Anyone built their own fridge (from scratch)?

So, as the title says, I'm looking to see if anyone has done this before. Now, I'm not talking cutting holes and just "expanding" the compartment, but essentially either

a) using the guts from a fridge and building your own compartment

or

b) finding some sort of commercial solution made for customized refrigerated cabinets

Though I know the kegerator/keezer method is probably the most cost effective, I've always wanted to see about doing it (mostly) from scratch.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Kosch

Kosch said:

So, as the title says, I'm looking to see if anyone has done this before. Now, I'm not talking cutting holes and just "expanding" the compartment, but essentially either

a) using the guts from a fridge and building your own compartment

or

b) finding some sort of commercial solution made for customized refrigerated cabinets

Though I know the kegerator/keezer method is probably the most cost effective, I've always wanted to see about doing it (mostly) from scratch.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Kosch

Click to expand...

Have a look at this

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/keg-o-vision-243386/

i built a box that can hold maybe 8-10 corneys out of 3 sheets of 8'x4'x2" rigid foam insulation. its kind of a swamp chiller of sorts, though it would work without water in it.

its got a few coats of thick primer on it just to protect the foam, then i lined it with two sheets of thick plastic (sold at home despot as a drop cloth in painting dept) and filled it with maybe 20-30 gallons of water. there is a 20 foot copper coil that runs around the inside perimeter, which i pump chilled antifreeze thru.

its powered by the guts of an air conditioner that i... repurposed. the nice thing about having 30 gallons of 34 degree water in there, is that you can put a full, room temperature keg into this thing and it will be at serving temp in an hour. the only downside that im working on is that when kegs empty, they start floating. havnt found an easy soloution yet.

audger said:

i built a box that can hold maybe 8-10 corneys out of 3 sheets of 8'x4'x2" rigid foam insulation. its kind of a swamp chiller of sorts, though it would work without water in it.

its got a few coats of thick primer on it just to protect the foam, then i lined it with two sheets of thick plastic (sold at home despot as a drop cloth in painting dept) and filled it with maybe 20-30 gallons of water. there is a 20 foot copper coil that runs around the inside perimeter, which i pump chilled antifreeze thru.

its powered by the guts of an air conditioner that i... repurposed. the nice thing about having 30 gallons of 34 degree water in there, is that you can put a full, room temperature keg into this thing and it will be at serving temp in an hour. the only downside that im working on is that when kegs empty, they start floating. havnt found an easy soloution yet.

Click to expand...

I was thinking of doing something like this but with an aquarium heater as well to heat the water for a fermentation chamber if I ever needed the heat. But to keep the keg down you could make a frame to hold it down or a attach the keg to some weights.

There's no reason why a crafty person couldn't build a fridge from scratch. In fact, many walk-in refrigerators are custom built on site. It's quite possible to do the same thing on a smaller scale but I think you'll find the cost of components to be prohibitive.

Some folks have successfully used air conditioners instead of refrigerator components (like that keg-o-vision) in order to save money but there must be a reason why fridge manufacturers don't use them.

One of the guys here (bobby_m maybe?) took the guts from a fridge and made his own evaporator from copper tubing. He had it wrapped around a fermenter, if I remember correctly. You will need a vacuum pump. I think there was another thread where they stripped a fridge down to the coils / compressor and mounted it in a fermentation chamber.

AzironaZack said:

Some folks have successfully used air conditioners instead of refrigerator components (like that keg-o-vision) in order to save money but there must be a reason why fridge manufacturers don't use them.

Click to expand...

a fridge compressor and an A/C compressor are the same exact things, only the A/C compressor is bigger to deal with the bigger heat load. 'bigger'=more expensive, so if 'bigger' isnt necessary, like for a fridge or freezer, they design something smaller.

most people around arent buying brand new equipment, they are looking for deals on cheap used items. so on ebay or craigslist the average price for a full used, working fridge is 100-200 bucks, plus its big so you have to get a truck.

the average price on craigslist for an air conditioner is like $20 (or often- free). so you are getting a more powerful compressor for much less money, and you can throw it in the trunk of any car. doesnt make sense not to.

Cool, thanks everyone, these are some good ideas that I'll have to bounce around.

I was thinking of the walk-in functionality when I asked, but not sure if they have something for a smaller scale. I *did* find Vinotemp standalone units, which are fairly pricey (MSRP ~$690 for 1500 BTU), but it would sure be easy to work with. I'm just not sure how low of temp they can go to.

audger: how are you chilling the antifreeze? Just pumping it through another freezer?

Thanks!

Kosch

Hi all, so here's my to cents to bounce ideas around. I am also looking at building a fridge. my first thought was to obtain one of those chest freezers that you get in dairy's/ corner stores the ones with the glass sliding lids easy enough to run glycol and beer or just beer up to a tap I want to have mine on a bar, and I live in Darwin hence the want for glycol. but getting ahold of one of these up here proving difficult. my next thought was two bulid one there are people who have just added a thermostat to a freezer http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge_1.pdf knowing that as soon as you open a vertical fridge you lose all of the cold air. so that's when I thought I could build one to go under one side of the bar then the rest can have the taps on. I have seen fridge systems where you can run coils through and have the keg beside the fridge system but as above my location would prove fruitless. if i was to custom make a chest fridge for say 3 X 50 litre kegs how much coil length would it need through the walls of fridge
also I was thinking of trying to run it on solar

I am currently making mine and taking some building pics along the way. I completely dismantled my mini fridge keggerator and put it in a custom built cabinet. I cut through one of the condenser lines so read up on how to repair and recharge the system. I framed it with 2x2's and used 2 inch foam boards and plywood. Caulked everything and have primed it. I will then seal it with several coats of white gloss varnathane or the like.
I have one side still to finish on the condenser line and have to wait until a part comes in to draw a vacuum and recharge the system. I intend to finish the outside with thin hardwood panelling. It will comfortably hold my two kegs and ten lb co2 container. It will also have room if I decide to put a wine tap and nitrogen canister as well (still playing with that idea).

packaged compressor units aren't that hard to come by. Look at Klondike fridges. I'm considering building one for my house, that would also incorporate corny storage. Packaged evaporator, condensor unit, lineset, done.

Add ties to the bottom to secure your keg

We ripped the guts from a propane fridge, built a box with studs, lined the studs with underlayment plywood, spray foamed everything, and surfaced everything with tile.

Kosch said:

So, as the title says, I'm looking to see if anyone has done this before. Now, I'm not talking cutting holes and just "expanding" the compartment, but essentially either

a) using the guts from a fridge and building your own compartment

or

b) finding some sort of commercial solution made for customized refrigerated cabinets

Though I know the kegerator/keezer method is probably the most cost effective, I've always wanted to see about doing it (mostly) from scratch.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Kosch

Click to expand...

emmavagts said:

We ripped the guts from a propane fridge, built a box with studs, lined the studs with underlayment plywood, spray foamed everything, and surfaced everything with tile.

Click to expand...

good revive, would have never thought about a propane fridge! thank you for sharing, so that it's googlable now! (the way i joined too!)

i was googling to see if you could rig up a walk in with propane, found a parts site....

https://www.warehouseappliance.com/category/gas-refrigerator-parts/page/3/

emmavagts said:

We ripped the guts from a propane fridge, built a box with studs, lined the studs with underlayment plywood, spray foamed everything, and surfaced everything with tile.

Click to expand...

bracconiere said:

good revive, would have never thought about a propane fridge! thank you for sharing, so that it's googlable now! (the way i joined too!)

Click to expand...

Aren't propane (or any other gas) fridges, incredibly inefficient, energy wise?

IslandLizard said:

Aren't propane (or any other gas) fridges, incredibly inefficient, energy wise?

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HELL YES! but you wouldn't need a HVAC license to build your own! that's what i liked about the comment, and bringing it up.....

edit: and before i googled it, i didn't know they make NG fridges...i wonder if that would actually be cheaper then electric...inefficiencies and all?

I have built 4 refrigeration systems having become interested in them due to necessity, nothing large and with the aid of some Danfoss software tools, mainly to calculate the length and size of the capillary tube requirements. first attempt was a kegerator from an old fridge, used a 1/10hp compressor, was a bit too small but works to 8 degrees C, another attempt was a chest freezer, I made into a kegerator I turned it onit's end and replaced the faulty compressor (used a 1/3hp this time, much better as I need to get to 2 degrees for cold crashing) just needed to reorient the compressor. I also made a refrigeration system to chill a fermentation chamber (wooden box lined with polystyrene). and finally a chiller using a six pack plastic cooler box filter with a glycol water mix and holding two coils, one 3/8 inch working as the refrigeration evaporator the other is 1/4 inch sat inside the first and through which I run my ale from the keg to the tap, chills the ale nicely but could be used to chill water for cooling wort as well.

A mini-split unit would be ideal for a small walk-in.
They come as a DIY system with all of the Freon already in the compressor, mount units and hook up the lines, add power.
Available in 110 & 220.

Dr_Jeff said:

A mini-split unit would be ideal for a small walk-in.
They come as a DIY system with all of the Freon already in the compressor, mount units and hook up the lines, add power.
Available in 110 & 220.

Click to expand...

people always talk about fermentation 'chambers'....that's a good idea for a fermentation room!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1838001177...eQFXIF7nn-hi9d9ox4vT7cP2b-JqpTvsaAtuzEALw_wcB

not much more $$ then a chest freezer!

I just built a new fermentation chamber using lumber, rigid foam panels and a homemade heating and cooling thermoelectric system using tap water for the waste side and glycol solution for the chamber radiator/fan loop side. Water is much more efficient than using fans on the peltier devices. I've tested the chamber from 35F to 110F. Works great. I'm guessing I spent about $400 all told. The pictures tell the story the best. If you have any questions, I love sharing.



My previous chamber (similar style) used a dorm room size refrigerator that sat under the chamber, which now makes a great place to store empty kegs. The old one was also too small! But really the most important difference is that this new system cools and heats much better than the refrigerator method.

Love this thread -
looking for suggestions on make & model of donor refrigerators ; I'm hoping to go with something that uses evaporator plates -i'd like to do a freezer-fridge combo - keg on the fridge side of course

BarryBrews said:

I just built a new fermentation chamber using lumber, rigid foam panels and a homemade heating and cooling thermoelectric system using tap water for the waste side and glycol solution for the chamber radiator/fan loop side. Water is much more efficient than using fans on the peltier devices. I've tested the chamber from 35F to 110F. Works great. I'm guessing I spent about $400 all told. The pictures tell the story the best. If you have any questions, I love sharing.

View attachment 759016View attachment 759017View attachment 759019

My previous chamber (similar style) used a dorm room size refrigerator that sat under the chamber, which now makes a great place to store empty kegs. The old one was also too small! But really the most important difference is that this new system cools and heats much better than the refrigerator method.

Click to expand...

I'd love to hear more about this. I think I'm going to build a small cooler to be cooled by a glycol chiller hooked to a small fan coil in the cooler/cabinet, so I'm curious how you insulated and sealed yours especially around the door. Thermo electric is also super cool so I'm curious what you have going there, my buddy loves that concept too.

Thanks,
Cam

Camshaft27 said:

glycol chiller hooked to a small fan coil in the cooler/cabinet, so I'm curious how you insulated and sealed yours especially around the door.

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Inside the fermentation box is an aluminum heat exchanger with an attached fan all from Amazon. The door seals with the same method used on your front door. The chamber was built with 2x4 lumber frame, 2 inch rigid foam panels and lauan plywood. There's a formular that gives the thermal properties based on the insulation values of your materials and chamber size. Air leaks are very bad - use caulking.