I’m considering cooling units for a 650 cu ft area. While a split unit would be great, the price is simply prohibitive. Has anyone had experience with the Koolspace koolR PLUS units? Are there other self-contained units, under $1,000, that anyone recommends?
I have no experience with this specific unit, but I can say that I have had coolers produced by the same company before. About 20 years ago I purchased a750 bottle “closet”. The cooler unit actually stopped working about 10 years later, and rather than repair it, the company offered a replacement unit for about 50% of retail. Another ten years later, just in the past couple of weeks, that unit has now stopped cooling, and I have another replacement in transit.
I don’t really know if 10 years is good or bad between service calls for a cooler unit. Considering that it is a $350 investment every ten years to replace the unit, personally, I am not complaining. I also think that it is worth praising that the company has been in business for this long, and has offered good service whenever I have needed to contact them.
That’s impressive, especially considering how low-cost the units are. Thanks for the input!
I have a Coolspace ChillR Plus, which I think is an older model (but looks identical) and cools up to 900 cubic feet. My cellar is much smaller than that… about 256 cubic feet. My thinking was why not get the larger unit since it was only $100 more? My house is old and only has 2x4 construction, so I only have R15 in the walls, hence I figured I’d go with the stronger unit. I have an interesting cellar space, basically a long narrow closet (8 feet x 4 feet, standard 8 foot cielings), fits around 1200 bottles. The cellar was completed in June of 2008, so I’ve been using the Coolspace for 4 years. I still have a hollow wood door instead of an exterior grade door because it cools no problem. I have absolutely no complaints or regrets about using it. It seems to not cool as efficiently when the adjacent (vented) space gets above about 79 degrees, but they say that in the manual, I believe. So if I cool the house (which I do), it works great. I keep the cellar at 55 degrees and have a humidifier in there which I add water to every couple weeks to keep it at 70%. You can “calibrate” the temperature of the controls on the ChillR, but I haven’t bothered… in order to keep it at actual 55 degrees I need to set the ChillR to 52.
I don’t have any photos of the unit here at work, but I could post a photo when I get home if you’re interested… in the photo below the Coolspace is basically right above my head where I was standing in the doorway.
