Cooler Ice

Interesting first post from you....

I always freeze a gallon jug of water and put it in our cooler. Depending on where we are, it usually stays frozen for 4-5 days and keeps everything else cold in the cooler, too. Sometimes I freeze 1/2 gallon (flat) plastic jugs of water instead of the gallon.

I couldn't stand an ineffective cooler, so:

My Cooler Mod

I bought a portable ice maker from Target for $125 on sale (normally $159). Sits nicely behind the sink/faucets and gives us just enough ice. The younger kids love watching it dump the ice into the holding basket. :)

Emerson Ice Maker (Target.com)

It is an interesting first post and only post. Most people go to the camp store or corner market for ice, not that hard to find.

GaryWT wrote:
It is an interesting first post and only post. Most people go to the camp store or corner market for ice, not that hard to find.

I think it was more of a suggestion to keep ice from melting so fast. And or to sell something. Me. I use the fridge inside, and use a fridge outside to keep our drinks cold. We never need ice much any more.

Haven't used a cooler with the TT, but then we've only been out once since we bought it in March. We do use Coleman 5-day coolers on the sailboat. If we're out for more than a couple days I'll freeze water in a gallon jug or get a block so it stays frozen a couple days.

If we're going to be out for a week then we'll have 2 coolers and add dry ice to the mix. First cooler (generally the bigger of the two) gets loaded with pre-packed, frozen meals in gallon ziplocks. Then I add some jugs of frozen water and dry ice on top. Sometimes I'll throw in regular ice too, but I think that speeds up the dry ice melting. That cooler only gets opened long enough to pull out dinner to thaw.

Second cooler, which doubles as the step into the cabin, acts as the fridge, except for some frozen water bottles and maybe some dry ice on one end. I use a piece of cardboard to separate the frozen from the non-frozen in that one. It gets opened a lot more than the other one, since it's got drinks, etc.

The dry ice doesn't stop us needing to buy wet ice at some point, but it does let us push the first ice run out to the 3rd or 4th day.

I've also been known to wrap the "freezer" cooler in a space blanket or some of that silver coated bubble wrap. That helps keep things frozen even longer, though it's a bit of a pain to wrap & unwrap. Can't do that with the "step" as it's a very tight fit as it is.

Terryallan wrote:

GaryWT wrote:
It is an interesting first post and only post. Most people go to the camp store or corner market for ice, not that hard to find.

I think it was more of a suggestion to keep ice from melting so fast. And or to sell something. Me. I use the fridge inside, and use a fridge outside to keep our drinks cold. We never need ice much any more.

I think it is a first and only post to sell/advertise something.

If you camp where you have power I suggest that you look into a Coleman cooler that works on 12vdc and comes with a 120vac adaptor. Mine is a large 40qt cooler and will keep the inside 40 deg cooler than the outside temp. No ice is needed. I had mine for at least 10 years now and it still works like the day I bought it.

I had purchased a 4.1 cu foot fridge for that reason, now with the outside kitchen, I no longer had to bring the extra fridge...thank goodness...

Whoa.........I think I slipped on the "Snake Oil" there......:h