Lifetime Coolers and Camping Tables

What Lifetime makes for campers and hunters

On this site, Lifetime covers two product types: hard coolers and folding tables. The grid above filters by type, and it changes as listings come and go. So I'll write about the lines and what separates them, not about how many of each are listed this week.

The coolers are almost all one line, the High Performance hard coolers, plus a red-white-and-blue version called the Patriotic Edition. One soft cooler listing sits in the grid too.

The tables are a bigger family than most people expect:

• Fold-in-half tables: rectangles and a square
• Utility tables: the plain 4-foot and 8-foot kind, some height adjustable
• Picnic tables with benches: full size and kid size
• Camp tables with a job: a fish-cleaning table with a sink and a tailgate table with a grill rack
• Small tables: side tables, a personal table and a laptop table

Most of the specs here come from the Amazon listings, and the grid marks those values. Where a listing doesn't give a number, the grid shows a dash. I'm not going to fill gaps from memory. Memory is how I ended up owning two of the same wrench.

Lifetime makes other things for the yard, too, but this site lists only the coolers and the tables.

Lineup notes: the Lifetime cooler

High Performance hard coolers, by size

The High Performance coolers come in five sizes in the grid, per their listings: 28, 48, 55, 65 and 115 quarts. A quart is a quarter of a gallon, so a 48-quart cooler holds 12 gallons on paper. In practice, ice and the shape of your food take a good share of that.

How the sizes line up with a camp:

• 28 quarts: lunch and drinks for a day, or a side cooler for one person
• 48 quarts: the middle size, food for a long weekend for two or three people who don't eat like Danny
• 55 quarts: one step up, the listing for one model names a drain
• 65 quarts: a group cooler for a few days
• 115 quarts: a chest for big groups, long trips or a lot of meat on ice

The listings give ice retention in days for most sizes: 7 days on the 48 and 55-quart models, 8 on a 65-quart and 10 on the 115-quart. Bigger coolers hold more ice, so the bigger numbers aren't a surprise. The listings don't say what conditions those days were counted in. Use them to compare one Lifetime size against another, not to plan a week in the woods without a stop for ice.

The large cooler page and the 50 qt cooler page compare sizes across brands, and the small cooler page covers the lunch-box end.

Latches, drains and the details in the listings

Two details show up in some High Performance listings and not in others:

• Cam or lever latches: one 48-quart listing names them
• A drain: one 55-quart listing names it

That doesn't mean the other models lack them. It means the listing doesn't say. Check the photos and the listing of the exact cooler before you count on a drain. (A drain matters more than people think. Meltwater has to go somewhere, and "out the drain" beats "into the bread.")

The Patriotic Edition

The Patriotic Edition is the same idea in red, white and blue. The grid has it in 28 and 48 quarts, and the listings give 5 days of ice retention for the 28 and 7 days for the 48. If you've got a camp that flies a flag on opening day, here's your cooler. If you've got a camp that argues about the flag on opening day, I can't help you.

The soft cooler listing

One soft cooler listing shows up under the brand in the grid. Its title carries the BUILT name, and the listing describes a welded, roll-top bag rated for 18 cans. Soft coolers trade ice time for weight and a shoulder strap. The soft cooler page covers that type across brands.

How to choose a Lifetime cooler

Pick the size for the trip, then check who carries it

Start with how many people and how many days. Then think about the walk from the truck to the cabin, because a full cooler is a two-person lift long before it's full of ice. The maker's weights aren't in the grid, so I won't guess them here. Look at the handles in the listing photos and picture them in November gloves.

Then the drain and the latches

A drain lets you empty meltwater without tipping the cooler. Latches keep the lid shut in a truck bed. Both are in some listings, as above. If you'll keep meat on ice for days, a drain is worth checking for.

Then the ice number, used the right way

Compare the ice days inside the brand: a 115-quart chest at 10 days against a 48 at 7 tells you something. Comparing the number against another brand's number doesn't tell you much, because nobody in the listings says how either was measured.

More on materials and builds across brands is on the coolers page and the rotomolded cooler page, and the best coolers list ranks options by a stated rule.

Packing a cooler for camp

Utah State University Extension's summer food safety advice is short and worth taping inside the lid:

• Use one cooler for drinks and another for food, so the food cooler stays shut longer
• Keep the cooler in the shade when you can
• Open it only when you need something
• Seal raw meat in a bag or container so its juices don't drip on other food
• Frozen water bottles work as ice, and you can drink them as they melt
• Don't leave perishable food out more than 2 hours, or 1 hour above 90°F

My one opinion on this page: the two-cooler rule isn't optional at a deer camp. The drinks cooler gets opened every time somebody walks past it. The food cooler, with the sausage and the eggs in it, should get opened at breakfast and supper and not much in between. Extension's reasoning is the same: fewer openings keep the food cooler colder. A 28-quart High Performance for drinks next to a 48 or 65-quart for food is an easy pair inside one brand.

Lineup notes: the Lifetime camping table

Fold-in-half tables

A fold-in-half table has a top split across the middle and hinged, so it closes like a briefcase to half its length. The grid has them as 4-foot and 8-foot rectangles and a 34-inch square, and the listings name HDPE tops. HDPE is high-density polyethylene, a hard plastic. Some of the 4-foot versions are listed as adjustable in height.

Here's why that matters for camp: a 4-foot table folded in half rides behind the seat of a pickup. An 8-foot table that doesn't fold in half rides in the bed, and it rides there whether or not you planned on rain.

Utility tables, including the 8-foot commercial

The plain rectangular tables are the ones everybody pictures. The grid has a 4-foot Essential table, 4-foot Commercial and height-adjustable tables, and an 8-foot Commercial rectangular table sold as a four-pack. Several listings name HDPE tops. The height-adjustable ones are the tables to look at if you'll stand while you work, at a camp stove or a cleaning station.

Picnic tables with benches

The 6-foot folding picnic tables have the benches built on, so the whole thing folds as one piece. Several versions are in the grid. The 80373 Camping RV Picnic Table and Bench Set is the camp version of the same idea, and one listing bundles it with a kid's picnic table. There's also a stand-alone kids picnic table and a 24-inch kids folding table.

Attached benches mean nothing to forget, and nothing to carry separately. They also mean everybody sits at the same height, including the guy who'd rather have his own chair. (I am the guy.)

Camp tables built for a job

Two tables in the grid exist for one task each:

• The 4-foot fish-cleaning table: the listing names a built-in sink, and it's a camp kitchen style table
• The 5-foot tailgate table: the listing names a grill rack

These are the tables that turn a tailgate into a work station. The camp kitchen page covers sinks, prep space and stove stands across brands.

Small tables

The small end of the line covers the jobs a full table is too big for: the stacking compact table at 30 by 20 inches and 26 inches tall, a 30-inch personal table, the 280488 compact low side table, and the 28241 adjustable laptop table, which is a TV tray by another name. A side table next to the camp chair holds a coffee cup, a headlamp and a paperback. That's a full shift for a side table.

How to choose a Lifetime camping table

Start with where it rides

Measure the space behind the seat or in the trunk before you pick a length. Fold-in-half tables pack to half their length; standard folding tables and picnic tables don't. If the table lives in the truck all season, the small and fold-in-half ones are the easy choice.

Then decide on seats

A picnic table with benches seats people without extra chairs. A plain table needs chairs, which you may already own. The deciding question is whether your camp eats sitting down together or standing around the tailgate.

Then the height

For eating, any standard table works. For cooking, cleaning or cutting, a height-adjustable table saves your back. Several 4-foot listings in the grid are adjustable. More on heights and sizes across brands is on the camping table page.

Lifetime facts

Here's what I could verify outside a store shelf:

• Founded: 1986, by Barry Mower, per a 1990 Deseret News report
• Early product: adjustable basketball standards, made at the Freeport Center in Utah at the time of that report
• Before Lifetime: the same report says Mower started the business with his wife, Kathy, in 1972, before Lifetime Products was formed

This page doesn't cover warranty terms or where the coolers and tables are made. Read the warranty card in the box, and keep it with the receipt.

Write the cooler size and the table length in a notebook next to the date you bought them. Next fall, you'll know what fits in the truck without unloading it.