have found gold in peoples fire pits while cleaning them out.

Texas that has never happen with food, but with booze on a few occasion. my buddy and me used to bury booze through out the west(for emergency purposes) and for several different reasons have left a few. highdesertranger

 

[tx2sturgis]

Seems fair. 

Dig hole, remove gold, replace with Goldschlager.

 

[DLTooley]

bury the cooler at least a foot below the lid

with this method I have had stuff still frozen after a week in 95° weather.  hint pick a spot for the hole that is shaded during the hot time of day.  highdesertranger

I'll remember that one, but will stick with my wet towel, for now.

 

[wasanah2]

by far the best way I found to extend the life of ice in a cooler is this,

I would pack one cooler with goods for week 2.
pre-freeze  everything you can
use only block ice
duct tape the lid down and around the lid gap
bury the cooler at least a foot below the lid

with this method I have had stuff still frozen after a week in 95° weather.  hint pick a spot for the hole that is shaded during the hot time of day.  highdesertranger

I like this idea a lot.  I'm restoring a vintage pop up camper and someone removed the icebox that was in it.  So I found this guy on youtube that is restoring old campers and emailed him and asked him for some help on what to do to make an icebox.  I wasn't real sure about it.  He said he made the box and lined the inside with an aluminum skin and painted it white, caulked the corners and used the waffle part of an old timey like scrub board for the ice to sit on and that sits on a pan with a drain hole that drains through a tube and through a hole in the camper.  Shelves are those square wire grid storage organizer panels.   Of course the entirety has a good bit of insulation, but the insulation doesn't come in contact with the food.  The closest it gets is in the door but there is aluminum skin on that too.

I bought real antique icebox hardware for it.  So it's not built yet.  I just got the wire shelves and the hardware in the mail from ebay, so I have everything I need now.  Perhaps I'll be able to get to it this weekend.

My daughter is a diabetic and it's important to have a way to keep her insulin cold.  So I like the idea of burying HDR's cooler.  I can't freeze the insulin but if I had a cooler like that, we could perhaps pull the remainder ice out of it to keep us camping for a day or two more than our icebox would allow.

 

[KroFlite]

I've tried just  about every conventional style of cooler made in the last 45 years, and found most of them wanting for more than occasional use.   Checked out the Lifetime brand 55 qt. cooler at Walmart, and it looked very well made- just as nice at the much more expensive ones at REI.  Have no actual experience with this style of cooler, though.

Reviews are good for the Lifetime one-anyone here actually have one they can comment on?  I'm close to pulling the trigger on it.  I'm getting ready to buy a full size van, and am trying to keep it as simple as possible to start with.

 

[DannyB1954]

I don't know if this has been mentioned, (too lazy to read through all 5 pages), but you can put a cooler inside of another larger cooler. The space in between the two can be used to store things like snack bars, cereal, trail mix, snacks, etc. If the outside temp is 80, the temp inside of the outside cooler may only be 60, and the lower the temp is around the inside cooler, the longer your ice will last.
Keep whatever cooler you have out of the sun. Wrap the cooler in a cheap quilt. wrap it in Reflectix or a space blanket, (shiny side out). Put the cooler on top of insulation as well, (heat rising off of the ground can come up through the floor of the van and into the cooler.
there are lots of Youtube videos on adding insulation to a cooler.

 

[KroFlite]

Nothing against cooler mods (or any other kinds of mods) but this unit is about $100 out the door and ready to use and it takes up about as much space as I'm willing to devote to a cooler.  If it's as good as claimed, it seems like a good way to go.  I'm so close to buying this, but after downsizing for the better part of a year, I buy things very, very carefully at this point, so if there is a reason not to, lay it on me brothers and sisters!

 

[KroFlite]

$400 Cooler vs. $50 Cooler...

 

[John61CT]

Maybe not quite as good, but brilliant for the price. Ozark (wally's) and Lifetime, 4-5 days some ice left depending on ambient, pre-chill contents even freeze AMAP.

Aldi has a great line too, smaller maybe $80, but when they're gone that's it.

 

[KroFlite]

Maybe not quite as good, but brilliant for the price. Ozark (wally's) and Lifetime, 4-5 days some ice left depending on ambient, pre-chill contents even freeze AMAP.

Aldi has a great line too, smaller maybe $80, but when they're gone that's it.

I saw that one in Aldi-it looked nice but too small for my intended use, I think.  The 55 or so qt. models seem like the sweet spot for usable space with ice for me.   I was at my local Aldi yesterday, and those coolers were in fact all gone.