Do Yeti cooler hacks work?
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2019
- In this video I take two identical coolers and upgrade one to the latest cooler hacks and the other I leave stock. Then I put ICE in both and see which cooler is better.
Here are the coolers I used in the video.
Igloo Island Breeze 48 Quart Cooler - amzn.to/3l3rdRC
I tried the same experiment except I put a 12 pack in each cooler, 24hrs later all the beers were gone. Definitely a success 😁
Holy crap, I had the same results except after the 12 packs were gone, I woke up with a headache.
You do the same kind of experimentation as I do!
What a coincidence 🤣👍
Great minds think alike 😎
Best comment ever.
I decided to reproduce your experiment, and you're right: after 24 hrs the 12 pack is gone.
Initially, I thought I just wasted 16 minutes of my life watching this video. But then I realized this saved me time finding materials at the store and modifying one of the several cheap coolers I own. Thank you Sir.
Thanks I guess. Watch part two and if you come to the same conclusion as me you won't be trying the hack. At least not the way I did.
@@HowToWithJames I just did. I'm just going to buy a fridge....lol.
That’s not fair but dry ice will get you through when ice wont❤
Next step would be to swap the lids to see if the walls of the coolers are built differently.
I thought the same
By filling the lid with that product you actually *increased* the opportunity for heat conduction between the outside and the interior. The empty air cavity of the un-hacked cheap cooler is a better insulator per volume than whatever the foam-with-air-bubbles spray product achieves. I realize it's counter-intuitive but you forced out a perfectly fine insulator volume (of air) and replaced it with some store-bought micro pockets of foamy bubbles of gas which increased the heat-conducting mass between the inner lid surface and the outer lid surface.
That's probably true, more thermal bridging going on
I came to comment on the same thing but here it is. Totally agree!
@pennie m a refrigerator has active cooling. Fridge doors are usually just air. The foam used in this video t allowed heat to transfer more easily from the outside in. A Thermos acts the same way - there is an air gap between the inside container and the outside.
@pennie m I never said insulation was wrong or bad. I just pointed out that this "hack" exchanged a fairly good insulator lid design for a slightly lesser one. It is still insulated but the *conduction* loss increased as I described.
It's also a bit of a design issue to muffle and not transmit or amplify mechanical noises made by the fridge compressor.
A healthy attic space still needs to breathe to the outside airspace both winter and summer so insulating a home generally means using some form of physical insulation product plus a vapour barrier and possibly fans. No giant version of the $17 cooler lid would work as a home roof. I suppose the fad of inflatable arena roofs sort of tried this and were environmentally awful habitats inside iirc.
The insulation will not decrease anything. If anything it WILL increase the cooling potential Al. The issue with the air is once it’s heated by the outside, it will warm the underside of the lid as well.
It is not insulated when it’s made because it’s CHEAPER to just do a blow molded shell of everything. Lids used to be insulated but it because you cost prohibited. That is the only reason air is used.
So adding insulation to it will keep things cooler since there is now a barrier there. The cool will hit one side and keep it in and the heat will hit one side and not penetrate. But with just air, the heat will transfer to the inside way sooner.
What we have always done when camping is dig a hole just big enough for the cooler to slide down into and have a piece of plywood with a reflective sunshade tacked to both sides of the board over the top of it. Grandpa taught me this and he called a it a hobo refrigerator. Instead of ice lasting a couple of days it will last close to a week.
Good idea gramps!
We do that with "gutted" fridges. (No compressors or refridgerant.)
@@jabbawoods a burlap bag, draped over shelves with a water drip keeps it really cool also. Air is a great insulator. Peace and it was fun watching this for sure.
Good idea unless you camp near bears
I was homeless for a little over 2 years and this was how I kept my cooler items cold longer. I lived in a wooded area in a tent. No worries about larger predators. Raccoons were the biggest problem. I had to add a padlock to the lid to keep ‘em out. I didn’t use the reflector. Such a smart idea. I always just laid a blanket over top
Air pockets have a great lnsulating quality. That is how a therml blanket works. The flaw in the theory was the assumption that there is nothing in the lid of the stock cooler. You pushed out the insulating pocket of air.
Came here to say this. Thermal energy can transfer better through a solid object than an air barrier.
@@user-zq6pj5jo8j Since the Yeti coolers are also foam filled, I would assume that it's a minimally dense closed cell type foam with lots of air to minimize heat transfer.
would be interesting to see if you did it again, but put the seal on one with a stock lid. I bet that would work even better.
It may even be a vacuum which is better than air
Good theory but not accurate according to physics. While air is an insulator it better when it is trapped. Foam traps air. If your theory were correct then why don't we leave our exterior walls empty? Why do we put batt and foam insulation in them if plain old air is better? What actually happened is the air in the cooler was trapped by the seal and since temperature seeks equilibrium, the heat in the air was transferred to the ice. The foam is also more mass that holds heat. The heat will be drawn to the cooler temp pulling more heat form the foam than in the empty air pocket in the stock cooler. The stock cooler allows the hotter air to escape through the unsealed and uninsulated lid. Simply put the modified cooler had to work harder, but that would only be initially . Once the foam and the air in the cooler equalized the modified cooler would have out performed the stock cooler every day of the week. Starting the coolers off in a cool place and icing them down prior to the experiment as well as just keeping them in the shade outside would have been a better setup.
The hacked cooler had less ice because it has a greater thermal mass. Energy, in this case heat, only moves in one direction, from the higher energy state to the lower. By adding the insulation to the lid, you increased the total mass of the system. In order to keep things cold, the entire interior needs to reach an equilibrium, which depends on the total mass of the system. If the lid is more massive, more of its stored energy will flow into the ice.
I’d suggest trying this again, but keep both coolers in a cooler location with sacrificial ice to start. Then replace the ice and start the test. Yeti and other manufacturers recommend this practice to achieve better performance.
I agree. It would be interesting to see the difference in temp loss with the foam vs air when both coolers have been chilled by a sacrificial bag of ice. My theory for the result is that air will be a better for heat from the outside but a pre-cooled cooler insulated by foam will hold the cold better. lets see it!
just realized how old this video was lol! I doubt he still has these coolers.
I was thinking something similar and wonder if there was a fan installed to occasionally pull the extra heat held in the lid at ten minute intervals. The thicker lid will require more energy. I think this could be resolved with a small DC powered fan. As you’d explained, heat wants to fall in this case and the equilibrium is off. Maybe if the air is purged ever so often? I wonder if a vestibule were built with a one way valve for the air flow would help too. How advanced should we get tho for an ice chest? Should we consider refrigerants next? Lol
With the added insulation, the greater thermal mass caused it to heat up faster but also trapped more heat inside with the ice. In the other cooler the heat could dissipate through the lid more easily.
Would a small hand pump allow you to have a vacuum tight seal and release the ambient air trapped inside.
Dead air is one of the most efficient thermal insulators. You functionally decreased the performance by filling in that air gap with more thermally conductive material.
Really? Why does the insulation industry keep pushing their stupid product? I feel abused by the industry.
What makes foam a good insulator is that it's mostly air. It uses cells to keep that air from moving. The reason that inexpensive cooler lids usually do not have foam in them from the factory is that the air in the lid doesn't want to move anyways. Think about it. The layer of air closest to the ice gets colder -- heavier -- as the heat transfers from the cooler lid through the plastic into the cooler. So that layer of air stays where it is. In other parts of the cooler, thermal changes cause the air to move within the cooler walls. You don't really want that. So foam helps.
@@---cr8nw yeah that's a good point, it's a relatively uniform thing on top
I also saw a comment on another video that pointed out the foam needs air to cure, so it's possible that there's basically a bunch of uncured goop that *isn't* foam inside and that's part of what's causing the issue
@@pmmmAMV also, that foam produces its own heat while it's curing
@@lorenzo42p The curing process only take at most a day it would not be the cause of this specific problem. The most likely issue is that there is no convection movement within the lid of the unmodified cooler. The easiest way to test that might be to reverse the test and try to keep something hot rather then cold if this is right the modified cooler should be better.
I made liners for my coolers out of foil bubble wrap insulation. And used the scraps to make divider blankets to go inside. Then kitted up my meals and vacuum sealed them before freezing solid. Ice in the bottom, meals layered into cooler by day of use with one of the divider blankets on top of each day. Used 2 coolers for 9 days of camping and didn't open the second cooler until the food in the 1st cooler was gone. Also in addition to the meals being frozen I made ice blocks about the size of a pound of butter. Each layer got 1 block.
At first I read this as 'knitted up my meals'😶I actually had to reread it several times before it sunk in😂 These are very clever modifications!👍
I've done similar mods and they work very well. Also use an rubber strap across the top to make sure it stays closed.
Paid just over $100 for my Ozark Trail cooler and that sucker works really well. It rode in the bed of my truck for a week last July and I only had to top it off with ice once.
The ozark is awesome
The seals helps a lot, I added it to my igloo bmx which only has grooves and it held ice an extra day.
Wow! I thoroughly expected the modified cooler to perform much better. Even before all these videos have come out over the years, I’ve thought about doing the same myself because it just made sense. Maybe not! I know when we were kids in the 60s and 70s, we did a lot of very long trips, and my parents would always drape a heavy Mexican blanket, (obviously doesn’t have to be Mexican,) over the ice chest and it definitely helped. We would travel for hours and days throughout Mexico and America and our ancient steel bodied ice chests always performed well. Maybe it was that steel body? I don’t think so, but it’s another piece of the puzzle.
I’ve done this hack and have experienced warping in the lid on my first attempt to a smaller maybe more pliable plastic. My second and third attempts I made sure I had plenty of “escape/vent” holes and secured the lid to ensure a snug fit. In addition, I believe the advantage of an insulated lid is the deflect or interrupt sunlight “baking” your ice . One way is to purchase a foam seat that are designed to rest atop coolers thereby getting a twofer
Problem is it's thermal mass, it's warm outside and the heavier lid takes longer to cool and adds more heat at the time of adding the ice. Using a IR reflective paint with a high amount of ability to pull heat put of the cooler. Or just build a peltier system and run it on a small solar panel and small battery.
@@quijybojanklebits8750 you still have the air gap in the lid as a barrier to insulate the inside of the cooler. It may add more of a insulating quality by just adding a foam top to the lid. Anything to keep the direct sunlight off of it would be good for the lid.
@@gregred78 yes, but there's more material, the foam added to the lid makes it denser therefore it pulls more energy to cool down the lid. It's the same reason yeti recommend preecooling their coolers before use.
@@gregred78 the best thing you could do is to make a paint using acrylic, acetone and Barium Sulfate micro balls(various sizes) and apply it to the lid as this would cause cooling by radiation of IR heat away from the cooler.
I doubt the plastic here would be strong enough on its own but I'd be super interested in seeing this lid reinforced and vacuum sealed, that would probably be way more effective. It'd be tough to keep a seal on this but if it could be pulled off it could potentially achieve the desired result. Great video!
Isn't this what the process is for making glass line thermos'? Like the long heavy ones dad took fishing with the cup on top.
I remember he put hot soup in one before when we went camping. I was hungry and asked for some but how to heat it? He don't worry....it''ll still be warm.
It was actually like 36 hours later when I opened it. I poured it out and damn! There was no way eating this until it cooled down! kinda stunned me.
Maybe layer the interior lid with fiberglass resin with some .5 inch thin steel bars first epoxied to the interior panels of the lid. Then pour the mixed resin over the rods. I say about an .5 inch thick level layer. Drill and mount a schrader valve so a vacuum can be pull. This honest might cost $50.
@@justinmurphy2227 Yep, that's a why those mugs are so good at insulating (I love mine as well). The principle is just that one of the only things better at insulating that unmoving air is a vacuum. Your idea for reinforcement sounds good, it's what I'd probably recommend if I had to design one myself.
Thanks for the test. Proving or disproving is what it is all about. Good job!
Well thank you for going to all that trouble to demonstrate it for us. It was interesting to watch
Swap the lids on the coolers, and repeat the test. One cooler may have had better insulation in the main compartment than the other.
The labels on the coolers were different..
@@EZSTREETCARS And? They're still the same cooler.
@@amorton94 - one is branded for ozark trail - just because the look the same doesnt mean they are the same.
@@robtdougherty WRONG. They're both Igloos, with Igloo stickers and Igloo on the lids. THEY'RE THE SAME COOLER.
I've used a flattened 24 pack beer box over ice in cooler and three days later still ice, course I left ice in the bag, but the extra layer of the box inside helps keep the cold from escaping, I'm sure a piece of Styrofoam would also work inside, cut to fit over the stuff inside 😀
I have a piece of 1/4" insulation cut to size to fit inside my camping cooler on top of the contents. That combined with pre cooling the inside along with insulating the lid keeps ice way longer than without any of those things added.
He should have scanned the temp of the underside of each lid. Likely would have been a considerable difference as the foam in essence created a heat sink (which then passed the heat on into the cooler).
Edit ... You may want to try the one thing that you initially felt good about but ended up doubting and eliminating and I'm referring to the window stripping. I wouldn't be surprised if it alone makes a noticeable and positive difference.
On the job site we wood always just take a piece of foam board and cut it to fit the inside and put it on top of what we had inside and it would stay cold a long time
Great stuff (expanding foam) is a form of a few compounds including isocyanates which a reactive to moisture in the air. It forms an exothermic reaction when curing so there’s a lot of heat retained inside the foam for awhile
Colton Cain
Also not having room to fully expand slows (and can actually stop) curing.
That's exactly what I thought! Most substances generate heat when the move from one state to other. And it's well known that to this stuff takes longer time to cure in this kind of test environment.
Just curious if maybe one side of the car catches more sun than the other or if maybe the foam insulation just holds in the heat more than just the standard lid
That’s what I was thinking
@@joeartgarrido007 me too
Yea i was thinking same thing
Ditto, I was going to make the same comment when I saw yours. There is also always the possibility that such a low quality product may have variations as well, such as the thickness of the plastic used from one to the next or maybe even whatever wall insulation/foam they use around it.
In addition, I feel that this hack is not complete. You must place this cooler inside a larger cooler, one that is large enough so that you have about 1 inch empty space between the outside of the smaller cooler and the inside of the larger cooler. Spray at least 1 inch of foam all around (maybe use insulation panel material?) including the bottom so that the red cooler will have insulation all around. That other cooler and 3 cans of spray (?) will set you back about another $50. So figure close to $80....Hmmm.
That's what I'm thinking if he did the whole cooler I think it would be a different end game then just insulation in the lid
You would think the manufacturer would test this but some people cant trust that simple things just work well. Glad you tested it, seems like many of us were shocked
I think the top of the modified cooler had absorbed more heat while it was in the car before ice was added. The unmodified cooler had less heat because the top was hollow.
The foam needs to expand. If you drilled many holes around the inside of the lid to release the pressure if will fill with air pockets and create a good insulator. With no pressure release you basically created a solid block of foam inside the lid that absorbs the heat and radiates it inward to the cooler area.
This is a fascinating video. It would be interesting to use a heat sensor to determine where the cold air is escaping the modified cooler different from the stock cooler. One possibility is that the modified cooler's lid is not sealing as well after all the molestation. Another possibility is the added insulation is less effective than the air it replaced. In the latter case, the lid seals that were removed may have actually helped. Moral of the story: cooler construction (thermodynamics engineering) is not as simple as one might imagine and, by extension, more generally, these kinds of hacks can be expensive, time-consuming, wastes of time.
Great stuff foam reacts with oxygen as it cures and creates an exothermic reaction. Usually that foam loses its exothermic energy in a few minutes but in this case the foam had very limited exposure to oxygen. There was enough oxygen to start the exothermic reaction but not enough to fully cure the foam. In other words, it made the cooler warmer.
@@alexblaze8878 Uhm...NO! One-part urethane foam is moisture cured. NO OXYGEN IS REQUIRED. Why are you commenting on things you don't actually know? It will not cure in a dry environment and some water should be introduced into large, dry voids. It's even on the product label! So... no chemistry degree required IF YOU KNOW HOW TO READ! Also, the propellant is what causes the one-part urethanes to expand, not unlike shaving foam. Only TWO-PART urethanes are exothermic and that heat is what causes the micro-bubbles to expand just before the urethane cures. YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!
Possibility? He drilled a sealed lid and then filled it with a thermal bridging material. Still air (sealed void) is an excellent insulator. This would be no different than drilling holes between the panes of a double/triple glazed window. The void is filled with an inert gas after the air is evacuated. By the way, HOW IS THIS A YETI UPGRADE when the Yeti cup utilizes vacuum for insulation??
You are giving these cheap coolers too much credit. The lids are not sealed. I can squish the lid from brand new and even if you can't they are only filled with air and not sure tight. Do you really think a 20 dollar cooler has more thought in it than that? If you look up a yeti cooler cut in half on UA-cam you will see it is filled with foam not air. The cups and coolers are not made the same.
@@DiffEQ “Lighten up Francis”. Dude seriously, relax. It’s going to be okay. You don’t have to fight everyone over this video. Take a deep breath.
Great experiment! Thank you for trying this!! I would have expected it to last longer but... that’s why it’s an experiment! Testing out what we think may work better!! ❤
This has brought out the scientist in a lot of people. Easy solution. Buy a better quality cooler in the first place. I do admire your willingness to experiment and learn. The older I get, I just want to buy/obtain stuff that works.
Agree
Hell yes!!! I agree. Saving a buck usually costs more in the long run.
100% correct. I'm quickly approaching the point on the graph where time is becoming more important than money. Buy once. Be done.
I would investigate differential sunlight exposure through the car windows as a “wildcard” factor. Also investigate if there’s any reflective surface inside or outside the car that may be confounding your results. HEY: Here’s an idea to test any position effects - repeat the experiment but switch the exact positions of the 2 coolers. The only other thing I can think of is to fill both coolers with ice and then take hourly readings with your infrared temp gauge of 2+ “highlighted” marked locations on each surface of each cooler to see if you get consistently different readings. I’m suspecting different materials used in production on different assembly lines, or even different plants - - yeah, I know, it’s a stretch, if even plausible. Oh, I just noticed something: since these are facing each other, they are not in the same position, but that’s probably a minor factor. Keep up the good work - penicillin, Teflon, and I believe several other products were the result of experimental failures. Tungsten was Edison’s 1000th material in his quest to find a material that would not be destroyed by getting so hot as to emit light.
Thank you for the comments! I plan to redo this video in the summer and I think putting the coolers outside will be a better method in making sure one does not get more or less sun then the other.
I was all set on sprayfoaming my lid now not so sure. A worthy experiment good sir.
Thanks! As you can tell by my reactions in the video I was shocked at the outcome I had.
If you look into heat transfer thermodynamics, hollow is better
J P if that is the case then why do yeti, rtic etc have foam filled lids?
@@GReviewz cause.. Illuminati
Andrew T lol who knows... I’m sure if hollow space was better yeti would be using it. Illuminati for sure...lol
That foam in the lid was probably still curing...alot of foams generate heat when they cure
Thats exactly what i was thinking
Thats exactly what i was thinking
Yep, that’s the only logical conclusion. The excess foam was in contact with the air and this dried before the sealed portion.
yes I think so too another guy on youtube did it and it took almost 3 days until the foam was cured
Very interesting take, could be right imo
Air is one of the best insulators. The issue with filling the lid up is 2 fold. 1 - thermal mass. 2 - it pushes air out of the lid and replaces it with a semi-solid mass. The expanding window sealant is great for windows because they are leaking and air is moving through holes. However it is not a great insulator in an already air-stable environment.
Isn't there exactly what your insulating against? Air is by far the worst insulator you can have. It moves freely and brings heat into a system... I think you are thinking of a vacuum or lack of air
Yea I was thinking that too. It might work if you have a foam with a lot of air in it but spray foam into a small compartment like this just makes a solid mass.
@@RtsWillH1Mself on the lid the heat transfer is different if you fill it with something it gives it mass for the heat to absorb into an transfer between the top and bottom of the lid. where as empty space that's just filled with air that can't be removed and replaced won't transfer the heat down into the bottom of the lid heat rises it can't fall to the bottom of the lid so the top gets hot and the bottom that's exposed to the cold stays cooler. 😂
@@RtsWillH1Mself I'll provide a quick explanation to clear up the confusion. Air is an incredible insulator; vacuums are even better insulators. If you have a closed system where the air cannot escape it will act as a strong insulator because there just isn't enough mass contact to spread heat out well. In other words, because the molecules in the air are only rarely in contact with the heat source they take on very little energy.
I think what you're thinking of is air flow. Air flow is generally not very good at insulating. When you have air flow some air molecules come and absorb some heat energy then move on. Ultimately a heat source will expend the same amount of energy, but when there is air flow the energy is expended on a much larger mass of air.
Imagine the heat being insulated like a required amount of pushups to be done. In a closed air system you have one person trying to do 100 pushups, but when there's airflow it's like 100 people doing 1 pushup each.
@@RtsWillH1Mself Sorry but you're wrong mate. Air insulates really well. That's why houses in cold climates have an air gap built into their outer walls. And eskimo's wear fur inside out, because the air inbetween the hairs of the fur insulates. That's also how fur keeps you warm, it's the layer of air trapped between the hairs, not the hair itself. Also the air in the lid cannot freely move around as you state, since it is trapped in the lid, hence creating an insulating layer. Also following the same logic, generally dense materials like metals will conduct heat very well, whereas materials containing more air, like wood, conduct less heat. Air is not dense at all, which is why you can hold your hand 1cm from a hot stovetop and not get burnet.
I think the reason your modified cooler didn't work is the foam spray is not a insulating type. It is intended to stop drafts in your home and not insulate. Also the cooler is made with a dead air space between the plastic walls, and that holds the insulating valve. Much like double glazed windows in your home.
Air is the best insulation... aerocrete, fibreglass etc if you compress the insulation the u value goes down. Captive air
@@fabriglas Trapped air is the best insulation. Otherwise we wouldn't bother putting spray foam or batt insulation in homes we would just leave the cavities empty.
Spray foam, in any form, is an insulator. It traps air pockets which is why it insulates. Regardless of open or closed cell foam it will insulate. The physics behind this is simple and deceiving with this experiment. There was no control or variation of conditions to fully test the modifications. Think of it this way. There is no such thing as cold, only degrees of heat. In a cooler you are trying to first cool things down and then maintain the cool temp. In the modified cooler, while you trap the ice which is at a lower temp you also trap a lot of the hotter air in the cooler and in the lid. It takes a lot to cool the foam insulation so all of that heat transferred to the ice instead of escaping out of the cracks in the lid and through the lid itself. The experiment actually worked. It proved the modified cooler traps temperature better than the stock cooler. If the coolers had been first iced down and stored in a cooler place you would have seen the modified cooler would have maintained the cool temp desired longer.
@@MrRaptorman1975 Spot on Rob. A whole lot of small pockets of air makes for better insulation than one big pocket. It would be interesting to use block ice to see if the results would be more favorable do to the slower melt time.
Nice explanation. Also no initial test of the modified one to see that it performs comparably to the unmodified without insulation. No apples to apples comparison for a true baseline.
You say that the lid weighs several pounds after the mod, that shouldn’t be the case if the foam is full of air and cured correctly. How many cans of foam did you use, and what was their weight?
The foam when used correctly and has off-gassed weighs virtually nothing, I suspect therefor that you used far to much foam and it’s either still in liquid form or more likely is so compressed and dense that there are minimal air pockets to insulate. You can test my theory by drilling a few holes and seeing if the drill comes out sticky or the foam if set feels excessively dense compared to the bits that cured unrestricted on the outside of the box. If it’s sticky it could be because you A. Used to much (as already stated) and/or that it needs moisture to start the hardening process. Check the can and see if it mentioned that it needs moisture to cure(most do). It may also say not suitable for sealed containers, this is because the moisture needed to start the reaction can’t get in there.
I’d repeat the experiment and use far less foam and add a couple of squirts of water in a mist into the hole before you squirt the foam in. As you stated you can see the foam inside the lid, so I’d drill one hole centrally to squirt the foam into and one in each corner to release the pressure and allow the excess foam to come out of. A lid that size should only need a few seconds of spray to fill it, so be more conservative as you can always add more through the vent holes if it’s needed.
Watch this for an alternative to spraying water mist into the lid. ua-cam.com/video/uSygJ97_NkU/v-deo.html
I made a foam mountain one time years ago. I ended up with a flat pile of plastic because I didn't let it set up before applying another layer. I figure he did the same. Not enough air
I think the lack of vent holes in the corners caused the internal lid pressure to increase and warp the lid, which let warm air enter the cooler due to a poorer seal around the top edge.
And also he never mentioned if he used a closed cell insulation or an open cell insulation which don't work as well as the closed cell spray foam....acrylic won't work as well and I don't believe he took enough info. on his choice of spray...and yes misting is a must...a little more research and he'd be flawless... too bad... at least he didn't spend much but he'll...how is everyone getting these sprays for 4 to 5 dollars....I spent $13 before tax and it was the cheapest...need to know which store has that probably in the States...it is much cheaper depending on where you are....
You can buy different density foam. Some weighs more when cured and has different sized air pockets
@@wifebeater756
They do make heavy duty foams for other purposes but I don’t know of any insulation foams that would weigh several pounds on that size lid and even if there was one, why would you use it? It’s the pockets of air that insulate not the chemical that the foam is made of. As long as the lid is full, the less mass the better, when it comes to thermal efficiency.
I am just wondering you think it could be the lead with the foam creating some heat I am not sure I'm thinking it's letting off some gas from the foam for a short time from the time you put it in
I feel like I was robbed of very valuable time... moments I may never get back
I haven't watched your Part 2 video yet, but air is an excellent insulator, which is probably why the modification made it worse. If you want ideas for better things (again haven't seen part 2) pulling a vacuum in the cavity of it and sealing it off somehow would 100% work. There's a reason thermoses are so good at keeping drinks hot / cold.
Would be curious how using reflective insulation tape on the outside of a cooler works..
Glad I saw this!!! I was going to spend time and money to fill the lid of one of my coolers. I already have a YETI cooler. But it is very heavy empty. Fill it up and it's a 2-person cooler. Thanks again for a informative video.
I did this hack on 2 of my Igloo coolers. In my case there was no insulation in the cooler. The lid and cooler body were both hollow and just had air space in between. I drilled holes along the top of the body where the lid makes contact and in the lid as you did and filled with low expanding foam. I then cleaned up the holes and filled with epoxy. My coolers keep the majority of a 22 pound bag of ice for 3 days.
@EAMitch Is that so? Before the modifications they would barely hold ice for 24 hours. Now after they held ice for three days and would have gone quite a bit longer if the camping trip wasn't over. I don't think you understand physics as well as you think you do.
I think it probably had more to do with which cooler got more sun through the windows during the day. Or more likely, one of the coolers had a poor insulation fill at the factory. Semi pro tip: When you buy a cooler, bring the brightest LED light you can find with you and go all around every square inch and look at the light transfer on the other side. You'll see where the voids are.
I say fill them with ice and use the heat gun or a FLIR to look for cold spots on it all the way around all 4 sides top and bottom.
If a cooler is out of the sun, the lid really doesn't need much, as heat rises and cold air sinks. IE the open top freezers at the supermarket.
Lot of weird comments below about air being better than insulation. The key is DEAD air for that to work. Air that's free to move in a space is better than no space, but convection currents within the space will transfer heat faster than an insulated space.
Most lids aren't insulated these days because it's A. Cheaper not to and B. It's a flat surface with the cold side down and hot side up. See freezer reference above.
If an air space was better than insulation, why insulate anything? Just make a box in a box with standoffs to keep them separated.
Thermoses don't have an air space, they have a VACUUM space. HUGE difference. They make a can welded in a can and pull a vacuum on the space between. Some ad charcoal or reflective coatings in there as well. See DeWar flask or vacuum flask.
There are some interesting technologies making tiny glass vacuum balls that can be added to paint or used as loose fill insulation. Millions of microscopic glass vacuum balls.....crazy. Try to figure out how they do that!!
I highly recommend getting some 1in or thicker foil clad foam insulation board at your home store or building supply and cutting a piece the size of your cooler's foot print and setting your cooler on that. Most of your heat loss is through the bottom into whatever you set it on. If you can't do that, set it on some narrow strips of wood to get it off the floor, especially concrete.
Keep you cooler out of direct sunlight.
You can go insane with this experiment. Haha!
The air gap in the lid is actually designed to act as an additional barrier to prevent heat from flowing thru a complete surface, by filling it in you’ve introduced a conduit for heat transfer thru the lid. Effectively making it worse
Kinda like how hot water freezes faster in the freezer than coldwater
Wrong. Foam is a better insulator than an air gap. Your exterior walls would be empty, not filled with insulation if your logic were correct.
I think the sides and base are filled with foam for strength and cost. Plastic and foam are cheap and fair insulators. Having a strong double wall is more expensive but a better insulator. Ideally a vacuum in the double wall would be the best.
My thought is by filling the lid with a dense expandable foam it essentially creates a giant heat sink, the out side of the lid heats up this heating up the dense foam and that foam radiating the heat into the ice chamber. I wonder if the same results would happen if you shared a sheath of closed cell foam to the inside of the lid and in the lid itself.
Yeti coolers are filled with insulation in the base and the lid. Knowing this is how they work what do you suggest I do different in my testing?
I took a cheap cooler and sprayed insulation in all sides, bottom and the top. We went camping and five days later we still had ice and our items were cool. It works you just have to spray the foam everywhere.
Loved this video. Talk about a surprise ending. Thank you.
Now you need to get one of those SHITI stickers for it
a j s look up shiti on Instagram. Their website is in their bio
air is a great insulator filling it with foam is removing the air barrier. I did have the thought about how much sun one side of the jeep is getting over the other side tho
My thoughts exactly. He pushed in why too much foam, on top of that, making it even more product dense and less air.
He used way too much foam, it should be fairly light still because the foam creates lots of little air pockets which slows down the thermal exchange much like double paned windows slow down the heat loss through them. In this case he made it super dense and little to no air bubbles as it cured.
TRAPPED air is an insulator. Air on its own, especially moving, is a thermal conductor.
loved your video, especially when you showed the first results.
That water weld is good stuff I used it to patch a hole in my truck radiator, works great!
It doesn't make sense to me how so something that simple is so versatile and tough but it is. I've used it to patch cracks in bottoms of shower stalls and it held up no problem
@@yodaguy6956 that’s what I’m saying it’s amazing what all you can fix with it
Prechill the insulated cooler. It's going to retain heat more and cause the ice to melt faster. Even yeti suggests pre-chilling with a sacrificial bag of ice
But the second round it was pre-chilled.
I toss in freezer packs or frozen water bottles the night before but only if I'm gonna be fishing on the boat or something. If it's a day thing or whatever anything can hold ice for a day
I spray it with hose water
Yeah - glad someone did this test. It';s about time to see the comparison of OEM vs. the hack. The one method I have not seen yet is putting a smaller cooler inside a larger cooler. Cheap ones. Yes, you would have smaller space but the theory I have is that the inside cooler will be protected that much more, kind of a cheap insulation method.
I've actually already performed this(flexible type cooler) and found it keeps almost ice cold for 9 hours without any ice at all inside a hot car all day.
@@gregzeigler3850 Thank you. Can you explain more on what coolers you used, and sizing please? I would like to try this sometime this next two months.
@@joq702 These were approx. 24 inches tall by 12 inches wide. They are the flexible type freeze bags one picks up ice cream for. I put one bag inside the other and zipped both for a cold beer after work(I often work over, so nothing is open). They stay really cold for 9 hours without ice and somewhat cold after 12 hours.
@@gregzeigler3850 That is pretty awesome. I will give it a try also. We get some make at home food service boxes which inside have these bubbly aluminum color bags which do a pretty decent job with just one of keeping meats and fish cold in shipping. I think I will try to double up a few of them and try your test. They are usually about the size you mention.
Hi James, great experiment, I would swap lids and try again, that should confirm results either way,
There could be a bit more insulation in the walls of the 'stock cooler' who knows the quality control standards in the manufacturing process of these cheaper coolers.
I would think insulation levels in the walls and base of cooler (which is in contact with the ice) will have more of an effect than insulation levels in the lid
This was exactly my thought after I finished the video. I plan to redo this experiment in the summer and swap lids to see if my results still hold true.
@@HowToWithJames so have you redone it yet?
@@HowToWithJames have you posted a video yet
Curious as well
I decided not to do a video for this but instead I did another cooler video comparing these coolers to an actual yeti cooler along with the Walmart brand (Ozark trail) cooler and a styrofoam cooler. The results were interesting. Check it the video!
I was at Walmart today and seen those exact same cooler they are cheaply made. The walls didn’t even look insulated. They really don’t make things like they use too and I’m not even that old lol
Switch lids. Maybe the cooler bodies aren’t equally insulated.
ua-cam.com/video/OR8u__Hcb3k/v-deo.html this is how it works, the air gap in the lid is the insulator itself
Need all of the variables to play out
Yup.
Yes, he never tested both unmodified to determine they are equal efficiency.
I didn't because I thought it would be better than stock by far. If it did perform like a Yeti there would be no competition between the two coolers and this conversation would not even exist.
You need a latch to really take advatage of the seal
Gotta love that stock life hack jingle
Lol love the transparency! Lol keep up the good work guy
Thanks! Will do!
Great Stuff foam has an exothermic reaction until it fully cures. Its quite possible the foam was exposed to enough oxygen to start the reaction but the curing process was mitigated by the decreasing exposure to oxygen. Think of concrete bridge pilings which can take years to completely harden as the central core of the piling has very limited exposure to air.
In other words, the foam continued being exothermic which would result in the cooler having a warmer temperature.
Good point!
Uhm...NO! One-part urethane foam is moisture cured. NO OXYGEN IS REQUIRED. Why are you commenting on things you don't actually know? It will not cure in a dry environment and some water should be introduced into large, dry voids. It's even on the product label! So... no chemistry degree required IF YOU KNOW HOW TO READ! Also, the propellant is what causes the one-part urethanes to expand, not unlike shaving foam. Only TWO-PART urethanes are exothermic and that heat is what causes the micro-bubbles to expand just before the urethane cures. YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!
@@aquapuncture3477 So you just accept whatever someone else says because YOU don't know either. So, how do you know it's a "good point"? It's not... it doesn't even apply.
@@DiffEQ okay, if you know better, I’m all ears. I have no ego about someone else knowing more than me. It’s all about learning for me.
So, go ahead…hit me with it.
@@DiffEQ here’s what Greg Labbé, an energy and building consultant in Toronto has to say about this foam:
“When the two liquid components of spray foam come together, there is a very rapid exothermic (heat-producing) chemical reaction. Good foam has to be cooled quickly or it cracks and chars. If it’s too thick, the insulating properties of the spray foam trap the heat.”
Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but this sounds a lot like what I stated in my original comment.
Cold air falls down heat rises. How's the bottom of the cooler insulated?
I cut a cooler up once and the bottom area was insulated with foam.
True, but the top insulation is important in the case if you have sun shining on the top of it
Fantastic experiment! Thank you for doing this. You saved me so much time. 🤙🏽
If you made a giant teapot cozy out of reflective bubble wrap it would probably have a significant effect. I suspect that in filling the lid with foam you put something solid in the lid areas where there was a small air gap, and the foam (not the bubbles in the foam) were more conductive than that air gap.
There's closed and there's open cell foam, the one with less air bubbles has less R value.
You want more air pockets to make it insulate better.
Closed cell has better R value
Hey, I'm working on a masters of building science where I do a lot of work on understanding how buildings are insulated. What you've got in the standard cooler is an insulation via a large sealed air pocket, similar to how something like a double walled travel mug keeps coffee warm. Basically, it's forcing any heat to conduct through a longer continuous path between the inside and outside, or 'thermal bridge'. It's entirely possible that the window sealant foam actually conducts more heat than the sealed airspace does. If anyone's curious as to why we don't do that kind of system for buildings, reply to this comment. My advice though, is if you need you're cooler to last a bit longer, wrap or line it with a double layer of bubble wrap.
I know of the no-no of making a building airtight, but can you explain that? And what are you saying building engineers don't do during design? Is that related?
Cheap blanket works as well. Especially if it blocks the sun from hitting it.
@@thewesty101 @thewesty what I mean here is that it's pretty hard to insulate a building without conventional insulation like foam or fiberglass, just by leaving airspace in the walls simply because of large the volumes would have to be. Air tightness of a building is a different but related subject. In general, a building loses a huge amount of energy in airleaks, through walls, doors, windows, etc.
I'm from England but live in the States now, all the house over there are built with double walls called a cavatiie to help insulate the home. They use brick on the outside and a particular block on the inside with about a 2inc gap between them.
JB Water weld works well (even on poly-kayaks) and yes, plug those holes as once you trim the foam it'll hold moisture and easily become moldy. JB water weld is a fantastic choice for that! Might try tacking one of those sun shades for a vehicle windshield under the lid instead?
Interesting.
I did the foam on the lid of a Coleman cooler and it made the lid fit so tight. I never did add any extra seal to it, and it takes an intentional effort to close it fully.
I know this is an old video, but one thing that I can suggest, is that a pocket of air itself makes an excellent insulator. In modern home construction, glass windows are often constructed so that two panes of glass are separated by a layer of air, and this pocket of air acts as an insulator. So one thing to consider is that the material that you are using to fill the cavity in the lid may actually be more conductive than the air itself, meaning that heat may pass more readily through the lid because you have filled that pocket of air with material. The material may also be acting as a thermal battery, collecting the ambient heat from the car in the condensed, material-filled space inside the lid.
I was thinking the same thing. Perhaps similar to the way radiant barrier typically has a higher R- Value when there is an air pocket between exterior and internal partitions.
Double pane windows don't have air between the glass LOL
@@mwilliamshs yes they do, that's literally the whole point of the concept. 2 panes of glass with an insulating layer of air sealed in between. It dramatically increases the insulation effectiveness of the glass.
@@uselessprotaganist7444 they literally don't. they're filled with a low heat transfer gas like argon.
@@mcreealan looks like you're right these days, just looked it up, but that's a new development from what I'm seeing. Until relatively recently, the central gas was just air, and plenty of double glazed windows are still made with air.
Just because argon is better than air, doesn't mean you can just stuff whatever in there and assume it'll be more effective than air at insulation.
Maybe to make sure there isn't a difference in the cooler body itself, like an air bubble in manufacturing, switch the lids on the coolers and try again and see the results. That might tell you if the stock lid actually is what is keeping it cooler vs possibly a difference in the cooler bodies. Scientific method, rule out the variables You also have to be consistent when you check it or it's pointless. 24 to 30 hours is a 25% increase in the test time.
And another thing to try is to switch the positions of the coolers, one side of the vehicle may get hotter than the other.
Opening and closing a cooler adds heated air each time and accelerates the melting of the ice, regardless of the make and hacks. When food is added to freeze or keep cool, as it's temperature drops it also adds heat to the inside. I have a Coleman cooler that I use on the Florida flats. Each time I catch a fish I open the cooler and close the cooler. By the end of the day, I still have some ice in a slurry and my fish are still all protected. Stay with a Coleman for $17 instead of a Yeti for, what, say, $450.
I commend your effort, was fun to watch
For any camping less than 4 days. I use dry ice. Frozen foods on the bottom, layer of cardboard, layer of dry ice. layer of card board and then whatever I want cold but not frozen on top.
The lid has little to do with insulation relative to the sides. Think about a yeti metal style cup, they work very well with or without the simple plastic lid. If you want a yeti killer get 2 cheap coolers, a small one that fits in a bigger one. That should do the trick.
Lmao
Yeti style cups are also vacuum sealed which is the best type of insulation
True. On chest style coolers and freezers the lid does almost nothing to keep things cool. Cold air pools in the bottom and the lid only keeps breezes from blowing it out. Think of the deep freezers in the supermarket that don't even have lids and still work fine.
Good review/experiment. I bought a $40 cooler from Walmart and it holds ice for about 2 days. Didn’t go for the cheapest or most expensive
You saved me some time and money. Thanks!
Air is one of the best insulators. Filling the lid with solid material means that heat can transfer easier between the inside and outside.
actually, a vacuum is one of the best insulators. If you could suck the air out it would be even better. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if cooler lids might have a partial vacuum in them
Thermo-magnetic-molecular-dynamics: The magnet on the subwoofer attracted the cold molecules which kept the cooler closest to it colder. It’s the same concept as the Mr Fusion flux capacitor used on the Delorean in the movie Back to the Future.
That is the best thing i have read all week
I think what he is saying is I needed a flux capacitor to make this work better :)
@@HowToWithJames I added 2 flux capacitors to my igloo. A bit overkill bit it really helps to keep the cooler cold.
Smooth🏂👌
You have to pre-cool it, much like with it yeti. You have to put ice in it to get it cold first, then replace the ice and whatever you're cooling. The problem is with an insulated cooler is that it takes a ton of the ices energy to cool the insulation/interior, after that the insulation will stay cool.
But weren't they both pre-cooled for the second test?
Fill empty plastic bottles with water, freeze them, now you have cold storage, dry goods, drinking water and free ice. thanks for the video.
What I have done for years. Seems like common sense.
The lids have an air gap and I think by closing the air gap and making it solid makes the lid absorb more heat.
Maybe swap the lids. Those types of coolers are made with so many varying tolerances that the bodies could have significant different thicknesses and insulation.
yes swap the lids !!!
Agree
DAMN NICE TRY!!! I've been wanting to try that for YEARS. Great video, thanks!
Igloo designed the cooler to have an air gap in the lid which is the insulation factor , so if you take that away and use foam which turns to a solid it won’t keep cold near as long as the original cooler.
yes for heat dissipation 💪
They thought it would insulate to keep the cold in but it did the opposite
It’s funny to think that people actually think a million dollar company didn’t do this type of testing before the product was launched lol
So how would this work in relativity to a window AC unit? Should I foam the gaps or not foam them?
You should always pre cool a cooler before use.
A lot of ice is used to chill, to bring down the temperature inside the cooler. So partially load a cooler at night, dump out the water/ice in the morning, refill, put food in.
It’s the same reason you prechill a metal ice cream maker’s cylinder container.
Second, the foam lid, with gasket, install latches, or for testing add weights to the lid. A seal doesn’t do anything without compression.
It’s the air pockets in foam that provide insulation. With a cut opened Yeti cooler, the foam is very porous. Air is a very good insulator. So is the foam high density, or low, was it not able to expand out, got compressed? I think I have seen 1/2 holes drilled for this purpose.
What is the R value of the foam per inch, look up the R value of air.
Where air goes wrong is if the cavity is to big, aka wide, a circular air circulation stream, vortex, is created, flowing from the inside cold surface, to the outside hot surface. This happens in rooms in your house when you heat it, or run the AC.
You would think manufacturers would break this up. Maybe that’s why the bottom of the lid isn’t flat? The cavity isn’t continuous?
I would say two latches, plus the gasket would help. Not so much the foam.
I do appreciate you testing it out.
It is interesting.
I put my cooler in the deepfreezer for 24 hours before filling with ice etc
I'm wondering if this might have had any effect: When you first put the bags of ice into the coolers, the coolers were already inside the hot interior of the Jeep. Then, when you opened the lids, the hot air would have entered the coolers (and may already have been warm inside, as well, depending how long the coolers were in the back of the Jeep prior to opening them). After putting the ice inside and closing the lids, well, heat rises... so I wonder if the insulating foam that you had put in the lid of the modified cooler actually was trapping the heated air inside more effectively than the stock cooler, and thus the heated air that remained inside caused the ice to melt faster?
I guess anything is possible. I personally think the hacks just don't work. I will be making another video with these coolers in the summer and trying to see if I can change these results. Be looking for that.
That's funny, I was thinking that to or maby it absorbs heat from the surrounding area. But it shouldn't because it is insolation.
Thank you for your efforts, a great video
Hey, just thanks for actually testing this! I have theories too, but nothing new.
The second law of thermodynamics says heat flows from higher temp to lower temp. The lid without foam has a thermal break to prevent conduction of heat from the higher exterior temperature. The closed cell foam fill allows ambient heat to easily transfer through the lid.
The wall insulation has more of an open cell which inherently has more air gap plus the walls are not 100% filled, there is a small gap between the outside wall and foam. Im sure at some point manufacturers of cheap coolers tried the insulated lid trick.
Be better off gluing some pink polystyrene foam to under side of lid and putting seal back on the rim. This would provide an airgap and increase insulation.
Was thinking while watching that air or open cell foam is what he needs
Somebody went to foam college
Single part cans, like he used, are open cell foam.
While you are correct.... The problem stems from the amount of foam he used so it never had the chance to properly expand and form the cell structure from the air bubbles and thus it effectively went from a potential insulator to just a huge thermal mass.
I would have swapped lids then test the again maybe the window foam was transferring heat?
Air is a good insulator, that's why a bath tub with bubbles stays warmer longer than one without. The thin film of soap on the bubble doesn't insulate, the air inside the bubble does. Same with the lid, when there's a gap of air, it insulates well, with the spray foam it gives it more direct contact to the heat outside. It's possible he used too much spray foam and it wasn't able to expand enough and was too dense to insulate better.
Always prechill your yeti. Since they are more insulated they also hold more heat. I always put a bag of ice in mine a couple hours before I use it, then I drain the water and refill it
Isn't that what I did in my second bag of ice? Before putting the second bag in the coolers they were pre-chilled.
In Iraq we lined the outside of same type of ice chest with 2" thick sheets of foam panel. The lid also. We glued using the same glue you use for tub surround enclosure kits. We also screwed to ice chest using fine thread drywall screws. After that we took 1/4" thick plywood, cut to fit nicely over foam. And screwed glued to foam. Then we painted the plywood with high gloss white paint. The ice lasted twice as long in modified ice chest. We were in over 120 degrees!
honest review, thanks man.
switch the lids and rotate the coolers is one thing you could try.
Thanks for this. The assumption is the hacks work but so far tests I've seen haven't been very scientific. I also feel like a person needs to put more foam insulation in the body of the cooler.
I did this about 30 years ago! It didn't work at first, so I cut around the entire top to find that the spray foam never expanded or dried. But after I cut it, it expanded like crazy and I had to cut away the excess and epoxy the edges back down! That cheep Igloo held ice 3 times longer.
Now when I do my coolers I put more holes in it and add very little at a time, starting from center let set for 1/2 hour and work out from the center a little bit at a time with 1/2 hr times. This does work but you have to be patient. I used the 5 times expansion stuff that specifically says NOT to use around windows! It also made the lid very strong and I would sit on it.
I hope this was helpful!
Jon Wilkins
Rio, WV
Thanks for the information!
You need the airspace so the top doesn’t transfer the heat into the cooler.
When you fill it with the sealant it becomes a solid mass...no good!!
Exactly same theory as a thermopane window the air gap between prevent heat transfer
But that also goes against all the other coolers and cold storage boxes used for years with insulated tops. Thats not why is made like that
bingo. The airgap is the insulator.
The term you’re looking for is “thermal break”
I think that foam traps air so it itself is an insulator. Maybe a different type of foam could be better.
I wonder if the foam absorbed heat and made it like a oven in the cooler
That was a super cool cooler test 👍
Also, for proper use of a yeti there is supposed to be as little air space as possible. Therefore not allowing heat to build and melt the ice by being trapped heat.
Heat escapes from a hotter area to a cooler one, in this case from the outside into the ice.
The insulation retains heat so when lids are closed all of the heat is released into the cooler to slow heat transfer you would want to chill the coolers first. Als
Heat soak with the foam that’s what I thought
seal strip needs to be latched down it isnt sealing now without latch
Sun exposure made the differences?
Also wouldn't you put the weather seal inside the cooler where the lid reaches?
This is why I use Orca religiously when camping. I pre chill with a frozen gallon jug of ice. Then I pull that out and put in my food/drinks. I use crushed ice also as it fills voids better. Multiple days in the TN summer