Super keezer collar

I have an idea. I have been scouring CL for used chest freezers and have made a deal to buy one for $50 only to hear from the seller that they think it died before I could pick it up. That got me thinking that buying a used freezer, then spending a ton of effort on customizing it, only to have it die may be a bad idea. Also, most of the CL freezers are not energy star freezers.

So, I want a fairly large one so I can run multiple sodas and a couple beers. I considered new but the cost for the size I want was around $450 for a 14 cf model.

Would it be reasonable to buy a 5 or 8 cf model and build a super collar (one that hangs off on end) and the make a second box for more kegs? I would have to make a new lid that would cover both boxes or have the original lid cover the new box and half of the old one ( have to slide kegs under).

The more I write, the more it sounds to me that buying a freezer at the right size may be worth the money.

So what do you guys think in concept about the super collar idea?

Proof of concept is always nice, and I think it could work. But I also think the extra money spent to make this idea work would probably be equal to, if not greater than, the price difference between the freezer sizes.

Ramdough said:

Would it be reasonable to buy a 5 or 8 cf model and build a super collar (one that hangs off on end) and the make a second box for more kegs? I would have to make a new lid that would cover both boxes or have the original lid cover the new box and half of the old one ( have to slide kegs under).

Click to expand...

That's kinda hard to follow, but I think you are saying "buy a 5 cf freezer and build a 5 cf box to sit beside it, giving an apparent 10 cf of freezer space"

If that's what you mean: It is doable, but you have to be aware that the cooling system in the freezer is sized to handle a certain amount of heat load. If you increase the volume that the system has to cool, it has to work harder. There will be a point where you get too big and the cooling can't keep up.

You would also have to make some sort of active system to move the cold over to the other box.

Yeah, I am thinking that the effort and cost of building a custom box may end up greater than the upfront cost of buying a larger freezer.

My thought was that I would use a fan to circulate air. Also, I would be running the freezer at a much higher temperature than a deep freeze is designed to run, so I figured I would have some margin since I would not be using all of the cooling capacity. I would need to still calculate the how much extra loss I would have to make sure I did not over do it.

These are just my speculations. Just seeing if the idea is worth considering.

Thanks

The other thing to keep in mind is that most chest freezers nowadays don't have condenser coils on the back like a fridge. The condenser coils (Hot side) are actually built into the sides of the cooler. On both of mine, the left and right sides actually get hot on the outside. So not only would you have to worry about pulling down ambient temps, but also fight the heat added by the proximity to the hot outsides of the cooler itself.

^ this.

the 'wall' between the sections will get VERY warm !!! and will add to the heat load. Insulation alone isn't really an answer - the original design is to allow heat to escape, you don't want to "trap" 25% of your heat release mechanism in the wall between the two sections.