Was quite surprised this weekend to discover that my Adler Barbour system can make ice... and this was with the insulation of the lid removed. Out of curiosity I had several bottles of water in the center of the unit that is in the cold box (the coiled unit... evaporator?) and they all froze hard within less than two days. I am going to replace the insulation of the lid with more insulation (it was foam inside of a plastic molded piece and the plastic was broken from some abuse and age.) I am thinking right now of putting a vacuum panel into the lid with foam around that)

So here is the question... as the box does get good and cold... and I don't want to tear up my counters or any of that to replace the old insulation around the box... Would vacuum panels on the inside of the box work to improve the cold retention? These vacuum panels seem pretty pricy... but then have an R value of about 50. If I am just pissing money away because I cannot perfectly seal every inch of the box with vacuum panels... then why bother. I am ultimately hoping merely to reduce run time and power requirements for the existing set up.

I was considering putting a vacuum panel into the new lid as I mentioned... and got to thinking maybe I should take out the soft foam liner that is used all over in the box now, and replace it all with vacuum panels. But there is no way I can get a good fit everywhere... so there are likely to be some gaps in the new liner... But the overall effect... would replacing 90% for instance of the interior wall panels still help substantially?