Home-Built Walk-In Cooler?

[Sheltowee]

Anyone have any experience building a walk-in cooler at deer camp? I'm pondering a project with room to hang 6-8 deer, good drainage and easy to wash out with a garden hose. Would love to hear anyone with practical experience or pointers.

 

[jpc01101]

My Dad built one last year at the farm. He closed in part of the barn and poured a concrete floor with a drain in the center with a garage door/opener on one end. The walls are sprayed with closed cell foam and covered in roofing metal for the first 3' of the bottom and then hemlock board and batten above. Has a window unit AC through the wall with a coolbot. We use as a climate controlled garage when it isn't deer season and it works great. My brother owns a slaughterhouse so had access to rail. so it has a rail across the ceiling and a winch to pull the deer up to meat hooks on the rail. also opens into another climate controlled space with a sealed opening above the door where the rail continues through so we can pull into another (slightly warmer) room to process (although we never do).

 

[Sheltowee]

My Dad built one last year at the farm. He closed in part of the barn and poured a concrete floor with a drain in the center with a garage door/opener on one end. The walls are sprayed with closed cell foam and covered in roofing metal for the first 3' of the bottom and then hemlock board and batten above. Has a window unit AC through the wall with a coolbot. We use as a climate controlled garage when it isn't deer season and it works great. My brother owns a slaughterhouse so had access to rail. so it has a rail across the ceiling and a winch to pull the deer up to meat hooks on the rail. also opens into another climate controlled space with a sealed opening above the door where the rail continues through so we can pull into another (slightly warmer) room to process (although we never do).

Just a standard residential window unit?

 

[Caseknife]

Just a standard residential window unit?

Yep, here is the website that will answer your questions. https://www.storeitcold.com/

 

[wytex]

Yep, a Coolbot will work great for you.
Good time to buy a cheap a/c unit too.

 

[Steiny77]

My first one was an old glass door soda cooler approx. 6' wide x 3' deep x 7' tall. We were rebuilding a convenience store and I got it for $50. Jerked out the shelves and installed a couple galvanized pipe hangar rods and used that thing many years till it pooped out. It would easily hold 3-4 deer.

I now have a premanufactured cooler purchased online 4' x 6' x 7' tall with a self contained cooling unit on top. Runs of standard 120V and have been using it for years. Think I paid about $3-4k for it new.

Look around for used stuff. There are restaurant equipment dealers that wheel and deal these things all the time and they can be bought cheap when a restaurant or store is being remodeled or going out of business. The inner locking metal cooler panels are durable, washable and probably better than what you're going to build from scratch.

 

[wytex]

Tin works well for walls and ceiling in not so humid climates and a Coolbot and window a/c might set you back $500.
Cement floor , pour it yourself and save some bucks. Put some big cardboard boxes on the floor to catch blood and a drain isn't really needed.
Well under $3000 for a cooler.

Make sure the ceiling is high enough to hang with the legs intact.

LO has about a 4x10' walkin, we replaced the cooling unit with a Coolbot several years ago. Minimal insulation but some behind the tin walls. It is build on the back of his barn.
We've had 2-3 elk and 2 deer hanging in it at once. Coolbot works fine getting it down to mid 30's easily.

Yes a Coolbot will have a window a/c unit cooling like a walk in unit. Bigger the a/c the cooler it will get.
There are similar type of controllers online, Coolbot offers a wifi unit too.

 

[SFC B]

Anyone have any experience building a walk-in cooler at deer camp? I'm pondering a project with room to hang 6-8 deer, good drainage and easy to wash out with a garden hose. Would love to hear anyone with practical experience or pointers.

Buddy in IN did one on the end of a pole building he built on his farm. Could drive up to it, hang on the track, skin at the door and had a door going to the interior where there was all the processing stuff on that end and a "club house" set up on the other. #lifegoals

 

[oleefish2]

I had one a friend built, and they used 2 refrigerators. they put the back of them on the out side of the walls and no doors on the inside of the cooler. it worked well and they had meat rails running to the out side.

 

[Nick87]

I'm not sure about your location but I see them on marketplace all the time for sale.

 

[NoWiser]

We built one with an old enclosed work trailer and a coolbot. Works great.

 

[buckbull]

We built one with an old enclosed work trailer and a coolbot. Works great.

We did the exact same thing with my sisters old grooming trailer. The trailer was already insulated, just had to add the AC and coolbot.

 

[Jbotto]

I'm not sure about your location but I see them on marketplace all the time for sale.

I was going to say the same thing. Lots of times they are the whole unit for cheap with a compressor that probably died and no one wanted to fix it. CoolBot route solves that problem easily. Buying one with the panels to put together seems like the way to go. Watch auctions too for restaurant closures. For those, you’ll generally have to figure out how to get it out of the building but because of that they can go for next to nothing.

 

[Caseknife]

When we built our 40x60 shop with an apartment, also had a 8x10 area with 10" walls built. Bought the Coolbot and put in cross bars to hang quarters from, but before I was able to get the A/C unit and installed my brother-in-law built a cutting room and walk-in from a MacDonalds cooler that was being remodeled. Have used it ever since. Very nice to have access to a cooler to allow meat to hang in warmer weather or below freezing weather. Very nice to drop off quarters, turn on the cooler and then head back out for another hunt and not worry about anything. Probably have a Coolbot to sell.