qUESTION ??

[Rhettsgreygal]

Could you build a 'closet' or small cold room in your garage, and insulate it with 2" dense foamboard (including the door), then put your styrafoam coolers in that? I'm guessing you'd still have to keep them raised above the concrete floor, too.

Would it get too warm in summer? Before we moved up here, we had a pole barn built and stayed in a well insulated 10' x 20' room. It did not take much to heat it in winter (we used coleman lanterns while we were awake and a ready heater when we went to bed) and it did not drop much below freezing in winter. So in winter it would probably work with coolers. It got too warm in summer though. One time I remember Roy plugging a box fan to an inverter then attaching it to the truck battery so we could attempt to keep the dogs cool. We ended up putting the dogs in the truck with the a/c running.

 

[Cindlady2]

If we keep looking for ideas and bounce them off of one another... we may just come up with something!
The "closet" I think might be a good start.

 

[Marianne]

Could you build a 'closet' or small cold room in your garage, and insulate it with 2" dense foamboard (including the door), then put your styrafoam coolers in that? I'm guessing you'd still have to keep them raised above the concrete floor, too.

Would it get too warm in summer?

Eat faster!

I'm sure it would warm up, especially from opening the door and rooting around for what you needed. If it was still freezing at night, you could try freezing water in milk jugs, then putting them in the 'closet' to help it stay a bit colder. That could end up being a real pain after time, as you'd probably need a bunch of them. Maybe some things could be canned, dried or processed and put in the freezer by then? In my neck of the woods, we couldn't keep too many things for a year in an underground root cellar. It'd be pretty wrinkly. But things would last a long time.

There was a video on how to trick a window air conditioner in an insulated room into functioning as a walk in cooler. There was a do-dad that you had to buy, maybe $130, so something like that would work for the summer months.

I always try to plant enough to last us a year. Right now I have bags and bags of potatoes in the freezer that I need to get used up. Guess I planted too many last year. Anyway, we eat lots of fresh at first, but the bulk of the garden gets canned or put in the freezer.