FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Will the CoolBot also work for a floral cooler with the much higher humidity caused by buckets of water?
Yes, it will definitely work even with the higher humidity. Florists and flower growers seem especially happy with the CoolBot. We are often told that the CoolBot allows for more humidity in the air which keeps the flowers better. We're pretty sure this is just an illusion. The flowers are happier, yes, but it's just because you have so much less air air blowing around the room with one fan instead of four, so they aren't getting blown on and dried out that way as much.
Would the thermostatic control on the air conditioner be operational and accurate when the coolbot device is installed?
No. It doesn't need to be because the CoolBot has it's own digital thermostat with dual temperature sensors. You just use that instead of the thermostat on your a/c unit. The CoolBot thermostat can be set to from 30-60 degrees (but it works quite poorly below 33 unless you have a small room and big a/c).
Wow you guys are pretty smart -repair costs are what kills me on my current unit. This costs the same as my last repair bill. My question is, what if I have a walk in that has no outside walls? Could I set a room ac in the ceiling verticaly and have it blow down?
THANKS! Unfortunately... no... you can't mount a/c unit's in a side-ways orientation on the ceiling, you'd have to build a sort of alcove on top... and that doesn't seem worth the trouble. You COULD use a "split a/c unit" but they are much more expensive than standard window a/c units and most require professional installation, so... it would seem like it makes more sense to stick with what you have. Another (seeming) option is one of the "portable a/c" units which use something that looks like a drier hose to vent the hot air out. We've had several people try these and they do NOT work, so don't waste your time. We've had some warehouses (and more than a few restaurants) mount the a/c units so they are blowing into the restaurant. This is great when it's cold out, but the extra heat that you throw into the place during the summer isn't so great! You have to double the size of the a/c cooling the room - so it's not just uncomfortable it's not a good decision from the perspective of "responsible energy use".
You have got to be kidding. No way it will be as efficent as a "real refrigeration unit."
NYSERDA, (the NY State Energy Research and Development Authority) is doing an independent analysis to see just how much more efficient the CoolBot is than a standard cooler. No one disagrees that the CoolBot works now (and that it has much lower up-front costs) but is it really as efficient as we claim it is? (We are claiming it is 50% more efficient than a standard walk-in cooler). Their independent testing will be completed and available (hopefully!) by June 2008.
We think we're right based on an earlier study done by University of Georgia on cooler efficiency. And if you JUST think about the number of fans operating in a standard reefer unit (4-6 that are on ALL the time) vs. the number in operation in a window a/c unit (there's just one and it doesn't have to be running all the time if you are in 'Energy Saver' mode) there's an immediate reduction in electricity use right there that is very significant.
The NYSERDA study will give final and independent figures, but several customers that had "conventional" walk-in units and have replaced them with a CoolBot in the same physical box report a significant drop in their electric consumption. The problem is that it's mixed in with their other electrical useage so it doesn't really give us a percentage number.
Will this work on meat?
Yes! So long as you size the a/c unit to the size of your walk-in cooler box as per our chart AND you have a walk-in cooler built to industry standard specifications (4" of styrofoam insulation in walls/floor/ceiling.) If you meet those requirements, the CoolBot will keep your products (produce, flowers, meat, prepared food) at whatever you set it at down to 33 degrees. What the CoolBot can NOT do is: 1) Keep things frozen 2) Keep things cold when you have a substandard cooler or too small of an air conditioner. I think because our units are so inexpensive, a surprising number of people try to approach the rest of the structure in an inexpensive way, too, so they build coolers with standard fiberglas-house insulation or even just use it to try to cool an unisulated storage room. It won't work! The fiberglass actually DOES work for awhile, but outside humidity condenses in the walls making the insulation sag and filling it with mold and mildew. So... use the thousands of dollars you save buying a Coolbot to insulate your cooler with styrofom insulation (it's not THAT expensive!). We sell to a lot of hunters and hunting camps as well as people who make hamburgers and other meat-containing prepared foods and they have been very happy with the performance of the CoolBot. Please let me know if I can answer any other questions. Ron Khosla - Store It Cold. ron@storeitcold.com
How important is it to have a floor in our cooler
Please see our section on what works and doesn't work. Floors are important for people cooling below 45 degrees because cold sinks and the ground always stays warm. By skipping the floor you've created an endlessly hungry "cold sink" that is sucking money out of your pocket in the form of electricty. The CoolBot will WORK without a floor, but it's going to cost you. Below 40 degrees if you are going to skip the floor you should size up a level on the a/c unit. For hunters only running the CoolBots in the fall... it's probably not going to be worth putting in the floor, but everyone else should below that temperature.
For people installing CoolBots on trailers you MUST have an insulated floor or the CoolBot will never be able to keep up with the cold you are dumping down the highway.
Standard insulation is 4" thick styrofoam on walls, floor and ceiling.
Just as important as the floor is that you use tape, caulk or sprayfoam to seal up every edge and corner in your cooler. Even a 1/4"x2" hole dumps an ENORMOUS amount of cold (and your electricity $) into the environment.
We're florists and we've been running it for about a month in our floral cooler with one wall of display doors. It's 10x9 and we run a Samsung 14,500 BTU a/c unit on medium so there is even less air flow on the flowers. This runs colder than our "real" compressor ever ran. We're just tickled with this! We love it! But we are also seeing that some ice has been forming on the bottom layer, and slowly creeping up over the last month. Why is this?
(From a Virgina Flower Shop)
This is easy to fix, you just need to lower where you placed the CoolBot's frost sensor to where you see the ice first forming (With Samsung A/C units it's aways the bottom left hand side of the fins).
[Addition for the FAQ page of the website:] While I'm so happy that this is working for them, I feel like they are undersized on the size of their a/c for this application. If you are a florist wanting to run in "Medium" fan mode, then PLEASE size up a level on the A/C. Also, the display coolers with windows are VERY lossy, ESPECIALLY size up if you are running with a wall full of glass doors.
Obviously these folks are happy even given my concerns... I know we're overly cautious in our recommendations, bu part of that is because we are used to having to cool a couple thousand lbs of field-hot veggies here on our farm and it takes a lot of BTUs the first few hours to GET them cold. They are getting cold flowers straight from their distributor... and they don't weigh all that much. Also, our cooler is under shade, but it'll be 90+ here in August. Their cooler is in an air conditioned store.
Also please note that MOST all the florists are running in high fan mode without a problem. One woman did make a deflector because she had a small cooler and she wanted the air to go in a different direction (it was nailing the flowers across the way). So consider the placement of your a/c unit when you install it so that it is blowing in a safer direction!
What BRAND of Air Conditioner should I buy
By now it seems one customer or another has tried the CoolBot on every brand of A/C unit that's our there. It works on *ALL* brands of air conditioners that have a plastic temperature sensor. That being said, there are some brands that perform exceptionally well with the CoolBot.
LG Brand - Sold on the internet and at Home Depot stores across the country (they are cheapest at Home Depot). All models above 8,000btu work flawlessly with the CoolBot and have plastic temperature sensors. If you have a choice of a/c unit to buy, this is our FIRST CHOICE! They also seem to be very solidly built. Of hundreds of customers with LG units, only two have reported a problem and Home Depot immediately replaced them. They run even during the fall and winter when outside temperatures fall (this is not true of all brands!). Many hundreds of people are using these with CoolBots and are happy. We've bought an LG for our new larger cooler here on our farm and we've had it for three years with no problems.
Samsung - Sold on the internet and at most of the Lowes stores across the country. Also a good choice. We have a few hundred customers using these and they are happy as well.
Frigidaire/Kenmore -sold at about 1/2 the Lowe's stores in the country. In Sears, they sold under the brand name of KENMORE, but they are made by Frigidaire. These are not a great choice unless you live in a southern state because they stop working when the OUTSIDE temperature goes below even 50 degrees. As soon as the outside temperature warms up, if you unplug and plug them in again they will again start working and cooling your room to whatever you set it at. The original cooler on our farm has been running with a Frigidaire and one of the prototype CoolBots for many, many years now, but we only use it consistently from May through September here in NY. In October and November it invariably konks off at night when outside temps get cold. It doesn't seem to effect the a/c unit at all, but we have to manually reset it in the morning. I think they are well built and certainly they are efficient cooling machines, but... annoying for that reason.
GE Brand - Some work, some don't. The ones that have plastic temperature sensors seem fine from all reports we've had so far. The ones with metal do NOT work.
Sharp - sold in a number of stores. All seem to work okay. All brands above 6500 btu's that we've seen have plastic temperature sensors.
Brands of Air Conditioner that we know DO NOT WORK with the CoolBot are:
Emerson (all the models tested so far have metal temperature sensors)
Whirlpool (all models tested so far have metal temp sensors)
Goldstar (all models have metal temperature sensors)
Any and all brands of "portable" A/C units. They all actually "work" but because they constantly suck (hot) fresh air into the room they are extremely inefficient and you won't be able to get the room very cold. People making cheese caves are the only people that seem happy enough with them, but even if you are doing a cheese cave, for efficiency sake we don't recommend these.
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