7 Days Ice Keeping in Quilpie, Western QLD

People often ask, how long does ice last? This is the most frustrating question to be asked, as there are so many variables in how a cooler is used. The outside temperature, the type of ice, hot warm the items are when you put them in the cooler, how many times it is opened per day, whether you drain the water or not, the variables go on....

However, I am confident in 7 days use, as I have done it myself while camping in Quilpie in Western QLD, Australia. The day time temperatures were between 35 to 40 celcius and the night time temperature did not drop below 25 degrees celcius.

In a 56L cooler, I used 10kg of dry ice and 3 x 5kg of ice blocks. I had frozen my meat prior and put all my food in the cooler. I used this for 7 days. Every day, I would add 2L to 3L of water bottles to cool them, They had been stored outside at air temperature, so they were close to 30 degrees celcius beofre they went into,the 56L Icey Tek. The ice box would cool these drinks and even freeze it for the first few days.

I made sure, I drained any water out of the cooler and did not let the water come in contact with the dry ice. The dry ice was wrapped in thick paper.

The dry ice was gone by the 4^th day, the block ice had hardly lost any volume while the dry ice was there. Once the dry ice was gone, the wet ice was slowly melting away. It lasts longer if the water is drained out of the cooler completely.

By the 7^th day, there was only a little bit of block ice remaining and everything in there was still cold. So I could possibly have gone another day or possibly 2.

Not many companies can boast real world use in Qld in summer of their ice boxes. But this is my own personal experience from February in 2016 using it practically to get 7 days of ice retention.