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Hay Bale Walls Make Great Veggie Cooler
Hay bales and an old air conditioner were used to make a low-cost cooler for Ted and JoAnne Dawson, market garden farmers who use a refurbished school bus to deliver produce to customers (seen in Vol. 35, No. 6) and operate a farm stand at the end of their driveway. The cooler is used to keep their produce cool and fre
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Hay Bale Walls Make Great Veggie Cooler FARM HOME Food Hay bales and an old air conditioner were used to make a low-cost cooler for Ted and JoAnne Dawson market garden farmers who use a refurbished school bus to deliver produce to customers seen in Vol 35 No 6 and operate a farm stand at the end of their driveway The cooler is used to keep their produce cool and fresh “I wanted a walk-in cooler but they are expensive ” says Dawson “Then I heard about the CoolBot Vol 32 No 5 and how it could trick an air conditioner to cool a room down to 48 to 50 degrees ” Dawson had an old air conditioner The CoolBot micro controller would adjust the air conditioner fan and compressors to provide the cold temperatures He still needed a room to cool Since they offer pony and carriage rides at their agritourism farm they have plenty of hay bales Knowing their insulation value Dawson decided to use them to build a cold room inside a shed With the help of a buddy Myrl Stone Dawson cut a hole in an outside wall of the shed to hang the air conditioner covering that wall with bales He built the other three walls with more bales enclosing an old door and doorframe in one wall for an entrance Dawson dropped 2 by 4’s down from the rafters and tied bales to them More 2 by 4’s became rafters for the cold room roof “We covered them with some 1/2-in rigid insulation left from another project and covered that with more hay bales ” says Dawson “When we were finished we had a 6 by 7-ft interior ” The Dawsons used the cold room successfully in 2014 and plan to use it again this summer He says it has worked well Best of all it was low cost “I think we may have about $230 in the whole thing ” he says Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Fairwinds Farm 41 Tailwinds Lane North East Md 21901 ph 410 658-8187 or 302 540-1852; jdawson@fairwindsstables com; www fairwindsstables com or CoolBot ph 888 871-5723; info@storeitcold com; www storeitcold com
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