Drawings:
Here are some AutoCAD drawings of it... now in 3D!!!
(Click for a larger photo)
Based on these drawings, which were measured halfway through the build so should be fairly accurate, the fridge will be
170 cubic feet!!!!
Legend:
Green Box: Fridge that will act as a motor
Blue Boxes: Average size of a 24-pack of beer
Red cylinders: Kegs, large ones are 16g smaller ones are 5g corney kegs
Yellow lines: Where the 4 tap handles come though the wall
That wall that sticks out into the fridge isn't really there; I just couldn't get the slope right without showing it. |
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The Space:
We are using the space under the stairs, the boxed out area next to the stairs was already like that when we got the house. We added the pocket door which leads into the utility room (our brewery) and ripped down the wall on the side of the stairs.
Vent Move:
Took down the heater vent, and had my HVAC buddies move it to the side.
Framed out wall and added a stud to mark top of opening where the refrigerator unit that will be used to power the walk-in is going to go.
Before:
After: (Also took out wall that door will go into)
This is the fume hood that they made for us to go with our awesome burner.
In return for this work, we taught them how to brew their own beer.
SCORED!
We are regular customers at a local restaurant supply store and found this reach-in refrigerator door. This is the kind used to hold sodas at your local convenience store. It is just the right size for our needs and even includes working lights!
Rebuilt Door Frame:
The original wall that was here was solid 2x4s stacked on top of each other.
We decided that it would be better to rebuild it and start over.
Floor:
Electrical:
The power will come down from the garage where I am going to have a subpanel installed, go into the outlet for the fridge motor, then run though the walk-in walls to the switch just outside the glass door, then backup to the power pack for the door lights.
Brewery wall:
There will be a hole cut out for the fridge to go up to. The fridge that is on the right side of the photo will be used: we will take the doors off and push it up to the opening, so you will be able to see inside the fridge from the inside of the walk-in.
Reverse Side:
Plywood and Seams Finished:
Finished layering the inside with plywood, and then caulked all the seams. Decided to use basic painters caulking, since I had a lot of it on hand.
Preped the Fridge, and moved it into place:
Took the doors off of the fridge I am using to power the walkin, added a weather strip all around the fridge edge (not pictured) then moved the fridge up to the opening and strapped it in place. Some photos from the inside after I turned it on... and finally me enjoying a nice cold beer in the coolest room in the house.
Fridge Swap
We had to swap out the refridgrator we were using to power the walkin for an upright freezer. As you can see from the tempature graphs below, the fridge just couldn't keep up. It was running for 8 hours stright, would shut off for 30 minutes, and then run for 8 hours again. Now, with the upright freezer in place, it runs for about 30 minutes, and turns off for 30 minutes. (The spots where the graph drops to 0 is when the data logger stopped working). Each graph is one day, midnight to midnight.
Refridgrator Powering Walkin:
The sudden changes here are due to me playing with the unit trying to get it to work better...
Upright Freezer Powering Walk-in
Finally, the unit is cycling in a normal manner... based on my measurements of the fridge before setting it up as a walk-in, this is how it should look.(The missing data on 5/29 is the switch from the Fridge to the Freezer unit, you can see on 5/29 and into 5/30 the time it took the freezer to cool off the walk-in and then on 5/30 the start of the on/off cycling. On the 5/31 graph you can see the on/off cycling moving closer together as the fridge unit gets closer to the ideal tempature, then as we walk in and out of the room, it warms up and the fridge runs longer to balance out.
Power Usage (orginal house refridgrator)
The first table is my baseline for my beer fridge as it sits right now, an old house refridgrator that we got for free. I have cleaned up the coils and such, took out the shelves, but otherwise unmodified. It runs under it's own tempature controller and according to the thermeter I have in there, it is currently running at 38*f. According to my power bill, I get charged $0.055 USD per Kilowatt Hour (KWH); I have Xcel Energy in the Denver Metro area of Colorado.
Baseline as a Regular Refridgrator
(Rate of $0.055/KWH @ 38*f) |
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Standby Mode |
w/ Light On |
Running |
Running w/Light |
| Volt |
122.70 |
122.60 |
121.40 |
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| Amp |
0.06 |
0.39 |
4.32 |
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| Watt |
6.00 |
48.00 |
304.00 |
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| VA |
10.00 |
48.00 |
520.00 |
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| Hz |
59.90 |
59.90 |
59.90 |
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| P.F. |
0.79 |
1.00 |
0.59 |
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| Cost/Year |
$68.89 |
| Cost/Month |
$5.66 |
| Cost/Week |
$1.32 |
| Cost/Day |
$0.18 |
| Cost/Hour |
$0.00 |
| Hours Ran |
1217.00 |
| Total Cost |
$9.58 |
| Total KWH |
174.00 |
This second table will be the power useage after I take the refridgrator doors off and push it up to the opening in the walk-in to use it to power the walk-in. I plan to let it run as long as I can praticly empty, and measure it. (This idea was scrapped due to the fridge unit not being able to keep the room cool enough, so I moved on to testing stage 2: fill the room with water to help is save power). Then I will fill the space with as much liquid as I can (beer, kegs, carboys, etc), even if it is just with water, to see the difference in power usage keeping the fridge full vs empty. This way I can prove it is worth it to keep lots of beer on hand at all times.
Running as a Walk-In |
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