Home-made walk-in cooler?

Here's my thought...good idea or no?

I have a 32x32 detached garage that I used as a shop. I want to take 1 corner of the shop and build an 8x8x10 room to use as a cooler for hanging deer and extra produce from the garden.

I would insulate the concrete floor with some XPS, frame 6" walls and insulate, and blow some additional cellulose in the existing ceiling.

Find a cheapo 120V window AC unit and use that to keep things cool. I'm not looking for super cold...just enough to buy me a few days of extra processing time.

 

There are a few roadside farmer market type places around here who have done just that. Seems to work for their produce. Might even be able to just use a window fan with a differential thermostat control. Have it run when it's cooler outside then inside the room.

 

Should work

 

I would assume I'd need some sort of vapor barrier too, no? Which side of the insulation would it go on in this case? They say you always want to do the "cold" side, but this would be within the building envelope so would the "warm" side make more sense?

 

Vapor barrier on the inside, (Hot or cold room)
You want to keep the walls & insulation dry

 

That's what I was thinking.

 

Thats the side that will see the most temperature swings.
Moisture in there from the meat is trapped inside,
the outside has unlimited space for the moisture to go

 

I'd use the foil faced poly iso and tape the seams.

 

I extended a big cooler on the farm years ago used some plastic 4x8 sheeting material with a snap in spaced groove to finish the inside.
You want something that can be wiped down if needed.
Check out CL for an old walk in cooler as well, they are just panels screwed together not hard to modify the size

 

I'm not sure how I would finish the inside, but it would definitely be a washable, bleach-able surface.

This is probably a project that's at least a year away, maybe before early archery season next year, but I doubt it.

Good idea on those plastic panels. I've seen those before but didn't think about it for this.

 

A friend of mine did that. He said the ac unit wouldn't cool it enough. He found an old coke machine and used it's cooling system which works great! Think commercial grade compressor instead of window ac running too hard. His was 4x4 or so which makes me think 8x8 will probably take 2 units.

 

How cool was "not cool enough"?

 

I would think with a window ac you would need to overide the thermostat. I think on my ac's the lowest setpoint is in the 60's.

 

Not sure of the exact temperature. I know he did bypass the thermostat in the ac unit and it wasnt good enough. I saw it after the coke machine guts were installed and it was upper 30s in there.

 

Problem with the old-old stuff is refrigerant availability - you ain't gonna touch a bottle of R-12 for less than$800.
I'd keep your eyes peeled for either an entire cooler setup or find an old 2 Ton R22 condenser unit - if you have 220 in the garage wouldn't be hard to plumb it up and just run the evap coil open in the space.

I'll hit up my veterinarian here about that interior paneling - he used the same type material while remodeling the examination rooms at one of his co-op offices