Okay, my first one died after 8 years. And as a Public Service Announcement - yours may too -
I talked to an HVAC friend of mine that runs the BBQ circuit around the SouthEast - he hauls a 40 ft trailer... he uses chest freezers for his pig because they're more convenient than a refrigerator - and he uses temp controllers too. He told me that these $200-300 big-box freezers aren't meant to come on for a few minutes at a time, once or twice a day - they're meant to run a while, freeze cold and hard, then stay off for a few days. Scott says if you get 7 years out of one - "good for you! now go buy another!"
with that out of the way, and my Master's finished, it was time to replace my 7 cu ft. But I have space constraints and couldn't go much larger. I went to the 8.8 cu ft - much easier to get 4 kegs in and out, and only 3 inches longer.
I also use the freezer to keep 5 gallons of glycol cool, which I pump through a heat-transfer assembly in the water bath of my fermentation tank to keep ferm temps consistent (62F).
So, with a 3/4" layer of 6x oak, two layers of 3/4 foam, and a bit of plastic trim I found at Lowes, I did this:
The drain is held on by hard-drive magnets. I haven't hooked that up yet, but it will have a laquered copper tube dropping into a brass spittoon.
Now that the glycol is cold - I can brew and fill my pipeline back up!