I got a trick for travelling. Just take any old cooler. Every time you stop for fuel, get one or two big gulp cups of ice from the gas station (used to be free) and add to cooler. End up with an eclectic collection of cups at the end. The only scenarios where I need 3 days of ice are long camps and extended power outages. Unfortunately I have not been camping for years now and the power outages are usually short lived. I wonder how much better insulated a refridgerator is than your average Coleman 48? >> could a dorm fridge be repurposed into a cooler of sorts if the benefit is there?
From the minimal reading on a homesteading web site I did years ago, fridges aren't particularly efficient. Being that they eat electricity, efficiency seemed less important than size and footprint. If one were to look at DC fridges (not cheap) they are uber-efficient, with thick walls and a smaller space inside than one would think. But they are built for off-grid efficiency. Sundazer or Sundanzer is a name I recall.
RTIC are much less money and the same if not even better performance than yeti. There's some good deals on them right now Coho brand are available at Costco and prices very nicely
This might not help all BUT my fathers camp has a spring.. water coming out of the ground is 37-39 degrees year round 2 foot tile around spring.. In early 80s drilled tile put in 1 inch black pipe runs down 4% grade gallon a minute.. to steel bath tub which is camps fridge looking for similar spring on my land
How cool would it be harvesting and storing ice in the winter! That was a very big thing around here and many places in the north before electric refrigeration. We have buildings around here that used to be for ice storage and listening to the old timers talk about helping as a little kid is very interesting stuff.
There was an ice house where I grew up. There is still a pic somewhere of the conveyor they used to get the ice from the pond to the huge shed. I was thinking of building an ice house, partially in ground, earthen roof, unsulated with bales of hay, and putting water columns in....like pvc drainage pipes, capped top and bottom in along the sides. I'd leave the ice house open all winter to let the columns freeze, then close it up for summer use. No idea if we get cold enough around here anymore tho....
Spring house? If it's far away from the building, that won't work either. But piping water in during winter months might not work either.
When I was a kid and living in northern WI, we used to go on vacation at a nearby lake and stay at a cabin that had a hold in the ground to hold our cold food. The hole was inside the cabin with a trap door over it. It had a bucket on the end of a rope that my dad would pull up, load the cold food in it and lower it to the bottom of the hole. That low tech frig did a good job of keeping our food cold.
I think ground temperature around here is 53 degrees. Food service types say 40 is good for a fridge, but, many things don't need refrigeration (like I used to think), and many things just need a cool place (eggs). For long term storage (LTS) a freezer will keep things....where I don't have a bovine to make butter every few days, or chickens to keep fresh eggs handy weekly.
Something I did that seems to help and was a scrounge so cost me nothing was making an insulated jacket. Back when we tented and never knew how the sites would be for shade, I made a jacket out of foil bubble insulation that looks like bubble wrap that is used in walls. I was given a chunk after a friend had some left from a project. If the cooler is forced to be in the sun it seems to me it reflects a lot of the radiant heat and saves on ice.
final update: Project scrapped. Not begun. My plan was to build a wooden box, 6" bigger than the cooler, set it in on blocks, and then fill w spray foam. I'm not going to need to do this project.
