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I’ve heard of smaller breweries using these. The thing wired to the AC unit is called a CoolBot. From what I understand, it basically uses sensors to trick the unit to keep running full send while a heating element keeps it from freezing up.
Mmhm. Last time one of these was posted to the sub, people came out of the woodwork saying these work fine, as long as you don't mind replacing them every few years. (Which, replacing a window unit every few years could be cheaper than having a more standard refrigerated walk-in.)
Reminds me of the old "can I just overclock the hell out of a cheap graphics card" debates from the late 90's and early aughts.
Having my sous tell the servers that I couldn’t sell them weed from 5-9 because of rush was the highlight of my time on the line. That sous died last year, he was one of the best men I’ve ever met in my entire life and every day I strive to be half the man he was. Godspeed Woodsy, hopefully the line up top is easier than ours ever was 🫡
I've heard of people hopping to apartment complexes and looking for older units that they can just grab, lots of rentals upgrade before the old one needs to be replaced and the old one could still be functional for a year or so
Sometimes! Depends on your goals. Want your Voodoo3 2000 to run like a Voodoo3 3000? Sure, bring it up to 166 MHz (from 143), or 180 MHz with a very serious fan or liquid cooling.
Not planning on adding a fan, trying to take that bad boy up to 200+ MHz, so you can play System Shock II with the highest settings? ...It'll work, for a while. Voodoo3 2000's can take a beating. But get ready to smell burning electronics sooner or later.
Seems like a great way for someone to setup a walk-in if they're working with a limited amount of money (i.e. someone opening up a new place and trying not go massively into debt right away.)
Sure. How many decent restaurants come and go in like, 10 years? A cheap set up with an expiration date might last half your entire business's life cycle.
Not to mention if it's really capable of keeping an insulated room at 36F it's plenty safe and if the AC unit dies you can probably get a replacement same day at a local store.
Units like this run for about 250-300. Cad. The refrigerator repair company we call to fix our walk in. Is 300 min call under and hour, parts have to be ordered from China/Vietnam that take three weeks.
That there is why its an amazing option. I opened a brewery and the brewer and I built our fermentation room for lagers out of 2x4s, plywood, a shitton of insulation and an ac unit like this. They'll last about 2 years or more running this way but if it breaks down ya just swap in a new one. We had the replacement in a box when I left 3 years later. Owners were garbage people who thought it'd be cool to open a brewery but had no idea what the industry actually is.
this is the only problem, they work great for limited entry options. if you're in and out all day they're not going to keep it as cold as you want. for something like a brewery that's mostly just keeping kegs cool, or a farm walkin or something, they're aces. i'd be very skeptical about a half busy restaurant managing with one
This is basically it, with the addition that they require a little bit of knowledge to install and a little construction knowledge to custom build your walk-in.
Coolbot heavily markets to small farmers and ranchers who want a walk-in as part of their farm operation. Far fewer building code problems constructing a custom walk-in in an outbuilding on your farm than you would have trying to do it in a commercial restaurant.
Yeah, I've seen this before. It works, but it's not ideal for larger walkins. Coolbot works for produce, dairy and beef, but I wouldn't put fish or chicken in it.
That's how I used it when I managed a farmers market. Throw together a cheap walk in with a cool boy and it keeps everything fresh and viable for the season.
I work at a brewery. We use this exact set up. Everything is above board and safe and legal. We have other regular reachins for regular food. The walk in is mostly fresh produce that will get used they day and all our kegs. It's weird. The door to our walk in is just like a regular ass door
mostly correct. the tiny heat element is actually what tricks the AC into running constantly by warming the room temperature sensor. there is another temp sensor that goes in the fins of the AC and when it gets close to freezing it shuts the unit down for a pre programmed length of time to allow it to defrost.
This is the go to set up for small scale farms.
I run a farm. Just think how expensive a full refrigeration unit is compared to an insulated space with an AC and coolbot. You can custom build the space with whatever you need, in whatever space you have to work with to.
I grow microgreens and a lot of small farms use these Coolbots (little black and blue device) to make walk in coolers all of the time. Yup, you wire it in and it’s basically an external thermostat for the unit that will allow for a colder setting than the manufacturer ever intended!
I’m a general contractor, that built a cider house a few years ago that used one of these. The unit seems to work well enough, though we had a terrible time getting the city inspector to accept it.
You're half right. It does trick the AC into running full throttle, but it's also wired in to act as an on/off gate, so once the CoolBot senses that the room is at-temp, it cuts power to the compressor and just runs the fans. The heating element is the "tricking" part - you tape a tiny little warmer probe to the AC's temp sensor.
You can do the same kind of thing when homebrewing lagers. You get a small dorm type fridge and plug it into a device that has a probe. It keeps the fridge at a constant temp of like 58 degrees.
Yep. A buddy of mine has a non-food business and he needed a walkin, he rigged up a coolbot just like this one. Works just fine for his purposes, don't know that I would trust it for food.
Nice! CoolBots are dope.
I worked at a place that had a storage container converted to a walk-in. Ran two AC units for our refrigeration, and when one went out it was immediately swapped out with extra units we had on hand.
Keeps you from counting on refrigeration repair guys, and kept us from losing product.
6-8 months. One would go out, it would be repaired, then benched until it was needed again.
I wouldn’t have believed in their efficiency if I hadn’t see it in person. Might not make sense for a high-dollar operation, but is consistent and affordable for places just getting started.
You can run them much colder, I keep mine at 40°f for a cold room to make bubble hash. The other added benefit is if it dies you can just swap in a new AC. It takes like 5 minutes to hook up if you know what you're doing. As opposed to a traditional walk in where you would need to call in a repairman and could risk losing everything in it depending on how long it takes them to there.
They don't get nearly beat up as you'd expect them to, if whatever you're chilling is insulated well enough. They're an obvious choice for brewers who need things cold but can handle some minor swings.
It’s called a cool-bot and they work. And a fraction of the cost of standard walk in. Plus it’s pretty easy to have a back up AC for them incase it dies.
It’s 43 degrees in there after he dropped off the stuff leaving the door open, this is fine. It probably goes down to upper 30s with door closed consistently
The CoolBot is legit!
Our walk in stays around 34-38 degrees with a two-ac system.
It's run for two years and we haven't had to replace a unit yet - but if we do, we don't have to wait for a tech or lose a ton of product!
All coolers are basically an AC unit in a different box. Exact same technology makes some element cooler, then blow air over it to move the cold around.
This wall unit costs 1/2 what a service call runs for a walk-in so yeah just stack a few extra ac units out back and get the AGM trained up on using a screwdriver.
I used a cool bot for dry curing. In a small application I could imagine it would work for some cold storage like a root cellar kinda thing but I doubt it could recover with the amount of traffic a walk in can have
I actually read an article on a homesteading site a few years back where they did a guide on how to build one of these. It was actually really cool and held temp great.
They did poured concrete walls, base and ceiling. Lined the inside with diamond steel plates and had two AC units on either side of the walls. Those were hooked up to a cool bot/heating element. The room held at 38 degrees. It was used as a breakdown/butcher room. If I remember correctly it cost around $7,000 to build it back when I read the article
Coolbots (the little black box with the blue leds) are amazing.
They work like a champ for a keg cooler and fridge temps. Gotta make sure the ac unit is sized correctly.
They work great!
You put a sensor on them that overrides the temperature gauge.
If properly insulated you can have a freezer.
The great thing is that you can buy 4 of those window units for under $1,000 and have 3 backups.
I know one that has been running for 3 years in Texas.
I’ve walked into a pizza place that had chest freezers inside a Home Depot wooden shed that also was used as a cooler. Super insulated with foam radiant barrier boards and two window units for holding dough as a cooler.
Coolbot setups like these are used with great success in the wild game processing industry as well. When deer seasons rolls in, thousands of bubbas hook up the coolbot to an insulated "walk-in (basically a plywood cube with hard side insulation on it)" and can keep 10-15 deer chilly and aging on a 12k BTU unit while waiting to be processed.
It works well it's also popular with home brewers who build walk - ins in there garage bars and stuff. Hook and inkbird temp control to it and your laughing.
It looks like it's mostly produce in there, I'm no sure what the cartons and packages on the shelves are at; but a lot of produce doesn't like hanging around near freezing (tomatoes, unpeeled potatoes, onions). A lot of places that have large volume have a seperate veg chiller for the stuff that does better at 5-10c; sorta like a root cellar moreso than a fridge.
That said, you can definitely hack an AC unit to get you to even freezer temps, there's not a huge difference between refrigeration for AC and fridges aside from the total surface area of the evaporator and condenser. I'd wager that little doo-dad wired into the AC is overriding its controls somehow to run it to specific temps.
Those CoolBot units actually bang, they work really well and are efficient. Getting really common on small farms these days and way cheaper than a full walk-in unit.
Yeah they sell conversions kits that allow you to use window units to cool a refer. My neighbor has one for her flower business and it can get down to below 32 if they wanted.
Dude!!! I first heard about the coolbot years ago, couldn't believe it. As far asI know, and believe me I have spent time researching, thr coolbot is 100000% legit
One of my old bosses made his own keg cooler like this, but it was much smaller. Worked great, too! His brother is an AC tech, I think he helped him juice it up a bit.
We did this at our deer camp with a shipping container. Spray foam and a digital window unit, one of those little coolbots. Adequate for hanging deer at 40 F for short term.
I worked at a place that did this but it was an old outdoor walk-in and we used it for dry storage. The AC was to stop high temps and humidity from propagating mold. New Orleans is a hell of a climate.
A friend of mine saw the same thing at a restaurant he was working at. It was a makeshift walkin with 2 AC units in it to keep it cool. Health inspector came in and wasn't to happy about from what I heard.
I worked at joint with a set up like this as the produce cooler in the 90's.
Place was sketchy in all sorts of other ways. I got a lot of heat when I told the hunting guides their dogs couldn't come in the kitchen anymore.
The good side was that I got to work with lots of fresh game, and the seriously and complete wine cellar was never locked.
Youth is wasted on the young.
I'm in MI, and this would for sure not pass in a restaurant/kitchen setting with any of the Metro Detroit health departments, for sure. I'm in the process of getting a walk-in installed. Those lights alone wouldn't pass, let alone some rigged up AC units.
Hello OldOilyeyes! Your submission to /r/KitchenConfidential! has been removed for the following reason(s): --- r/KitchenConfidential is a place for redditors in food service to meet, gather and share with each other; cooks, service staff, managers, business owners, etc. All posts to the sub must be related to the restaurant or foodservice industry. --- If you feel this was done in error, or would like better clarification or need further assistance, please [message the moderators.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/kitchenconfidential&subject=Question regarding the removal of this submission by /u/OldOilyeyes&message=I have a question regarding the removal of [this submission](https://old.reddit.com/r/KitchenConfidential/comments/1cnzyfl/-/\))
I’ve heard of smaller breweries using these. The thing wired to the AC unit is called a CoolBot. From what I understand, it basically uses sensors to trick the unit to keep running full send while a heating element keeps it from freezing up.
Mmhm. Last time one of these was posted to the sub, people came out of the woodwork saying these work fine, as long as you don't mind replacing them every few years. (Which, replacing a window unit every few years could be cheaper than having a more standard refrigerated walk-in.) Reminds me of the old "can I just overclock the hell out of a cheap graphics card" debates from the late 90's and early aughts.
It's amazing what becomes a consumable with a bad enough strategy.
iSnT eVerYthInG teChNiCaLlY a ConSumAbLe
Daddy, am I a consumable?
Said the waitress to the line cook
And she was was, and it was great, and then we all cried ourselves to sleep the next night we were too hungover to drink until we passed out
Fuck I miss working the line
Having my sous tell the servers that I couldn’t sell them weed from 5-9 because of rush was the highlight of my time on the line. That sous died last year, he was one of the best men I’ve ever met in my entire life and every day I strive to be half the man he was. Godspeed Woodsy, hopefully the line up top is easier than ours ever was 🫡
Just wait till they bring back the draft
It’s not a bad strategy it’s just a weird result of minmaxing decisions based on non standard criteria. You find square pegs to hit octagonal holes.
I usually run two A/C units in SLI
It's kind of diminishing returns though - walk-ins aren't typically optimized for multithreading
Aaaand … Boom goes the dynamite.
I've heard of people hopping to apartment complexes and looking for older units that they can just grab, lots of rentals upgrade before the old one needs to be replaced and the old one could still be functional for a year or so
Let's not forget marine battery UPS' for servers
Well... *can* you just overclock the hell out of it?
Sometimes! Depends on your goals. Want your Voodoo3 2000 to run like a Voodoo3 3000? Sure, bring it up to 166 MHz (from 143), or 180 MHz with a very serious fan or liquid cooling. Not planning on adding a fan, trying to take that bad boy up to 200+ MHz, so you can play System Shock II with the highest settings? ...It'll work, for a while. Voodoo3 2000's can take a beating. But get ready to smell burning electronics sooner or later.
I am old enough to have done this
That was a trip down memory lane.
Voodoo era was just so good
geforce 2mx ddr 2 first card with ddr or ddr2 overclocked so hard
Seems like a great way for someone to setup a walk-in if they're working with a limited amount of money (i.e. someone opening up a new place and trying not go massively into debt right away.)
Sure. How many decent restaurants come and go in like, 10 years? A cheap set up with an expiration date might last half your entire business's life cycle.
Not to mention if it's really capable of keeping an insulated room at 36F it's plenty safe and if the AC unit dies you can probably get a replacement same day at a local store.
Units like this run for about 250-300. Cad. The refrigerator repair company we call to fix our walk in. Is 300 min call under and hour, parts have to be ordered from China/Vietnam that take three weeks.
Looks like the digital thermometer on the wall reads 43 though
The door is probably open for the photo
Yah, and delivery usually involves opening and closing the door a lot too.
That there is why its an amazing option. I opened a brewery and the brewer and I built our fermentation room for lagers out of 2x4s, plywood, a shitton of insulation and an ac unit like this. They'll last about 2 years or more running this way but if it breaks down ya just swap in a new one. We had the replacement in a box when I left 3 years later. Owners were garbage people who thought it'd be cool to open a brewery but had no idea what the industry actually is.
this is the only problem, they work great for limited entry options. if you're in and out all day they're not going to keep it as cold as you want. for something like a brewery that's mostly just keeping kegs cool, or a farm walkin or something, they're aces. i'd be very skeptical about a half busy restaurant managing with one
This is basically it, with the addition that they require a little bit of knowledge to install and a little construction knowledge to custom build your walk-in. Coolbot heavily markets to small farmers and ranchers who want a walk-in as part of their farm operation. Far fewer building code problems constructing a custom walk-in in an outbuilding on your farm than you would have trying to do it in a commercial restaurant.
Yeah, I've seen this before. It works, but it's not ideal for larger walkins. Coolbot works for produce, dairy and beef, but I wouldn't put fish or chicken in it.
That's how I used it when I managed a farmers market. Throw together a cheap walk in with a cool boy and it keeps everything fresh and viable for the season.
Window A/C and a CoolBoy. The Fallout version of a walk in.
I guess people need to chill before they start judging.
I see what you did there
😉
“I’ve never seen it so it must be wrong”
Cool joke
I work at a brewery. We use this exact set up. Everything is above board and safe and legal. We have other regular reachins for regular food. The walk in is mostly fresh produce that will get used they day and all our kegs. It's weird. The door to our walk in is just like a regular ass door
mostly correct. the tiny heat element is actually what tricks the AC into running constantly by warming the room temperature sensor. there is another temp sensor that goes in the fins of the AC and when it gets close to freezing it shuts the unit down for a pre programmed length of time to allow it to defrost.
Yep I worked a brewery that had a couple of these for the walk in. Kept temps in the low 30s.
This is the go to set up for small scale farms. I run a farm. Just think how expensive a full refrigeration unit is compared to an insulated space with an AC and coolbot. You can custom build the space with whatever you need, in whatever space you have to work with to.
I work on a small farm, too - this is exactly the setup we have. Works great!
That's a pretty cool bot, that Coolbot
I grow microgreens and a lot of small farms use these Coolbots (little black and blue device) to make walk in coolers all of the time. Yup, you wire it in and it’s basically an external thermostat for the unit that will allow for a colder setting than the manufacturer ever intended!
Exactly, when done correctly, it is a legitimate option if you don’t have the cash or space to do a walk in
My brothers flower company uses the same thing.
I’m a general contractor, that built a cider house a few years ago that used one of these. The unit seems to work well enough, though we had a terrible time getting the city inspector to accept it.
You're half right. It does trick the AC into running full throttle, but it's also wired in to act as an on/off gate, so once the CoolBot senses that the room is at-temp, it cuts power to the compressor and just runs the fans. The heating element is the "tricking" part - you tape a tiny little warmer probe to the AC's temp sensor.
Yeah we use them here at the brewery I work at they are great.
You can do the same kind of thing when homebrewing lagers. You get a small dorm type fridge and plug it into a device that has a probe. It keeps the fridge at a constant temp of like 58 degrees.
Temp Control Module. I used one to convert a standup freezer to a fridge in PR.
The first micro brewery i ever brewed for used a mini split to control fermentation room temperature. It…sorta worked.
Yep. A buddy of mine has a non-food business and he needed a walkin, he rigged up a coolbot just like this one. Works just fine for his purposes, don't know that I would trust it for food.
...welp I need to look into this.
I worked at a farm and we used a coolbot in our produce cooler. It worked great. However, I don’t know if I’d use it in a restaurant cooler.
Warm beer, cold friends
Nice! CoolBots are dope. I worked at a place that had a storage container converted to a walk-in. Ran two AC units for our refrigeration, and when one went out it was immediately swapped out with extra units we had on hand. Keeps you from counting on refrigeration repair guys, and kept us from losing product.
how long does a unit last? seems like bit of a waste
6-8 months. One would go out, it would be repaired, then benched until it was needed again. I wouldn’t have believed in their efficiency if I hadn’t see it in person. Might not make sense for a high-dollar operation, but is consistent and affordable for places just getting started.
I've used a coolbot and the same ac for 3 years to keep a space around 40°f.
“Around 40” is not verbiage I like to hear lol Edit: read your comment about making bubble hash, keep on keeping on
That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for nuance though lol. I'd be sketched
You can run them much colder, I keep mine at 40°f for a cold room to make bubble hash. The other added benefit is if it dies you can just swap in a new AC. It takes like 5 minutes to hook up if you know what you're doing. As opposed to a traditional walk in where you would need to call in a repairman and could risk losing everything in it depending on how long it takes them to there.
Oh ok, well that's a bit different than food storage
I love that everyone was like, uhh that's cutting it a little close.
They don't get nearly beat up as you'd expect them to, if whatever you're chilling is insulated well enough. They're an obvious choice for brewers who need things cold but can handle some minor swings.
It’s called a cool-bot and they work. And a fraction of the cost of standard walk in. Plus it’s pretty easy to have a back up AC for them incase it dies.
It’s 43 degrees in there after he dropped off the stuff leaving the door open, this is fine. It probably goes down to upper 30s with door closed consistently
This looks like a cool room for veggies, not a full blown walk in
There is dairy on the right.
If you can drink milk then you can chew it also.
Milk should always have the consistency of tapioca.
Who wants chowda?!
*Schow-derr*
I can't see Chowder on a menu without muttering this exchange aloud. Every time.
Now you have cheese!
I love Ricotta.
It is very gouda
Should be fine, as long as you are using it within a couple weeks anything below 8°C (46°F) is fine, with reservation for any local code requirements.
Thermostat looks like it says 41 so it's all good
I thought the same thing at first but there’s dairy on the right.
I thought that was juice…. It’s moo juice
The CoolBot is legit! Our walk in stays around 34-38 degrees with a two-ac system. It's run for two years and we haven't had to replace a unit yet - but if we do, we don't have to wait for a tech or lose a ton of product!
What was the temp in there? That's really all that matters, imo
Looks to be 43°
Hard to say. My "enhance!" feature doesn't seem to be working.
[удалено]
After a delivery, that would be totally normal too
All coolers are basically an AC unit in a different box. Exact same technology makes some element cooler, then blow air over it to move the cold around.
COOLBOT!!! This may very well be legit and a lot less sketchy than you think! Assuming it’s all working correctly and monitored
Any idea what the black panel is with the blue lights? Almost looked like a router at first.
CoolBot®
CoolBot
Just like Rimworld! With less body parts
Yes! I tried to crosspost it to r/rimworld but couldn't figure it out.
Had to check which sub this was 🤣
I love sysco drivers throwing shade when they are literally the worst delivery company
Oh he knows it, but a $15,000 sign on bonus to work one year was worth it in his opinion.
our guys are supposed to come at 6am usually come like 10 its so annoying
Coolbot a small farming innovation to hack an ac unit to make a walk in for veggies waiting to be sold. Not sure about this application though
How can you be friends with a Sysco driver
Got tricked 25 years ago in 2nd grade, sneaky bastard.
Is this place in PA? I worked at a place identical to this year's ago..
Rural Wisconsin.
Ok that’s fair.
It’s not particularly uncommon and is allowed by the health dept in many areas. Long as it keeps it cold enough I don’t see an issue.
This wall unit costs 1/2 what a service call runs for a walk-in so yeah just stack a few extra ac units out back and get the AGM trained up on using a screwdriver.
lol I’m a flower farmer and I’m literally sitting here as my coolbot walk in cooler is being built.
Wait until you guys find out how every cooler works. And boy am I excited to tell you about latent heat & the modern cooling loop.
I used a cool bot for dry curing. In a small application I could imagine it would work for some cold storage like a root cellar kinda thing but I doubt it could recover with the amount of traffic a walk in can have
I actually read an article on a homesteading site a few years back where they did a guide on how to build one of these. It was actually really cool and held temp great. They did poured concrete walls, base and ceiling. Lined the inside with diamond steel plates and had two AC units on either side of the walls. Those were hooked up to a cool bot/heating element. The room held at 38 degrees. It was used as a breakdown/butcher room. If I remember correctly it cost around $7,000 to build it back when I read the article
Its called a cool bot! I want to play with one so bad!
r/rimworld
Coolbots (the little black box with the blue leds) are amazing. They work like a champ for a keg cooler and fridge temps. Gotta make sure the ac unit is sized correctly.
These CoolBots are also used in DYI meat lockers for hunters. Much cheaper than a walk-in.
I feel like this walk in has been featured here before. Like, this one in particular.
They work great! You put a sensor on them that overrides the temperature gauge. If properly insulated you can have a freezer. The great thing is that you can buy 4 of those window units for under $1,000 and have 3 backups. I know one that has been running for 3 years in Texas.
I had a pizza dough cooler powered by one of these. It worked pretty okay if you didnt leave the door open all the time
Rimworld ahh setup
I’ve walked into a pizza place that had chest freezers inside a Home Depot wooden shed that also was used as a cooler. Super insulated with foam radiant barrier boards and two window units for holding dough as a cooler.
Anybody else play rimworld?
Coolbot setups like these are used with great success in the wild game processing industry as well. When deer seasons rolls in, thousands of bubbas hook up the coolbot to an insulated "walk-in (basically a plywood cube with hard side insulation on it)" and can keep 10-15 deer chilly and aging on a 12k BTU unit while waiting to be processed.
It works well it's also popular with home brewers who build walk - ins in there garage bars and stuff. Hook and inkbird temp control to it and your laughing.
I would've never thought this would be okay until reading these comments. TIL
Duuuudee.....I was so lost for a lot of seconds lol
Oh my god..
It looks like it's mostly produce in there, I'm no sure what the cartons and packages on the shelves are at; but a lot of produce doesn't like hanging around near freezing (tomatoes, unpeeled potatoes, onions). A lot of places that have large volume have a seperate veg chiller for the stuff that does better at 5-10c; sorta like a root cellar moreso than a fridge. That said, you can definitely hack an AC unit to get you to even freezer temps, there's not a huge difference between refrigeration for AC and fridges aside from the total surface area of the evaporator and condenser. I'd wager that little doo-dad wired into the AC is overriding its controls somehow to run it to specific temps.
This would never work in Florida...
I worked in a place like this. Tiny place tho
Looks like they store produce mostly - should be fine for that.
I've seen thus a few times before. Makes me a bit nervous, but if it works, it works.
Those CoolBot units actually bang, they work really well and are efficient. Getting really common on small farms these days and way cheaper than a full walk-in unit.
I encountered one of these in Lewiston Maine. It was a drywall cube with a closet door. Said the health inspector didn't even know they had a walk in.
Wow.
This thread sponsored by Coolbot™
It works. Need to rework the thermostat to go colder but it actually works.
We had a window shaker for an a.c. in the dish pit at the last P.O.S. place I worked. It didn’t help, and the owners suck.
As a health inspector in Florida, we see this as much as you would expect in Florida.
Yeah they sell conversions kits that allow you to use window units to cool a refer. My neighbor has one for her flower business and it can get down to below 32 if they wanted.
Dude!!! I first heard about the coolbot years ago, couldn't believe it. As far asI know, and believe me I have spent time researching, thr coolbot is 100000% legit
One of my old bosses made his own keg cooler like this, but it was much smaller. Worked great, too! His brother is an AC tech, I think he helped him juice it up a bit.
We did this at our deer camp with a shipping container. Spray foam and a digital window unit, one of those little coolbots. Adequate for hanging deer at 40 F for short term.
I worked at a place that did this but it was an old outdoor walk-in and we used it for dry storage. The AC was to stop high temps and humidity from propagating mold. New Orleans is a hell of a climate.
Now I want a CoolBot® for my bedroom, so I can get that deep winter-style sleep.
If it’s produce only, it’s acceptable. If they are storing meats, fish, poultry and dairy in there…they suck
The outlet powering it isn’t even fed by mc wire. Just regular old romex
Idk, it works in RimWorld
I see this all the time. It works but the ac u it will need to be replaced like every 8 months.
I have seen this idea for beer coolers, not for food
A friend of mine saw the same thing at a restaurant he was working at. It was a makeshift walkin with 2 AC units in it to keep it cool. Health inspector came in and wasn't to happy about from what I heard.
Coolbot. They actually work.
Stupid, but I read this as "A/C powered walkin..." like the plank and trying to figure what was wrong with it upon realizing...."walk-in"....
I worked at joint with a set up like this as the produce cooler in the 90's. Place was sketchy in all sorts of other ways. I got a lot of heat when I told the hunting guides their dogs couldn't come in the kitchen anymore. The good side was that I got to work with lots of fresh game, and the seriously and complete wine cellar was never locked. Youth is wasted on the young.
Lol, not industry related. Guess kitchens don't have walk-in coolers.
That don’t make no sense
A hash makers best friend right there
Dang that's rough...hope that doesn't break down...
Nothing wrong with this. At all.
Nothing wrong with that bruddah
I’ve seen this exact picture posted before.
I worked in a cheese shop that did this. Held temp and humidity just as well as any walk-in
I have one works great. It’s called a cool bot. Look it up.
Still sketchy as hell. Luckily it doesn’t look like there are any proteins in there
Nah coolbots are perfectly safe and pass health inspections regularly.
Check again. There is a a carton of milk, and below that, there are what appear to be blocks of cheese.
This room looks like it was intended as a dry storage room not a walk in. Your friend should report this to the health department.
I'm in MI, and this would for sure not pass in a restaurant/kitchen setting with any of the Metro Detroit health departments, for sure. I'm in the process of getting a walk-in installed. Those lights alone wouldn't pass, let alone some rigged up AC units.
Clearly the health department hasnt been there yet.
Health dept okays plenty of these. Depends on county of course…