Re: Desert Cooling Systs.
Posted by Zardoz on July 20, 2004 at 14:49:48:
In Reply to: Desert Cooling Systs. posted by Saline Sioux on July 20, 2004 at 13:05:58:
Before I bit the bullet and bought solar panels and a 12V freezer I use to do the following which
allowed us to stay a week with ice in the boondocks. Purchase two Coleman extreme coolers.
They come in two grades, 5 days in lots of different sizes from 30 to 100 qt. They have a 6
day in the 66qt size. So pick your size for the
amount of people you have. Take one cooler and put two or three blocks of ice in them at one end
of the cooler, place tall things in the other end
and fill empty areas around blocks with cube ice.
Fill cooler with pre-chilled stuff. Take the other cooler and fill with block and bag ice and
place a well insulated 10lb piece of dry ice and
seal it up and don't open the freezer cooler until you need it. The ice will stay longer depending on how well you insulate the dry ice and how often you open the freezer cooler. Pour
off the melted water in the morning and use the
water to precool your drinks and than put the drinks in the cooler. Take ice out of the freezer
cooler as needed. Keep your produce off the ice so it will not burn or wilt. Coleman just came
out with a 100qt 5 day that is only $40 bucks if
you check the sales. Always keep your coolers out
of the sun and cover them with a solar blanket and set the coolers on a couple of pieces of wood
or even better some kind of foam insulation and you can have cold drinks after a week. The freezer cooler will start to fade after 3 or 4 days but the ice is good enough to keep the fridge cooler cold. Block ice last longer than cube but cube cools faster than block. It works,
I have been using this method for years before I
went solar and had cold beer til the end of the trip (one week).
Zardoz
- Re: Desert Cooling Systs. johnc 15:14:45 07/20/04
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