Instead of icecubes, I use small waterbottles that I fill with drinking water, freeze them and put them in the cooler. After defrosting, I have cold water to drink and/or cook with, refill them and freeze them again. Love this video, just like all the others you make

I've done the same thing with R-11 insulation batts. We had ice for 6 days. The big thing is to put ice in the day before to cool off the cooler, then refill with ice the day of the camping trip so you start with a cold ice chest full of fresh ice.

I'd watch more of these home made, DIY camping mods. I mean, I literally just watched ice melt just because Steve walked me though it.

I actually expected the ice to last even longer in the ghetto yeti, but then I realized that your beer was probably room temp. The warm beer probably melted way more ice than the heat coming through the walls. Great video!

I like how the clock is always on 4 : 20 regardless of the time.....lol

Shout out to crazy neighbour for being such a great neighbour

Always 4:20 at crazy neighbors. This man knows his way into my heart.

What a great video! The Cobra makes a stunning backdrop for the brilliant DYI-engineered "ghetto" cooler. Nice work all around!!! You guys rock!.

Screw the cooler! Let's have a closer look at that Cobra!

Steve, again you take the cake. Crazy neighbor and you must get on well. I had a neighbor like that once and I miss him to this day. Cooler was great but as you have seen from all the comments, the Cobra (or Cobra kit) freaked everyone out. Now, either you planned it that way or you didn't, but as usual it works for you. Hollywood awaits you my friend, Bear G. has nothing on you.

Great tutorial and testing! I would contend though, that when you're camping you don't continually add items to the cooler. It's mostly stock and go. So, by adding more beers during the testing days you were increasing the thermal load, which would have worked to melt the ice regardless of the insulation because the beers bring their own heat into the cooler. Which, would have melted the ice relatively evenly between the two because you were adding an equal amount of warm beers to both. A more accurate test of insulation capabilities would be to add all the beers at the beginning, then see how long it takes the ice to melt in both as you remove beers.

Great hack, thanks! To make it more effective, use block ice instead of crushed. I typically camp in AZ and can nearly double my cooler time by using block.

Use 2 inch thick sheets of closed cell urethane foam. Cut and glue the corners. Round the edges with a router. Fiberglass the whole thing, beginning with a coating of resin only. The best combo is matt and cloth for a great strenght / toughness ratio. Use wood battens to keep the bottom off the ground and the top lined up. Add a couple "eyes" on the side to allow bungee cords to hold the lid on. You can add door gasketing to keep the cold in better. Be sure to paint or coat with gel coat, or the light will degrade the glass. . You can add door gasketing to keep the cold in better. Another nice add in is a drain pipe. Use a couple pieces or roving strand to seal and reinforce it, Fair warning... the only way to glass styrofoam (has styrene, aka blue board)) is to place several coats of water based paint first. Resin will not bother to stop if poured into a styrofoam cup, or placed directly on blueboard. I guarantee if you build a cooler with 2 inch closed cell urethane, fiberglassed, and put a gasket around the lid, that it will hold ice a lot longer than anything else. Another tip, place ice in a LOW temp freezer before use. Most ice is "rotten", or barely frozen. If you make your own ice at home, freeze gallons of water and use them as cold drinking water that doesn't flood everything in the cooler.

Thumbs up! You got me to spend 20 minutes watching ice melt. I have to give you thumbs up. LOL

Thank you so much for trying this before I did. I thought of buying two coolers, one larger (80 liters) and the second one smaller (50 liters) and then doing a similar thing to them with spray foam and all, but using a box looks better

I just use an old sleeping bag and blankets draped over the cooler . Also I freeze 4l plastic i/c pails which lasts much longer than cubes, gives you a dry cooler, and, stacks much better allowing a flat surface for your food items to lie on. Gives me easily a 4 day weekend and enough ice for the return trip. If you take your meat, precooked meals,etc frozen you get longer.

The foam is exothermic while it cures. Might take a whole week to completely finish. But, not only does it continue to grow slowly, it also gives off heat. That explains the initial partial melt. It will improve.

First: Always fill the lid with the popcorn insulator stuff. It's gold. But there are a few things you need to know, whether or not you fill the lid with insulation. No matter the outside temps, never leave the cooler in the sun. Never leave it on the ground. If you are going to go through that much effort to hide it in a larger rubbermaid container, insulate the container the right way, for goodness sake. (!) You don't put that aluminum-foam insulator 'in'side the cooler. You put it on the outside of the cooler, and on the entire inside of the rubbermaid container. Glue it in, all sides, and bottom, and in the blue lid. Do the same to the outside of the actual cooler as well, after filling in the cooler's lid with insulator. That silvery stuff is like gold. Then, go on ahead and go all hog on the filler between the cooler and the container LOL. Another IMPORTANT thing: I am used to catering with my truck, an open-bed pickup. On the hottest days, I have to cart 4 5-day cooler-sized coolers around from 8:30 am until 2:00 pm in the southern California heat! The tops of my coolers sit in the blazing heat for hours. My customers always ask me, "How in the world do you keep your food icy cold?" The same way I do when camping: I have square-sided frozen water bottles that go level into the bottom of each cooler. In the center, 2 bottles on the left and right, I place the light blue GLAD freezer container with dry ice into it. I puncture the lid, as it is a gas. It keeps the bottles frozen ALL DAY and into the next! I place plastic place mats on top of the layer of ice, and the food on top of that. My drinks and foods are too cold to drink or eat sometimes, but it will freeze room temperature steaks and popsicles, and ruin vegetables! I can't put them next to the bottom layer of ice. When camping, I buy a tile of dry ice, place it into a container in the very bottom of my coolers. Never put ice cubes to make a freezer! Buy block ice, put it into a puncture-proof bag, ziplock it, and lay them on top of the dry ice. Put your freezer stuff into one small cooler and only open it at night quickly. The other coolers one for fresh foods, another for breads, etc. Mine last 6 days like this. I also have a small pop-up kids tent I use to put my freezer cooler, wood, water and propane. Keep it in the shade. I camp in searing temperatures as well as in the snow. Bottom line, when you park your car and set up, prepare 'as if' you won't have a car or ride for at least a week: be prepared.

I have done something similar in the past. Having the help of an ammonia refrigerator tech from an ice cream factory, I did a few things differently. We lined the tote with a sheet of mylar emergency blanket before adding the foam. We didn’t think of RV roof sealer for the edging, instead we cut a rim out of styrofoam insulation board, and installed it shiny side up. It was way too much work to get it inset properly, and if I had to do it again, I would definitely do it Steve’s way. We didn’t install drain tubing because I have always used the frozen water bottle trick. We also built two, one to use as a fridge, and one with dry ice pellets purchased from the local welding supply shop to use as a freezer. Apparently, the mylar made a difference, because they would last a week. We also glued a rubber tube around the edge of the lid as a seal, and glued the tote lid to the cooler lid to make it one piece. I always stored it outside my vehicle either set into a hole or on a small wire stand under a light colored tarp. I live in the Mojave desert, and you can bake a potato in your car in the summer. Dig a hole, and the ground temp is 30 degrees cooler than the air at 2 pm.

This gave me a good idea for my van build, I'll put a nice cushion on top and it'll also make a great little bench... those yeti coolers are ridiculously expensive!

I want to see an actual Yeti compared to the modified cooler. Curious to see how the compare.

You have came some way from being homeless to getting everything back but double it Steve .I've been watching this from the start and your an amazing guy I'm glad you are doing great and have a home people in the world take things for granted you gave it all up Steve then got a better life than your first amazing how people can change given the right circumstances keep the videos coming they are brilliant😎🇬🇧🇺🇸

I'm definitely making myself a Yhetto cooler.

Up next - minimalist camping with what ever will fit in a Ford AC Cobra Kit Car graciously loaned to me by my crazy neighbor Ray. :)

Hi Steve and Glenn. It's true...after a 4:20 break, the second's just seem to go on forever. Nice toys Glenn. Thanks and be well.

Suggestion to improve design - use storage bin with wheels and a handle. Will make for much easier job of moving around.

Fun to build and works great! I put beads of liquid nails on the top of the cooler lid and snapped the tub lid in place. Now removing the tub lid removes the cooler lid. Use a good quality tub, the money is worth your time spent.

i just came from your most recent video - camping with household items. i love how the chair you're sitting on in THIS video is also something you brought to sit on in your current one, exactly two years later.

I just fill gallon size Freezer bags with water and stack'em in the freezer on top of each other and woo-la instant ice blocks. Before a camp trip freeze your hot dog's, brats, buy burger in the tube type package. Plan your menus accordingly for each day and your ice blocks will last days longer. Keep a wet blanket over your cooler and out of vehicle and out of the sun. When ice blocks melt you have pure cooking and drinking water or just refreeze and good for another round. By the way, People who buy Yeti coolers just don't know how to drink beer in a timely manner! Beer.........Not just for Breakfast anymore!

There simply is no possible way one can do a "cooler" comparison video without it involving beer. Well done.

Cool idea. I did something similar. Two coolers or chilli bins as we call them. One inside the other, filled both lids with foam and filled the gap between the two. Throw two bags of party ice inside( leave ice in bags ) Put a wire rack or similar in cooler so its above ice bags and put food and stuff on rack. Lasts a week. You want both lids opening opposite ways .

It would be appropriate to have a rematch as the foam is isothermic for days after installing. It would also be a good idea to use slab foam, a container with wheels and handle and keep the coolers closed.

I think you will find that there was a lot of residual heat in the cooler you built. I am guessing that if you were on an extended trip of a week or more, it would work a lot better, stay cold longer, on the second batch of ice. I am guessing a lot of the cold from the first batch of ice, was wasted in cooling the cooler itself. Furthermore, the ice quantity should not have been equal, but rather a percentage of the volume of each cooler. In theory, I believe the smaller cooler had an advantage in that it had more ice to volume than the larger one. If you measured how much water each held, and added 1/2 of that volume or weight in ice to each, the larger one would fair even better.

Awesome. Thank you! You answered many questions I had. I’m wanting to make my hubby a double ice chest from my Dads large blue storage chest he used for Scuba Diving. I wanted to split it so one side could be for fish & the other food & drinks. Mainly because I have experienced fish & my ziplocks of food in an ice chest before. Ha ha! I draw the line at some point. Lol

A trick for cheaper Ice that doesn’t leave a swimming pool in your cooler. Freeze a gallon of water. Use a brand with a heavy duty screw on top and ridges in the jug to allow for expansion when frozen. If you don’t have access to a freezer big enough for this, hide a couple gallon jugs from the store in the very back bottom of the freezer section at the local super market, come back the next day and buy them with self check out. Be prepared for sideways looks if there is no self checkout x) best place I have found where they will go 24 hours undisturbed is behind the frozen bags of peas

Nice to see someone make a DIY 5 day cooler. However, you have what seems to be a really nice garage and a beautiful cobra and your drinking Lucky and Brewhouse beer. The world is bewildering at times.

Great comparison! My favorite "yeti-style" cooler is the Lifetime "55qt high performance" cooler. Can be had for less than $100USD and compares nearly identical to the Yeti.

Three men just hangin' out having fun very cool project/experiment. Thank you.

It’s always 4:20 at crazy neighbors, I love it

I love the equality at 11:17 Thanks for all the great content Steve! You and Crazy Neighbor are the greatest!

Nice! A suggestion to those wanting to make one of these,... Use a lighter colored tupperware container if you can find one (ie light blue or white) as darker colors absorb more heat rays from the sun.

I made a similar gheti cooler, and it works well. Mine is in a bin with a handle and wheels. The only problem I had was that the foam wants to expand and lift the cooler off the stand-offs, so the bin lid won't fit. Also, the finished product is much larger than a similarly sized Yeti. Good luck with your project.

O have done my loss and it helps but I learned to put a layer of ice in the bottom of the cooler then salt it then add drinks food etc.... and cover the rest with just ice no salt. It last twice as long doing this as it does just putting ice in the cooler. But do not put salt on top layer you will need a crowbar to get to your food and drink. Excellent DIY video👍👍

the way Crazy Neighbor tries his hardest to get that 15th beer at 10:31 and then just gets shut down kills me every time LOL

Right now Yeti and all the Yeti knock-off’s are cussing you out. 🤣

I must have lucked out. I bought my 65 quart RTIC rotomolded cooler for $85 at Buccees when Yeti was suing them and that had to immediately get rid of all the Yeti copy cat coolers. I actually picked up a 30 quart soft cooler at the same time for $40 as well. The 65 hardside cooler will hold ice for 5 days easy here in Texas as long as I stick it under a tree or under the truck tailgate in shade. Now if you got 3 or 4 guys grabbing beer out of it every 30 mins, all day, it will last more like 2 and half days. The soft cooler will last 3 days in the shade, but again, if you are going in and out constantly, its more like 36 hours of keeping beer ice cold. RTIC does sales on holidays where they are around 50% off.

That is a really cool idea and crazy neighbor has the most organized garage and cool car. My hat is off to him.

I've used a heavy winter coat wrapped around a cooler to get ice to last longer. This is a great idea you have built. Those cheap coolers don't have enough insulation. Cooler companies and ice companies must be in cahoots together. Lol

Fill quart or liter-sized plastic jugs (or larger) with water & keep in your home freezer for camping. Blocks of ice will last much longer than those expensive bags of small pieces of ice.🙂

Damn, I was all keen and watching until I saw the cobra, then I lost track of why I was here... :)

Great experiment. I lived off grid off of my igloo cooler for about a year. Everyone thought I was crazy. Now I have an AC/DC fridge/freezer and it's wired into my DC fuse block running off a couple solar panels and batteries. So glad I'm not relying on melting ice anymore!! But if I wanted to, I could use the fast freeze setting to freeze water and then use it as a cooler and unplug it. Anyhow, good job man!!

Home made YETI cooler! Outstanding. Crazy neighbor has a beautiful set of wheels by the way!

I realize I'm commenting to an old video, but Crazy Neighbor's Cobra is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen - it's even my favorite color!

Why not buy a sheet of foundation Styrofoam insulation and cut several pieces to fit sides bottom and top. Spray glue each as needed...easy and cheap way...

What? Crazy neighbor has an AC Shelby Cobra 427? Dream car!!! I actually pictured him driving a 57 Chevy step side, with three on the tree and a bed full of moonshine. 🤣

GREAT road test! Definitely worth the cost of the ice, and the insulation foam. I think anyone could live with 5 full days of refrigeration by ice before you have to re-stock the ice. By the way, for sealing meats, there are glass containers with sealed plastic lids of various sizes for veggies and meats There is no way liquids could come out of them and unless you are going over huge bumps in the backroads, they won't break. Crazy Neighbour is a blast!

Ok another comment back in the 80's I went camping with a youth group and one of the leaders had a "normal" large Coleman cooler except that he put a layer of dry ice in the bottom and covered it with a piece of Perspex . It kept the frozen stuff under the Perspex frozen and everything above cold for 3 days solid and that was in a South East Queensland summer.

Your neighbor is crazy....crazy for letting you work so close to his Cobra.

I switched over to the 12v electric fridge and freezer, I know they cost more in the beginning but my small Jackery 240 will keep it going for a few days without charging. The best thing about a electric cooler is no soggy food. I think your experiment is excellent and will save a lot of money. Thank You for sharing.

Along with Steve's idea, I found that, if you throw some frozen bottles of water in the cooler 12 hours before adding your food and cooler packs or ice, the cooler is colder on trips longer. Just like you prepare foods ahead of time (parboil spaghetti and freeze, make and freeze sauce, etc), prepare your cooler for cooling.

I got a Yeti when I bought my farm tractor. It's absolutely amazing; an Igloo is crap in comparison. I also have an RTIC, which I won at my dentist's office drawing! Too good coolers, zero out-of-pocket (unless you count $35K for the tractor, and $7.5K for the dentist ...)

A good way to keep it centered would be to add blocks of foam on the sides to act as spacers, just like the ones on the bottom. Nice design!

I can't stop drooling over the Cobra...great idea Steve but Crazy neighbor has you beat.

That's a good idea. I wouldn't bother much with insulating the lid however since that's where the fewest losses are. The bottom is the highest loss area followed by the lower sides, then the upper sides, and finally the lid. Remember, heat rises, so the top of the cooler has the least temperature differential with outside ambient.

Single part spray foam does not cure well without moisture from the air, this is especially a problem injecting it into a plastic tub. The foam in the lid may never cure. 2 part catalyzed foam is the proper stuff to use.

That cobra looks awesome....can't believe your neighbor let you do that work right next to it with out at least covering the car.

Crazy neighbour seems like a good friend. And crazy neighbour has a crazy nice car in his garage. You should redo that cooler time test outside in the sun, as though your out camping somewhere.

This is the first video of yours that I ever watched Steve. Can't believe it's been over 4 years now.

Love the clock stuck at 4:20 😜!

Hey Steve, instead of the spray stuff you could go to home depot and get the bag of expandable foam for fence posts.

he says " people at the ice store thought I was crazy " well ....... pretty good judge LOL

I use bottles of water and Gatorade as my ice. Just freeze fully and pull out as they melt and drink. Stops all my food from getting soggy and don't have to drain cooler after. Also, seems like the larger chunks of ice lasts longer.

Next time, use something like the sonoff th sensor to monitor temperature. Its a few bucks, but you can drill a hole, install the sensor and let it sit unopened for days and have real temps to give to the people. You could also monitor how temps are affected when opened, how fast it takes to cool back down and if salt can help or hurt in the long run. Great video and look forward to more.

Crazy neighbor has a sweet ride. I missed your videos Steve. Hope you and the new wife are doing well and the videos keep coming !, we can always use more Steve

thank you for doing this experiment. It helped me a lot in trying to figure out how long will the foam that you use lasts.

I can’t stop looking at the Cobra over your shoulder. Love the green color!

Love how Crazy Neighbours clock is stuck on 1620hrs. Hurray for Canada! You can drink 15 beers a day. Don't sell yourself short. All it takes is commitment, dedication, and practice

It’s never boring when there is beer involved CHEERS 🍺🍺🍺🍺 🚬😎💨 👍🏼

Oh that's clever - I may give it try. Thank you. I love that it is cleaner than the sheets of foam and of course less conductive.

This is a classic crazy neighbor intro

is that a real 429 cobra or one of those really nice kits that do extremely well with a 350...whoever did your spray did an excellent job...and that was an excellent trim job on the foam...i had a totally different idea in mind but you pulled that off well...good job crazy neighbor is an engineer c")

You're the Red Green of camping! Love it!

I just about spit out some of my step 2 when you showed the clock at the 6 min 35 sec mark (and again at 17min 03secs.... and CN's recycling) -!!! LMFAO. 😂🤣😂🤣 CN's clock is hilarious and is right twice every day (hell, it's probably right most of the day when in that garage!!) Cheers to you, Steve as well as CN! 🍻🍻 Love the content on both of your channels.

Hey Steve. Another benefit of your "Yeti" cooler is stealth! Right up your alley! You could easily leave that cooler outside your tent and no one would be the wiser that it's full of food and beer!! No one steals your cooler or it's contents!! Great idea!!

I like that you opened it regulary

If I were building such a thing I would use rigid foam on the bottom and the sides I also would remove the handles and hinges as well. There is a spray foam that contractors use that comes in a much larger can that does a far better job than those consumer style spray cans, I'd be seeking that stuff out and using it along with the rigid foam board.

Anytime someone shows up with a bag of beers you know they are ready to drink.

Dang. That is a clean, organized garage, good Sir.

ROTFLMAO That clock! The second hand spins like the propeller of an airplane, but, the minute and hour hands don't move at all!!

Walmart brand Ozark Trail 55 quart coolers go on sale all the time for $89.99. Holds ice better than my dads yeti. I have 3.

I love how it's always 4:20 in Crazy Neighbor's garage!

I did a similar project but at a smaller scale with a six pack cooler inside of a crate lined with sheets of foam on all six sides and a hard masonite top, all spraypainted white to reflect the sun away. I cut out squares on the bottom and sides of the outside of the cooler where blue ice cooler bricks could fit in snugly. That keeps the ice out of the cooler and the cooler stays cool for about 48 hours. It's small but I have limited room in my home and car, so it's perfect for some steaks and beer for four.

Why not add rigid foam sheets to take up most of that space and just foam the little voids?

Love the vids Steve Rock, you and Crazy cool neighbor, make a good team. I have found, not letting ice out of bag will last longer, even blocks of solid ice. Just sharing.

Seeing the clock stay motionless (but yet the second hand moves) makes it look like he is in the twilight zone

Beautiful Cobra! At 16yrs old, I chose a 1980 RXL RX7, with 325hp...over the Cobra with 275hp...what a gorgeous green though! Yup...spray upside down Bet you'd get 8 days with block ice!!

The crazy neighbor garage is like a living room very clean.

Lol Krazy niegbor "I closed mine faster" 😂

Cobra...CNeighbor's always green perfection. Those are the tiniest bags of ice. Our smallest here are 8lbs. Excellent build! Hahaha, the clock is stuck on 420. 😉

Your channel is a national treasure in 14 different countries.