Six months ago I bought an Environics thermal testing chamber at auction for what can only be described as “less than $1,300… and that included Delissio—sorry, delivery.” Brand new, these things can cost tens to hundreds of thousands, so of course I assumed the hard part was over. Spoiler: it wasn’t. The unit had been decommissioned for over a decade, stored outside, and it showed up uncharged. That meant refrigerant, leaks, compressor oil contamination, moisture removal—the whole “this is why I don’t handle gases” experience. The good news is we tracked down the exact team that shut this chamber down in the first place—Carmichael—and they got it running again. We walk through the janky-but-temporary water-cooling setup (city of Surrey, please don’t arrest me), the refrigeration repairs, and the big control-system glow-up: ditching the old XP-era PC in favor of a modern Watlow F4 controller and simplified interface. Then we actually fire it up, watch it pull down temps (yes, we went in it), and hit some properly stupid cold numbers. And then comes the reality check: keeping it long-term would mean a code-compliant room, plumbing, suppression, noise treatment, electrical work, service access, and potentially massive heat rejection—up to 200,000 BTU/hr—plus even roof reinforcement. So yeah… my $20,000 loss might actually be your gain.