ICE ???

My pops bought a 5-day Cooler from Costco and low and behold he had it in the back of his truck and I asked for a water when he showed up to my house, the water had been in there since Sunday and it was Thursday and the water was still cold !

As most people have suggested, most of that ice was going into coolers.

And most of those customers were going for convenience rather than quality. When tent camping along a river in the desert we knew block ice is much more cost effective and lasts longer.

And for more than a weekend, we used dry ice same as the sailing group.

Beer. There is nothing better on a hot day then a cold beer that has been setting in a cooler full of ice.

Yes, I can store the beer in the fridge but, I have a smaller fridge and that takes up space. Besides, it is so much colder and tastes better when it comes out of the ice.

I really should give it up though. I'm getting old and my doctor frowns on my drinking beer. I also tend to forget when I'm drinking.

When sailing to Hawaii we used dry ice and still had frozen items after 2 weeks. The key to using dry ice is to keep it well sealed and the coolers completely filled. We used 2 coolers and a built-in ice box, and packed food in the order of use. We duct-taped the lids to the coolers, and would operate out of one of the coolers until is was empty. We used frozen items that we were about to use to chill non-frozen refrigerated items. We also had items hard-frozen in a commercial freezer at a local grocery store before we left.

Tvov wrote:

dspencer wrote:

old guy wrote:
I learned from a close friend of mine to throw an old sleeping bag over the ice cheat and the ice will last a lot longer. these 5 day ice chests are over rated in my opinion.

My 5 day ice chest lasts maybe a day and a half if it's in the shade and not to hot outside.

If you read the instructions for those supposed multi-day coolers (seems weird to read instructions for a cooler!) you need to "cool" them down before using them. One recommended way is to fill them with ice (!) for a few hours and keep them in a cool area, then empty them, then fill with food and more ice - and they need to be filled to the top. Also, need to keep them out of the sun and areas that may be "heated", such as asphalt (parking lots, etc).

The multi-day coolers are better than "normal" coolers, but they are way over rated when it comes to real world use.

Acutally, the better way is to make ice cube BLOCKS.

I found over the years quart size ice cube blocks will last much longer than small cubes from a tray or ice maker.

I used a quart sized plastic wide mouth container typically used for freezing food..

Something like THIS will work fine.

Fill it with water up to about 3/4 full.. then place in freezer.

Once frozen you warm the outside of the container then the large cube will fall out.

Typically could get 4-5 days out of several dozen of those cubes with a standard ice chest in 90 degree heat.. After that I had to buy ice..

dspencer wrote:

old guy wrote:
I learned from a close friend of mine to throw an old sleeping bag over the ice cheat and the ice will last a lot longer. these 5 day ice chests are over rated in my opinion.

My 5 day ice chest lasts maybe a day and a half if it's in the shade and not to hot outside.

If you read the instructions for those supposed multi-day coolers (seems weird to read instructions for a cooler!) you need to "cool" them down before using them. One recommended way is to fill them with ice (!) for a few hours and keep them in a cool area, then empty them, then fill with food and more ice - and they need to be filled to the top. Also, need to keep them out of the sun and areas that may be "heated", such as asphalt (parking lots, etc).

The multi-day coolers are better than "normal" coolers, but they are way over rated when it comes to real world use.

It used to be a pain to buy bags of ice that melted in a cooler, or took up too much space in my freezer. Then, I bought this ICE MAKER from Sam's Club. I have a larger version at home. Both work well, but I like the larger version better.

When we go out with the group we are the ice factory. We have a 22 cubic foot residential with ice maker in the motorhome. It cranks it out pretty fast. It does triple or quadruple duty when we are with a group. I make sure we are parked in the sun so the solar panels get full pop from the sun. It obviously uses more power when its cranking out ice. Usually day two is when everyone starts to run out. Its all good. :)

Boyz312 wrote:
I apologize in advance for this question, but recently I rode into a an extremely large and nice RV park on my motorcycle for a cup of coffee and noticed everybody, it seemed, buying ice at the general store. Can we not make ice in our trailers(in the market). simple but important question because I plan on doing some serious boondocking.

My previous TT was 20ft and the fridge was 4 cu ft, the freezer was less than 1 cu ft which left very little space in the fridge for food that needed refrigeration and could only fit a small amount of frozen meats in the freezer..

Pretty much forced us to use a ice chest for drinks and other foods that would not fit in the fridge..

Was a daily chore to get 10 lbs of ice daily and was pretty expensive buying ice..

Our current 26ft TT we put a 10 cu ft home fridge in it.. MUCH better for food and beverage space not to mention we can make and store our own ice!

After the first trip with the 26ft TT we DITCHED the ice chest, no longer need it and don't miss the daily trips buying ice!

old guy wrote:
I learned from a close friend of mine to throw an old sleeping bag over the ice cheat and the ice will last a lot longer. these 5 day ice chests are over rated in my opinion.

My 5 day ice chest lasts maybe a day and a half if it's in the shade and not to hot outside.