The DIY Off-Grid Solar-Powered Walk-In Meat Cooler

I build custom coolers, mostly in the southern US. Lol. You can use an AC that’s the appropriate BTUs for your cooler, the down box that turns the ac into a cooler just makes it run longer. It doesn’t change the dang BTUs lol. As the air gets cooler it obviously does get more dense, so going 40°-35° F takes longer than going from 70°-50° F. The biggest issue I find with coolers is when you use WOOD on the interior of the cooler. Woods is porous, it’s not a moisture or vapor barricade. The styrofoam has insulation properties, but it’s not a vapor barrier. You have to have it sealed air tight, otherwise you’ll have small leaks from everywhere, and they turn into ice below freezing temp and it’ll rip your construction apart when the water swells during freezing. So the appropriately sized ac would run none stop in a cooler that isn’t sealed well. Your ac is way bigger than necessary, you’ll have a ton of start and stop conditions because it pulls it down to temp, shuts off, leaks, turns on, stops, leaks, shuts off and repeat. So, get yourself some extra compressor capacitors to keep on hand, just in case. And I highly recommend using weather stripping, at least around the door. Coolers should be moisture and vapor tight. Painting the wood will help, but it shouldn’t be that big of a deal considering your massive ac. Again, I build coolers in the southern US for hunters and farmers so that they can store meat through OUR summers. Lol.

I know you folks are Canadian, but your family is so A-typical when compared to the average American family. Being off grid, home schooling, everyone working together for the benefit of the group… no kids constantly on mobile phones, etc. What a blessing you have. It’s beautiful and how things used to be everywhere until technology destroyed the family unit.

Refrigeration guy here. Coolers have one major thing going for them. The walls are sealed inside and out. No condensation on the inside of the panels that way. Mold will eventually ruin your day, trust me. Best bet is just to find a restaurant being remodeled and offer the guy a couple thousand for the box. (Like a wendy's or taco bell). If you have to use wood, 1.5inch foam panels, then shower wall on the inside will prevent most of the condensation on the frame. It's all about temp difference on the outside of the box. Building it like a shower lets you hose the box too.

Your family is just amazing. If you could bottle that, you would be a millionaire.

I like the ending when everyone in the family enjoys doing work together! Brings me back to the days when I was a little kid.😊

I build a 10x10 cool bot meat cooler almost a year ago. I’ve hung beef and deer in it and most recently stored a ton of apricots as I slowly worked through processing them, pigs are next month. I used a 240v 24k btu window air conditioner and it works well in New Mexico. When it’s 95-100 degrees F outside it keeps the cooler at 42. If it’s 80 outside the cooler will get down to 38, and 70 outside will get to 36. I have 4” foam insulation on the roof and walls and 2” on the floor on top of the slab. I have the same unistrut rails, I love them. My decision on using a window unit over an old commercial unit is cost and availability. If my cooler goes out on a weekend I can go to Walmart in the middle of the night and replace it. With a commercial unit like yours you will have to call out an HVAC tech, it will cost a lot of money and they will probably have to order parts, meaning you will get in a major bind if your used AC unit has any problems while you have meat hanging.

Congratulations on hard working children nice to see your daughters crushing helping dad build

Before you build a door like this, angle the door frame so it's smaller on the inside and wider on the outside, then do the same to the door so that as you close it, it seals like a glass bottle stopper and you will need minimal sealing to close the gap as there will be little to no gap when the door closes.

Add all of the water containers and stones you have to the cooler days before you chill the meat. The heavy items, when cool, will help smooth out the load on the cooler. When the new hot meat arrives, the heavy objects will help take a load off the system. A stone floor would be great, also. Once you have 100 gal of cold water in the room, you can also enjoy nice cold water.

I believe that this whole idea of using a cool bot to trick a repurposed air conditioner into creating a cool room ( for extending the shelf life of produce) was originally proposed by Curtis Stone aka the urban gardener about 5 years ago, I think the main idea was to give an inexpensive diy for backyard gardeners and after that the YouTube community just ran with it 😊

I'd add a small fan inside to move the air around and maybe car the wood for the interior of the freezer. Thinking of splashing or fluid against the walls over time and bacteria. If you used pvc you could spray wash the interior yearly. was awesome to see the whole family involved. missed my uncle watching this. thank you.

You need use a second t stat set 26 on the coil to keep from freezing up the coil and you will save the compressor keep the fan running to keep from icing up I have been an HVAC 20yr if you have any questions hit me up

You two are raising the most awesome daughters. I’ve had to learn basic building skills on my own and I didn’t learn them myself early enough to teach them to my sons.

Whoever gave you that BTU "advice" didn't know what he was talking about. We use a coolbot to cool a walk in beer cooler three times that size of your meat locker. Keeps it at 34F all through the southern summer. July and August here are 85-90F nearly every day.

You most definitely can use a residential A/C to make a walk in cooler. In my dad whose been HVAC for the past 50+ yrs in TX. We used an old ac condensing unit from the late 80s and he did some special ways of running the refrigerant lines so they wouldn't liquid slug the compressor. I could get the walkin down to 20* when it was 95* outside..

Excellent project and analysis, well done! Refreshing to see the ladies contributing and learning their independence, you should be very proud.

If you add a small channel and a fire box off to the side you can turn your cooler into a COLD SMOKER. This gets the bark deep into the meat while preventing it from spoiling before the curing process kicks in. Best of both worlds!! Great channel, terrific video!

Duse, this is resonates perfectly with my situation. You da man!!I have a 600lb hog and 2 other 250 lbers. I always wondered what to do if they broke a leg in this heat. Plus, I go for surgery in a month and won't be able to feed for 8 weeks. This video is spot on. Your family rocks!

What a great addition to your place! This will really make your whole life better.There's nothing like being able to control how you process a pig,having time to cool it down,and work on it at your schedule,instead of the frenzied rush to get it done before it goes south!

Nice projekt. Add a condensation pan on the inside to prevent the wood from rotting.