How long to let a cooler air out

[craig]

I just set one up; with the lid open and a fan blowing, the smell took four-five days to dissipate. I'm not storing any loose sticks in mine, though, so I'm not too worried about residual smell - in a few days, I haven't noticed any smell, anyhow.

[Roham]

Ya, as long as everything you put in I wouldn't worry to much about it either. It'll reek of cigars soon

[Cigarbear]

I have few boxes coming to stink it up quick

[King Catfish]

I have used two coolerdors, one new, which I left in the sun outside for a week, and an old one, which I washed out really good and left in the sun for two days. YMMV. I agree with the posts above in that I don't think the cooler smell is that big a deal.

[FactoredReality]

I'm finishing up work on a mini-coolerdor, I left mine open over night then I stuffed it full of empty boxes. A day later it smelled great, I have heard bleach used as an option to sanitize and eliminate odors as well.

[FunkyCold5]

Dunno about bleach. I for one wouldn't go that route.

Just fix that sucker with ceder boxes or the boxes the cigars came in, and you are good to go.

Soon enough, the cigar smell will over-power what was there before.

Take some pics. I'd like to see the smokes you keep in there.

Andrew

[craig]

I'm finishing up work on a mini-coolerdor, I left mine open over night then I stuffed it full of empty boxes. A day later it smelled great, I have heard bleach used as an option to sanitize and eliminate odors as well.

Diluted bleach is what Coleman says. Good thing about bleach is it disinfects the surface, killing mould. Dunno if I would go that far - bleach looks mostly for getting rid of the aftereffects of science experiments.

Cleaning Tips

Clean both the inside and outside with a solution of mild soap and warm water.
If the product has a faucet, be sure to rinse with hot soapy water and drain completely.
Use baking soda and water to remove tough stains.

Remove odours with a diluted solution of chlorine bleach and water. If odour persists, wipe interior with a cloth saturated with vanilla extract, then leave in cloth in cooler overnight.
Always air dry with the lid open before storing.

http://www.colemancanada.ca/Expert_I..._clean.en.aspx

[pmp]

I'm a noob here but I'm learned a few tricks to building a coolerdor.

Bleach is perfectly safe for your cooler and it kills nasties at as low as a few ppm. I used it for year to sanitize my beer and wine bottles prior to bottling for that reason. If you use like 1 tbsp per gallon of water and triple rinse you will have no bleach residue or smell. Let the cooler air dry and keep it open until the plastic smell is gone. 2-5 days unless you get some really stinky plastic. Realistically though, if you get some cedar to line the walls then the plastic smell will not even be an issue. My cooler actually smells more cedary than my humidors do.