This blog has to do with my attempt to convert a standard chest freezer into a beer kegerator. This has been done a few different ways. I haven't seen this version documented before, so I'll give it a shot.

The basic idea is to put a hole in the side of the freezer to run the beer lines out and the CO2 line in. Then, a counter/ bar will be built next to the freezer with a tap tower on top. A fan will blow cold air through the the same hole as the beer lines and then back into the freezer so that the lines and taps will stay cold.

The main point that I'm trying to achieve is to be able to use a tap tower, but not have it on top of the freezer. This is so that I can open the top of the freezer without interfering with the tower.

The first step is to put a hole in the side of the freezer without cutting into a glycol line. I did this with a dremel tool and a plunger type of attachment. Shown here:
You can click on the pics for a larger version.

I marked the hole size on the inside of the freezer with a PVC pipe, which will be used to run the lines in later. This was done above the shelf/ compressor so that the lines going out won't get in the way of the kegs on the other side. The plunger tool on the dremel allowed me to set the depth to the shallowest possible so that I won't hit the glycol lines that are pressed against the inside piece of sheet metal.

Here you can see that a glycol line is right in the middle of the hole. You can also see the foil of the next highest glycol line.

Even if I knew where the lines were, I wouldn't be able to cut the size hole that I made (about 4") and not make it in-between two lines. After defrosting a similar freezer recently, I noticed that the frost concentrated around the glycol lines. I was thinking that spraying some water on the inside walls of the freezer and setting it to the coldest setting would show you where the lines were. That way you wouldn't have to be so careful about where you were cutting through the wall. This was after I already cut mine, so it didn't matter for me.

This pic shows how after I scraped the foam insulation out of the hole (with a box cutter and small putty knife) there were no other lines or wires in the way.

Here you can see a zoomed out pic of where I cut the hole:

The tower that I'm using is basically a hollowed out tree trunk. My idea was to run a 2.5" diameter PVC pipe inside of a 4" pipe from the freezer to the bottom of the tower so that the cold air could be blown in the center section and back into the freezer in the area between the two pieces of pipe. A better way to do this would be to use two pieces of the smaller pipe run side by side. That way, I could have made two smaller holes in the freezer and missed the glycol lines altogether and made a cleaner bulkhead. I'll upload more pics and explain better later. That it for now. Part II coming soon...