building a walk-in cooler -- the details

[Lars]

I see Bud Light cans in the door. I no longer hate you, but laugh in your general direction.

Laugh at my friends, not me!

Oh, I laugh at you. I also fart in your general direction. That is the fart of hate

[BrewTa2]

I smells like: Victory!

[BrewBum]

Curious question, I have been wanting to do a cellar/fermentation room in my garage but don't want to take up space. I have a under house storm cellar that is paved, do you think running an A/C unit in the crawl space would cause any problems? If not I could enclose a small area of the cellar for this and do it a lot cheaper. It maintains a pretty steady temp but is seasonal, stays near 60 during the summer and near 45 during the winter.

[BrewTa2]

Curious question, I have been wanting to do a cellar/fermentation room in my garage but don't want to take up space. I have a under house storm cellar that is paved, do you think running an A/C unit in the crawl space would cause any problems? If not I could enclose a small area of the cellar for this and do it a lot cheaper. It maintains a pretty steady temp but is seasonal, stays near 60 during the summer and near 45 during the winter.

Your crawlspace would get a little warm, but the A/C should work fine. I'd be really worried about humidity though. If you seal the walls and floor like crazy and wrap it like a mummy with vapor barrier you should get away with it. You'll be able to use a small unit too, since you aren't talking aboot a big differential.

DO IT!

(I said "use a small unit")
(Not Bub - A/C)

[BillfromOB]

I built my cooler (45 cubic feet total) using a 5000 watt generic window ac unit ($79 on sale at the Depot) and one of those cheep analog temp controllers ($50). The ac unit I bought had a metal temp sensor and I just opened the unit and disconnected it from the main board. I cut a hole in the wall, stuffed the unit in, hooked it up to the control unit and presto-instant refrigerator. I live at the beach here in San Diego so humidity is a concern. My unit will freeze up if I try to go much lower than about 40 degrees. But minus the ability to really crash a beer to 30 degrees, it works pretty well.

I built it to house an upper fermentation area and a lower cold storage area that keeps my kegs and whatever else I put in there at the temp dialed in on the controller. The fermentation area is controlled by a 12 volt thermostat that controls a pc fan which pumps in cooler air from the lower section. Most of the ideas came from the folks on Wort-o-Matic.com. So big shout out to the guys over there.

I would think the same type setup would work for a full walk-in minus the fermentation area. Although, that would be killer to have a separate section of your walk-in as a dedicated fermentation room. Hmmm, maybe I could expand mine another couple of feet....

Good luck. Cheers,

Bill

[Guido]

Brewta2, how do you afford that stash? You have a better stock than some bottle shops. You're not married, are you?

[Quin]

I think there is an issue also with installing a cooling unit that is too big and doesn't run long enough to remove moisture. I ran across this once and saved it.

http://www.heatcraftrpd.com/resources/misc/HRPQC-04.pdf

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

I think there is an issue also with installing a cooling unit that is too big and doesn't run long enough to remove moisture. I ran across this once and saved it.

http://www.heatcraftrpd.com/resources/misc/HRPQC-04.pdf

Nice resource. Thanks.