We have been looking for a fridge with a glass door to make an incubator from for ever. And on christmas eve we were out walking with our dog and found a frigde outside of a café. The compressor was broken so we could have it for free. The next morning I went over there and carried it home. It was a really long walk to go and it took almost three hours. But now we don't have to buy one!
First of all we striped it down and removed all the parts that we didn't need. So forst of all we got rid of the freon system becuse all you need is basiclly just an empy box. VVenting freon into the atmosphere is illegal today so you might consider having the freon removed by a certified professional. This frigde was drained prior to the cuting of the line.
Once everything was out we cleaned the frigde with sope and left it outside with the door open over night to get rid of the smell. This was an old used frigde so you can only imagine how it smelled the first time we opened the door.
All we had to do then was to install the heatstrip, some shelves, a thermostat and add some paint to it.
We drilled a hole on the back where the wires from the heatstrip could go though and then just duct taped two heatstrips on the sides. We will only house 2 clutches of eggs in this incubator this year so we put the heatstrips in the middle where the shelf were to be.
Then we bought one 8 liter box from Hammarplast and mixed the vermiculite and placed it on the shelf. We didn't really know where to put the thermostat probe so we just left it there in the middle of the shelf and left it like that over night to se what temperatures we had. It turned out to be perfect. 32 celcius (89,6 Fahrenhait) both inside and outside the eggbox.
Now we just have to paint it one more time and wait for the eggs!
So now it's almost done. One or two more layer of paint and a small fan inside to circulate the hot air better.
To be continued...
