Yeti coolers

Cooler envy.

Two videos show hacking regular Igloo coolers to  challenge expensive Yeti coolers.

First, the man is joking. He fills the hollow bulges in the lid with expanding foam while leaving the depressions uninsulated. You can see how the lid can be made even more insulated by filling every depression and shrinking the inner dimensions with additional foam core.

Second, the man sounds country and his truck is a mess but don't be fooled, he's actually well dressed and well shod and that changes everything.  He'd discussing how far he has driven and for how long before showing how the ice has lasted. He's filled every molded depression for maximum insulation for a very large cooler at great savings. His hack is well crafted.

Third, this guy is showing how he arranges flexible insulation to hold dry ice on the bottom separated to keep regular ice frozen longer above it. He neglects insulating the lid. (We know he doesn't know what he is doing by recording in portrait.)

These are good ideas. I'm annoyed with my Igloo cooler for its molded depressions. I don't need it to have cup holders and the other depressions are probably for structural integrity. But all those depressions and air gabs could be insulated. I suppose air is insulation, but foam is better. I like these ideas.

I used the cooler to make yogurt and it did a fine job. With a gallon of hot water from the tap (140℉) it stayed warm overnight, but not hot and that's fine for yogurt. The result was excellent. A bit better result than the same thing using the Instant Pot. This makes me want to try insulating it all around by copying video 1 and 2.

But why? The cooler is never needed for any long trip.

Maybe as backup for loss of electricity. That happened one time 30 years ago. In a house. Not an apartment with backup generators.

I love the way guys take regular things and hack the hell out of them. They make the Yeti buyers appear a bit silly for imagining "bear proof" being a valuable selling point, while never venturing anywhere near any bears, far less camping out for a week in bear country. All those tens of thousands of Yeti coolers taken only to picnics, all those hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted on ridiculous conceit.

Before this I used the Igloo cooler only once to take salad ingredients to distant dinner party.