I just purchased a large commercial single door drink cooler that I will put in my garage. I'm planning to make a few modifications to it and would like anyones opinion if you have one of these. First of all, I'm thinking about putting a piece of dark window tint on the clear glass in the door. In the garage, it will only see a small amount of light but I think this will be worth while. Next, I can't find a switch to turn off either the inside light or the light on top. So, I'll add a switch to these. I think the light on top would provide a nice night light and the inside light could prove to be useful. Next, and this is still just a thought, is replacing the wire shelves with glass. I'll check out the stability before doing this, but it was a good mod for my last fridge. It will probably be December before I have time to work on this project. It needs some cleaning and I need to drink down my other cooler to make moving easier. With Duck season open this won't take long! I am a retired electrician so the electrical won't be hard for me to do or expensive. I'll get a friend at the local used car dealer to help with the window tint. Thanks for any ideas!
For the window tint, I suggest just buying the blackout stuff off Amazon. May only cost $10ish, and will completely blackout the window. Much better than any tint IMO. (I did this for my small beer fridge that is actually a wine fridge). You may want to take a look at the "post a picture of your beer fridge" thread to see how people reinforced their shelves. I can't recall exactly, but I think several people used pieces of PVC, and that seemed to work very well. Then, the modification needing done would be cheaper and easier I think. Just an idea - if you want the glass you'll do it anyway. Personally, I hate having glass shelving in my fridge.
Thanks for the idea on the blackout stuff! I did not know about that. I replaced the wire shelves in my last (current) fridge with tempered glass and have been very happy with them. The wire shelves were courser, for lack of a better word, than the wire shelves in my new cooler. I'll make a trial run with a few cans before loading them up with expensive bottles.
Post some pics when you get a chance. I replaced my wire shelves with thick plexiglass. Super strong and did the trick. How is the temp and humidity control?
Even if the glass wont break, I'd use something with holes in it. You can get metal custom cut perforated very cheap. Air circulation is key if you want consistency and are doing anything long term
Perforated metal is a good idea. There was enough space around the glass in my last fridge that circulation was ok. The fit is a little tighter in my new one. Already getting ideas! Thanks
Yeah that’s actually a great idea with the perforated/expanded metal shelf’s inside the fridge, I think that would look very nice. I always like doing that kind of “extra touch” type upgrades to my projects. You should look at maybe getting a stainless square/rectangle shelf frame (maybe with two diagonals for middle support, and have the stainless steel perforated sheet/expanded welded to the top, that way it won’t rust in the fridge. You could save a couple dollars and put rustoleum on regular steel, but that’s what I’m talking about with the “extra touch” of stainless Is there a small internal fan to circulate the air inside the fridge? May want to consider this if you want to get fancy, I’m sure there are tons of moisture resistant constant on fans that you could get on amazon or alibaba or something and wire that into the lighting circuit (I am not an electrician but am handy enough to attempt). And for the lighting- see if you can get a low voltage red or purple light to put in there, that would just look cool I think and would be sufficiently low on the light spectrum to avoid bottle skunking. Alright enough project fantasizing, I need to get out to my garage and finish a steamer trunk restoration.
