CoolBot Systems in the News and on the Web
Pack N'Cool trailer write-up from North Carolina State. This is beautiful, and check out the lower left hand side of the website for links to detailed construction plans and budgets... So well done. I think we have been getting as many requests for trailer-coolers as room coolers lately, and this will certainly help a LOT of people. [2013 update: This has helped LOTS of people. A great resource]
Market Farming Success By Lynn Bizinski - available at Growing For Market
The Complete Root Cellar Book: Building Plans, Uses and 100 Recipes Great new book by Steve Maxwell that goes into detail about actually building several styles of insulated (above and below-ground) root cellars. The book talks about the CoolBot as the most cost effective way to maintain the temperatures (and it's even in illustrations!) It's a neat book to buy even if you don't get a CoolBot (but after reading it, you will DEFINITELY want a coolbot!)
Great new resource on cooling from ACORN in Canada. Includes a Canadian Farmer who has been using a coolbot and his great experience using it with a really nice overview of the CoolBot. This is an Organic Certification organization and provides resources for Organic Growers in general. They have a GREAT resources section on allowable inputs and other resources that obviously has nothing to do with the CoolBot, but I liked it! Glynwood Center has posted a web article on Energy Efficient farming and mention that one of their choices in this regard is to use a CoolBot because it saves so much electricity. Gear section from Tiny Farm Blog. Has a few paragraphs on the CoolBot in their "tools" section on this linked page. Silvery Moon Cheese - Final Cheese Cave Report GREAT detailed report, especially for people doing cheese caves - It's a bit long, so search for the word "CoolBot" to get to their experiences (which are good.) University of Kentucky article on building a low-cost room This is a GREAT free publication with info on building your own cooler! I like their design! What's terrific about this is that they use a HYBRID design with fiberglass batt insulation AND rigid foam insulation to save money. If you read my cooler design article from Growing For Market, I talk about how we've seen fiberglass insulation get rot and black mold, so we tell everyone to use rigid foam insulation. But this Kentucky design uses just a little rigid foam insulation in the right place to stop condensation on the outside! THIS IS AWESOME! IT WORKS! If rigid foam insulation is expensive in your area, then this could be a terrific solution, especially if you are more comfortable doing stick-frame construction. *I would STRONGLY recommend that you use 1.5 inches of rigid foam instead of the 3/4 inches that is recommended because I think it pays off in electricity savings. HUNDREDS if not thousands of our customers have used this design by now because we actively recommend it on the phone to people with minimal construction experience.
Hort Ideas March-April 2009 issue - page 47. Totally Cool! We're big fans of Hort Ideas and it was a nice surprise to see us there. I can't link to this, you'd have to go to the library. The Sierra Club Spring 2009, Atlantic Chapter Publication - for all of New York State. Page 3. Long article focuses on Ron and Kate at the farm but devotes a nice big section on the CoolBot technology... Maine Organic Farmers And Gardeners Newsletter One of my favorite articles (because it compares us to the invention of the lightbulb :-)... Really, it's good - he interviews a few different farmers that have coolbots in Maine so you hear their experiences. Maine and Georgia are HUGE states for CoolBot sales (Who would have thought GA had so many small farms!) Country Folks Grower Nice article actually from the late spring of 2008 that I missed posting... I'll try to get it posted... Market Farming Success - Lynn Byczinski's book available at Amazon.com Maine Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel September 2008. This article is actually about a Farmington family that uses a CoolBot, it's not just about CoolBot itself, we just got one short paragraph, but it's still a great article!
Hudson Valley Biz from August 2008 CoolBot Hacks Air Conditioners to Create Green Walk-in Freezers From Good Clean Tech! FOR FLORISTS AND CUT FLOWER GROWERS:
There is a nice Blog at www.purepetals.com about the CoolBot on August 11, 2008 and on the August 3, 2008 blog listing they write about how the president of the Association of Speciality Cut Flower Growers (which is a GREAT organization!) also spoke positively about the CoolBot at their July 2008 conference. Florists and cut flower growers LOVE the CoolBot because it doesn't dry out the flowers like a conventional system!
Growing For Market April 2007 News about CoolBot Walk In Cooler Controller
CoolBot on the Cornell Small Farms website/publication! Really nice article!! Check it out! Includes quotes and a nice explanation.
APPPA Grit article This is an article on Kosher poultry processing from the newsletter for the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association (a great organization) and the reporter uses a CoolBot and writes very positively about it and goes into some nice detail about cooler construction as well. There is another more recent article just on the CoolBot as well (also totally positive), but I don't have a link to that... if I get it, I'll post to it -- OR you can join the APPPA! UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT (UVM) Extension AgEngineering Blog This is a nice article on CoolBots from March 2013. It's a great article, There are two corrections I would make to the article. One is that there seems to have been a misunderstanding that if there is a power failure CoolBot coolers can't restart on their own. Coolbots restart on their own (and remember their settings) and MOST brands of Air Conditioners restart on their own as well after a power failure. So... if you live in a power-failure prone area, then stick with one of the big brands of Air Conditioner we recommend like HAIER, LG or GE. A few brands (including SAMSUNG and FRIGIDAIRE don't restart automatically after the power goes out, and I think that's what might have been confused in the article. Also they reference an old 2009 analysis on efficiency of the Coolbot compared to new systems, and that was done with a CoolBot attached to a whole-house air conditioner NOT one of the new air conditioners (made after 2012 with better refrigerant and NOT a window air conditioner with one fan... it was a whole house a/c unit with MULTIPLE fans). Still this is a good article.
The Flower Farmer By Lynn Byczynski - available at Growing For Market
Market Farming Success By Lynn Bizinski - available at Growing For Market
The Complete Root Cellar Book: Building Plans, Uses and 100 Recipes Great new book by Steve Maxwell that goes into detail about actually building several styles of insulated (above and below-ground) root cellars. The book talks about the CoolBot as the most cost effective way to maintain the temperatures (and it's even in illustrations!) It's a neat book to buy even if you don't get a CoolBot (but after reading it, you will DEFINITELY want a coolbot!)
Great new resource on cooling from ACORN in Canada. Includes a Canadian Farmer who has been using a coolbot and his great experience using it with a really nice overview of the CoolBot. This is an Organic Certification organization and provides resources for Organic Growers in general. They have a GREAT resources section on allowable inputs and other resources that obviously has nothing to do with the CoolBot, but I liked it! Glynwood Center has posted a web article on Energy Efficient farming and mention that one of their choices in this regard is to use a CoolBot because it saves so much electricity. Gear section from Tiny Farm Blog. Has a few paragraphs on the CoolBot in their "tools" section on this linked page. Silvery Moon Cheese - Final Cheese Cave Report GREAT detailed report, especially for people doing cheese caves - It's a bit long, so search for the word "CoolBot" to get to their experiences (which are good.) University of Kentucky article on building a low-cost room This is a GREAT free publication with info on building your own cooler! I like their design! What's terrific about this is that they use a HYBRID design with fiberglass batt insulation AND rigid foam insulation to save money. If you read my cooler design article from Growing For Market, I talk about how we've seen fiberglass insulation get rot and black mold, so we tell everyone to use rigid foam insulation. But this Kentucky design uses just a little rigid foam insulation in the right place to stop condensation on the outside! THIS IS AWESOME! IT WORKS! If rigid foam insulation is expensive in your area, then this could be a terrific solution, especially if you are more comfortable doing stick-frame construction. *I would STRONGLY recommend that you use 1.5 inches of rigid foam instead of the 3/4 inches that is recommended because I think it pays off in electricity savings. HUNDREDS if not thousands of our customers have used this design by now because we actively recommend it on the phone to people with minimal construction experience.
Hort Ideas March-April 2009 issue - page 47. Totally Cool! We're big fans of Hort Ideas and it was a nice surprise to see us there. I can't link to this, you'd have to go to the library. The Sierra Club Spring 2009, Atlantic Chapter Publication - for all of New York State. Page 3. Long article focuses on Ron and Kate at the farm but devotes a nice big section on the CoolBot technology... Maine Organic Farmers And Gardeners Newsletter One of my favorite articles (because it compares us to the invention of the lightbulb :-)... Really, it's good - he interviews a few different farmers that have coolbots in Maine so you hear their experiences. Maine and Georgia are HUGE states for CoolBot sales (Who would have thought GA had so many small farms!) Country Folks Grower Nice article actually from the late spring of 2008 that I missed posting... I'll try to get it posted... Market Farming Success - Lynn Byczinski's book available at Amazon.com Maine Kennebec Journal/Morning Sentinel September 2008. This article is actually about a Farmington family that uses a CoolBot, it's not just about CoolBot itself, we just got one short paragraph, but it's still a great article!
Hudson Valley Biz from August 2008 CoolBot Hacks Air Conditioners to Create Green Walk-in Freezers From Good Clean Tech! FOR FLORISTS AND CUT FLOWER GROWERS:
There is a nice Blog at www.purepetals.com about the CoolBot on August 11, 2008 and on the August 3, 2008 blog listing they write about how the president of the Association of Speciality Cut Flower Growers (which is a GREAT organization!) also spoke positively about the CoolBot at their July 2008 conference. Florists and cut flower growers LOVE the CoolBot because it doesn't dry out the flowers like a conventional system!
Growing For Market April 2007 News about CoolBot Walk In Cooler Controller
Article in the Times Herald Record about CoolBot Walk In Cooler System
