Three Ways to Cool Your Cold Storage Room

I still consider our home walk-in cooler to be one of the best investments we have made in our own food security especially because we are able to keep this room cool in all four seasons. This allows us to store our vegetable garden produce here on a year-round basis.
We've used 3 different methods to regulate the temperature of our cold room. They all work, but they do come with different costs and benefits. This video will show you the basic installation requirements for each of these cooling methods.
Here are answers to some common questions we get about our cold room:
1. What temperature do you maintain in your cold room?
4ºC or 39ºF
2. Can I cool my room with automated vents in the winter and an air conditioner in the summer?
Yes. We've found that as soon as the outdoor temperature reaches -10ºC or lower, we can cool our room exclusively with the automated vents. If our vents were larger or we didn't open the cooler door as often, we wouldn't have to wait until the outdoor temperature was quite that cold.
3. Could I mount the air conditioner on an exterior wall of the cooler?
Yes. We live in a cold climate where we are typically adding heat to our home and when our basement was uninsulated and cool it made sense to dump the excess heat from our cooler into our basement. Now that our basement is very well insulated, the heat from the air conditioner can make the basement temperature uncomfortably warm in the heat of summer so I wouldn't advise mounting the air conditioner on an indoor wall in all situations.
Here are a few links to help get you started with your project:
Inkbird Temperature Controller
amzn.to/3TDQ3Hq
Independent Scientific Evaluation of CoolBot/Air Conditioner Performance
storeitcold.com/wp-content/up...
How to Size and Choose a Compatible Air Conditioner
www.storeitcold.com/build-it/...
How to Control Your Air Conditioner With Inkbird Temperature Controllers
• Build Your Own Walk-In...
SANCO2™ High-Efficiency Heat Pump Water Heater Supplier
www.smallplanetsupply.com/sanc02
SANCO2™ Installation Manual
foursevenfive.com/content/pro...
CO2.pdf
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[@leeoh4459]

You are absolutely amongst the must underrated channels I’ve event come across, your presentation skills are amazing im shocked to see such low engagement

[@VegetableAcademy]

Thanks. I appreciate the comment.

[@alexduncan127]

I absolutely love this video. It’s thorough and to the point, not full of jargon where I skip ahead over and over. Great ideas!

[@VegetableAcademy]

Thanks for the feedback Alex. I'm glad you found the video helpful and easy to follow.

[@richardkut3976]

Excellent, more complexity than I can manage but beautiful.

[@paullong4471]

Thank you It is wonderful.God bless

[@dhypeng]

Mind blown by the ingenious installation. Also am curious about your home insulation renovation over the years…

[@patriot7633]

Good Job

[@hughstinnette1771]

My vote is for the heat exchanger. Great work, btw. 14:29

[@GoneBattyBats]

I'm hoping to build a cold room this year and use the old method of having a warm air vent up high in the room to the outdoors and then another cold air intake which would drop low down to the floor. It will be non electric convection air movement. We have almost 2 foot thich old fieldstone walls, so I will have to use the window and just fit plywood and insulation to the open windows and seal that tight. I believe with a way to have a control gate valve of some sort on both the intake and exhaust, I can damper it each day as needed. Just looking to drop the temps from the normal 55-60 deg F tems down to 38-40 deg so at least my potatoes will not be sprouting in Dec or Jan.

[@CanadianBrewingChannel]

Great detailed video. Where did you purchase those automated vents?

[@AmericanEgyptianWays]

Wow pretty insightful , just one question , can we implement the heat pump idea for large cold storage rooms ? will it be economically efficient

[@bouquetpizza9638]

Hey! Really cool ideas - particularly the SANCO2 unit. I'm building a walkin for a pizzeria and I was wondering the inner dimension of your cold room is? Also, do you find the SANCO2 struggles to maintain the 4 degrees at all? Thanks!

[@pierrepaa29]

FINE, I'LL SUBSCRIBE!!

[@Fireheadman]

have been following you on the other video, finally got my cooler online with 2 inkbirds using an 24,500btu LG AC. Was able to get it down to 32-34 degrees, but it has been a struggle adjusting the low/high/set points on each ink bird itc-308 wifi units. curious if you have a write up and video that explains more on this?

[@medina3420]

Excellent video. Thank you for sharing Great ideas. was Thinking Heat exchanger. But In the Desert, Water is Precious. and Limited, "Water Collection" So may go with AC unit. Plenty of Sun.

[@VegetableAcademy]

With the heat pump method, the excess heat doesn't need to be discharged through a sprinkler. That was just the easiest option for us since we don't mind adding a little water to our grass or perennial beds once in a while. To conserve water, the hot water could be pumped through a closed outdoor loop in the ground until the temperature in the hot water tank dropped back down to acceptable levels. That pump could be automated the same way we automate the opening and closing of the valve to our heat dumping sprinkler.

[@nates2526]

I like the inline fans the best. I wonder if there is an easy way to program “when it is cooler outside than inside, turn on” to help keep a root cellar cooler throughout the summer.

[@VegetableAcademy]

Yes. You can accomplish this by adding an Inkbird controller A in front of the Inkbird controller B that turns on the fans. Take the temperature sensor from Inkbird controller A and put it outside so it can measure the outdoor temperature. Then set that controller to a desired temperature limit for turning on the fans. If you plug Inkbird controller B into the "heating" port of controller A, then controller A will give power to controller B whenever the temperature outside is below your set temperature, and then controller B which has it's temperature probe inside the cold room will only turn on the fans when the room is too warm AND the outdoor air is colder than your set temperature. This little modification can be helpful in the spring or fall, but this method won't help you much in the summer though, because air temperatures are usually too warm even in the night time to assist with cooling a cold storage room sufficiently.

[@hugoboyce9648]

Really good video! Although for the windows air conditioner, there are really cheap refrigirator controllers available. That way no spoofing of sensors is required, and there is only one thermostat involved instead of 2. It does require modifying the A/C's electrical circuit though.

[@chev572bb]

Any recommendations on a controller?

[@Phano300]

I understand this is a year ago but I was wondering ... I read your article and in the article you mentioned using 2 fans to move air from the cooler to the living space in the summer when you needed more hot water (even though you have a tank less hot water). I see 2 fans moving air from outside to inside during Canadian Winter but I don't see the 2 fans from cooler to living space. I'm assuming you didn't setup those fans and I was just wondering maybe the tank less hot water is enough to supplement? Also energy wise does the tank less use less electricity than the air to water heat pump and that's why you decided to not add the 2 fans (from cooler to living space)? I'm seriously looking into this setup but I know most tank less do use lots of electricity but then again that's from city cold water to domestic hot water, your going from some what hot to domestic hot. Just wondering if you did the calculation and saw that heat pump would be less efficient over all. Thanks for your videos I am a new subscriber from a week ago and still learning. I love DIY! eh? lol :)

[@Uturn977]

in the back room were ac unit pulls hot air what do u do to help with humidity that room has to be really hot

[@TorahFirma]

Could you tell me what BTU your window AC is and how big your cooler space is? I'm planning to build a cooler room, but even with the calculator on Coolbot's website, I'm trying to figure out what the minimum is I can get away with. Thanks!

[@VanillaAttila]

Wonderful video. What temp is the water that you water the lawn with? No concern of burning plants? A radiant floor heating system could also be a great option for the excess hot water. Or perhaps a water filled radiator since that wouldn't require a massive flooring retrofit.

[@VegetableAcademy]

I also wondered if the hot water we were dumping would be bad for the plants, but by the time it travels through the hose, out the sprinkler, and through the air, it's lost most of its heat. Our aquastat opens the automatic valves to dump hot water whenever the bottom of the tank is 40ºC or higher. I like your idea of using radiant heating as another way to lower the tank temperature when needed. We are already planning to add radiant floor heating. Unfortunately, we need to dump most of the heat in summer and that's also a time when we wouldn't want to be circulating hot water through a radiant floor, so that can't be the only place we dump heat...maybe good for spring and fall seasons though.

[@VanillaAttila]

@@VegetableAcademy Yeah makes sense. What to do with excess heat in summer.. Thinking off the cuff,.. dump thermal energy into soil under a hothouse outside perhaps extending the growing season. ROI may not compute just to save a couple BTUs. Perhaps a hot tub holding tank outside that is guilt free from which overflow waters the plants and drain before winter. Does the unit produce cold water as well on demand? Either way your current set up is awesome. I'm going to implement a similar design when I install our cold room. How much does that unit cost? I couldn't see prices on their site.

[@tsproductions5366]

A swimming pool would also be ideal to dump heat, especially in warmer climates where its more of a problem (and you get more use out of a swimming pool)

[@VegetableAcademy]

@@tsproductions5366 Agreed!

[@tylerjbellows]

Any recommendations for size or cooler?

[@farrongilbert4726]

What would you do if your air conditioner iced up because of humidity

[@jhosk]

On the thermostat on the ac unit, could you not use a potentiometer? In theory you could get rid of the other two temp controllers

[@VegetableAcademy]

I'm not sure what you are imagining, but if it can accomplish the same two tasks of turning the AC on when the room is too warm and also shutting the system down when the fins have any ice build up, then you're good.

[@seandrake7534]

Do you have a video on how to build a cold room

[@VegetableAcademy]

Yes. That's in the Seed to Table course. You can learn more about that here: www.vegetableacademy.com/course

[@dimitrov22]

Hi. I am new to your subscription. But it made an impression on me the first video I watched. Your entire foundation is built on the massive amount of energy to cool your storage warehouse. In my country, we call this a basement. As it is. I think your whole concept is wrong. You should have a basement with minimal effort. Otherwise, what's the use of the basement, since you paid more money for electricity, when it will be cheaper for you to get it from the store. In Bulgaria, when we build a house, we must dig a hole in the ground for a basement. It can be deep or shallow, but it must be mined. And you don't enter like through such a hole as you showed at the beginning. A normal door and stairs are normal. Even in tower buildings, we have a basement for every apartment. Our buildings is not too big. I like your initiative and will watch you regularly. Thank you. Sorry for my English.

[@VegetableAcademy]

Welcome here. I'm not sure I understood everything from your comment, but to clarify, we do access our basement with regular stairs. I didn't show these in the video. The short clip of a hole and ladder at the start of the video was reference to an older style of root cellar that used to be more common before houses in our area all had fully insulated basements. We use some electricity to keep this space cool. In the winter all we need is a little power to run the two ventilation fans, and in the summer, all of the heat we pull out of the cooler now goes into our home's hot water tank, so I don't feel like we are wasting electricity at all with this cold room setup.

[@JimMeakim]

What temperature are you trying to maintain??

[@VegetableAcademy]

4ºC

[@jonscot8393]

We had a cool room that used a vent on the winter side (always in shade) no power and was as cool as the fridge. Never make these rooms Air tight.

[@pblaise]

Hi Jared, do you have a business email?

[@yvanparadis4828]

Too bad you don't have a pool or a hot tub to send this hot water you don't need.

[@VegetableAcademy]

Join me in person at the 2024 Homestead Festival near Nashville, TN on June 7 & 8 where I'll be teaching a session on Mastering Cold Storage. Get 20% off your festival passes with the coupon code REGIER20 for regular admission and REGIER20PLUS for regular admission plus. Here's a link to the festival: www.hardisonmill.com/thehomesteadfestival

[@rondick6108]

Where are you from? If you’re from the US, why are you using Celsius instead of Fahrenheit?

[@nates2526]

He’s Canadian.