Which is the best cooler box?

[CronxMatt]

Iv'e just purchased a 29ltr powered coolbox from Lidl at £39 (which annoying a few days later was down to £29).
I haven't used it yet so I don't know how good it is. It has a 12v ciggie and 240v input.

Matt

[winchman]

We get stuff delivered to work in these, they make excellent cheap toolboxes as the insulation is often twice as thick as a plastic cool box, they are about £2 in Florida, we i=used one for cold drinks it was excellent and 100 degrees most days
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Polystyrene-i ... 2221972955

[mikeonb4c]

Iv'e just purchased a 29ltr powered coolbox from Lidl at £39 (which annoying a few days later was down to £29).
I haven't used it yet so I don't know how good it is. It has a 12v ciggie and 240v input.

Matt

It'll probably work ok but drain a battery pretty quickly if engine not running. If it has a thermostat cutout that is a good sign.

There's a lot in what winchman says. For a weekends camping lots of freezer packs/pre frozen/pre chilled in a well insulated container alone may get you through fine, especially if kept out of sun/in a breeze/ with wet tea towels over it for evaporative cooling. If that box has a peltier fan and thermostat and the lot is pre-cooled, then the concept can be extended a bit. It is trips longer than that, and where pre-cooling may not be possible, that you have to think more about compressor fridges etc.

[spud350]

Went for the Coleman in the end and it worked well although every bag of ice leaked when it melted. Going to source some airtight freezer bags and I think it'll be the ticket.

[cmm303]

Went for the Coleman in the end and it worked well although every bag of ice leaked when it melted. Going to source some airtight freezer bags and I think it'll be the ticket.

Hope it meets expectation. Same experience with leaking ice bags though the ice melt does keep stuff at the bottom very cool as well as wet!

[spud350]

Yeah I'm pretty happy with it. Might get the electric just for days out saving having to find ice.

If I find a good waterproof bag I'll let you know.

[mikeonb4c]

I'm probably being dumb, but why are you carrying ice in a coolbox?

[cmm303]

I'm probably being dumb, but why are you carrying ice in a coolbox?

To keep it cold, instead of freezer packs.
Can't imagine you ever being dumb Mike

[mikeonb4c]

I'm probably being dumb, but why are you carrying ice in a coolbox?

To keep it cold, instead of freezer packs.
Can't imagine you ever being dumb Mike

You'd be amazed

Ah, i use freezer blocks in mine for that. I THINK (but am not certain) they offer more cooling power, pound for pound (brexit-speak). And they don't leak

[cmm303]

Mike you could well be right about the amount of cold ice packs hold. It is just that sometimes ice is more available than freezing facilities. For a weekend we'll always use packs but for touring Scotland we used ice.
We are off to a festival for 4 days and will use loose ice. The coolbox will be so full of healthy vitamin bottles (ha hum ) there will not be room for freezer packs whereas ice cubes can be poured into all the gaps.

Horses for courses.
I can just hear all those with fridges and solar panels grinning from ear to ear at this low-tech discussion

[spud350]

Yeah I did have cooling blocks for the 1st couple of days until they melted but then there's the hassle of refreezing. If that's overnight the milk is nice and warm in the morning.
I got a big bag of ice from the supermarket and just drop the whole bag in. All the stuff is kept really really cold but the bags they come in aren't actually water tight so there's a puddle in the bottom of the box when it's melting.

I'll source some water tight bags so when the cubes melt I'll just empty the bags and put fresh ice in. It's probably not something you could have done years ago but it seems nearly all supermarkets sell ice now which is useful for camping.

[Bongoplod]

Yeah I did have cooling blocks for the 1st couple of days until they melted but then there's the hassle of refreezing. If that's overnight the milk is nice and warm in the morning.
I got a big bag of ice from the supermarket and just drop the whole bag in. All the stuff is kept really really cold but the bags they come in aren't actually water tight so there's a puddle in the bottom of the box when it's melting.

I'll source some water tight bags so when the cubes melt I'll just empty the bags and put fresh ice in. It's probably not something you could have done years ago but it seems nearly all supermarkets sell ice now which is useful for camping.

And very cheap too,usually 99p a bag

Brian

[mikeonb4c]

Yeah I did have cooling blocks for the 1st couple of days until they melted but then there's the hassle of refreezing. If that's overnight the milk is nice and warm in the morning.
I got a big bag of ice from the supermarket and just drop the whole bag in. All the stuff is kept really really cold but the bags they come in aren't actually water tight so there's a puddle in the bottom of the box when it's melting.

I'll source some water tight bags so when the cubes melt I'll just empty the bags and put fresh ice in. It's probably not something you could have done years ago but it seems nearly all supermarkets sell ice now which is useful for camping.

Ah, gotcha now. I've never done extended camping except where there was somewhere i could re-freeze the freezer blocks. In that situation i have enough to be freezing some while using others.

[mycallsevern]

We have the Outwell Eco Box 30l it is huge and as we don't have a leisure battery yet it only gets run when we are driving. Saying that on a recent 3 day camp at a festival (where we were in no state to drive at all for the 3 days) we were still enjoying ice cold beers on the 3rd day. For that trip we had the big partition freezer block and a few other small freezer blocks in there, filled it with G&T and beer (about 25 cans) and then drove for 2.5 hours to the festival, as I said before it easily stayed cold all weekend.

[mycallsevern]

I know the op has already purchase a box, but thought others might be interested. Just received the Go Outdoors promo leaflet through the door and they are selling the Outwell Ecocool 24l electric cool box for £60 bit of a bargain.