"Redneck" Yeti Cooler

Thought I’d share this mod I did on an old Coleman cooler I have. Like many of you we carry an extra cooler with us when were camping in order to keep drinks cold and such to free up refrigerator space. After buying a bag on ice once a day or more in the summer while out camping I said this is crazy but even crazier is spending $400 plus to buy a Yeti cooler or one of their competitors just so we can have ice for more then a day. After some research, seeing some youtube video’s, I said I can do this do this and improve the cooling function for cheap.

I took our ratty fade burgundy cooler we had and first lined the box with foam board on sides, top, and bottom. Gluing the foam board in with silicon calk and sealing the seams with the same calk to make it water proof and then using metal foil duct tape to seal the top and lid area. Well just this simple modification extended a bag of ice from one day to three! Now I decided to see if I can get one or maybe two more days cooling by using injectable foam insulation in the lid of the cooler because they put zero insulation there. So out with my 1” hole saw and I drilled six holes in the lid so I can easily spray the foam insulation inside and fill the void. After it set I cut always the excess dried insulation and then filled the holes with some auto body filler I had. Repainted the cooler to match the Pod and our truck and think it turned out pretty good. Now the question is will the extra work filling the lid with insulation foam extend the cooling capacity? Only time will tell but I’m already pleased with the money saved on ice.