OK - My blue Icey-Tek has arrived <<how do I use it??>>

[ninja]

I'm a bit embarrased to admit I never really looked at how it worked and it doesn't seem to come with instructions.

Is the idea to fill it with ice before you go, leave it to cool down, put some freezy packs and food in - or am I missing something?

Don't have one myself (sob!) but have heard that you need to pre-freeze it before going, either with ice or the gel packs. Apparently 2 days pre-freezing is ideal. I think there are other threads on mumsnet about this, or else the UK campsite website has plenty of advice about this on their forums.

Thanks - I'll look it up! Shame I don't have a big freezer to put it in

Freeze a couple of 2l bottles of water and stick them in for a day or 2 before using.

Then freeze more bottles of water to use in the icey tek. I used 500ml bottles last time and a couple of bags of ice cubes. That with the food, frozen milk and some frozen meat kept everything fresh for 4 nights.

For a longer trip you will need to add more ice cubes. Last summer we did 2 weeks and used bags of ice cubes you can buy for £1 from the supermarket. Even when they melt the temperature still remains very low so even in warm weather you only need to get more ice every 3 days or so.

I love my icey tek.

We have been using ours continuously since early April and it has been fine. We have ice blocks that we use - the Iceytek ones are the same size as the 40L side walls and we don't have a problem - we re freeze every 3 days but the ambient temp inside is good.

Sounds good - first trip is a weekend, so sounds perfect for that.

Might look up the iceytek ice blocks

hi you can also get tips from the website www.coolboxesuk.co.uk/usage/