My son has a 3 year old Coleman 48-quart cooler/ice chest that he uses for everything from beach trips to trips up the coast, as well as for use at job sites and I have yet to see anything he puts in there not have ice left at the end of a day. "But wait! There's more!!" :D Last Friday not only did our a.c. freeze up and stop working, our refrigerator also broke down. In Florida. Average temps here were upper 80's during the day and around 70°F at night. In a household of 4 adults (including disabled grandmother...me) and 4 children, you just can't do without a fridge; unfortunately, the landlord couldn't get a repairman out until after the weekend...so we transferred all of the fridge stuff over to the freezer side, which crowded out a bit of the frozen food. No problem - my son commandeered his Coleman for several packages of frozen chicken, some ground beef (extra protected in waterproof giant zip locked bags) and a few bags of frozen vegetables, in addition to 4 - 6 , 33oz. water bottles. We lined the bottom of the cooler with all of the ice pack bags/plastic blocks we had, added a bag of ice, shoved in the frozen water bottles and then just fit in the overflow dairy, juice and leftovers that didn't fit into the freezer. We then added a bag of ice over the top. Now mind, I drink loads of water daily, so I was in and out of the ice chest all day, adding room temperature replacement water bottles each time. After the first two days the ice had reduced by a third and water had started collecting. I kept thinking it was time to add ice, but when I put my hand inside to clear the plug to drain it, the water was so cold that I couldn't keep my hand in there long enough to do so, so I left it! By late morning the next day - day 3 - the ice had completely depleted and the cooler needed to be drained...but I STILL had to use a spatula to keep the drain clear. Because of how icy cold the melted ice had stayed, I left about 4" of water in the bottom and added another bag of ice. By the time the repairman came on Monday, although the chicken had begun to thaw, it still felt "crunchy" with ice, but a third of the ice had still not melted. I credit part of the cold retaining ability to the fact that we used already frozen items in addition to ice and, as a previous reviewer mentioned, I drained the melted ice only enough to make it less heavy to move the cooler out of its niche. Hurricane season is on its way and I am preparing to move out of my son's house. But I decided that I had to get one of these Coleman ice chests as part of my emergency stand by things, just like candles, batteries and camp stoves/Sterno, I will now be prepared for just about anything. It arrived today, just ahead if a sudden storm that killed our power (came back on 20 mins later, so I didn't have a chance to use it, darn it!) I do like that this cooler has a standard, tightly capped drain plug that is situated so close to the bottom... hardly any tipping needed to empty it. I also like that the lid seals so tightly because the tighter the lid fits, the less cold escapes/less warm air seeps. Even my son's Coleman still seals snugly. I think the only thing I would like is some kind of retractable wheel thingy to help us physically challenged folks maneuver it a little easier! All in all, definitely recommend this Coleman ice chest. More than worth the cost.
