What is Vacation Mode in refrigerators and how can it be useful? – Times of India

Modern refrigeration technologies have advanced a lot over the years and most latest models come with several features. Vacation Mode is one such feature that helps consumers when they are outside of their homes for a long period of time. This feature saves your electricity bill from drilling an unnecessary hole in your pocket. It is important to note that this feature is not available on all refrigerators. As summer approaches, users should also check for important features like this along with the design and colour while buying a new refrigerator.
What is Vacation Mode in refrigerators?
Vacation Mode or Holiday mode is a feature that is designed by the manufacturers to lower the power usage of your refrigerator when you are away on a holiday or a business trip for a couple of weeks. On activation, this mode keeps the fridge running normally but maintains the temperature of other compartments at 15 degrees celsius.
Importance of Vacation Mode on refrigerators
Vacation mode is designed to reduce power usage when you are away for a long time, which is more than three weeks. If you are outside for such lengthy periods, most food inside your refrigerator has a high possibility of turning bad. This much time is usually longer than the shelf life of most food inside the fridge.
You should consider leaving the fridge at the normal temperature if you are going away for a few days. The temperature that your fridge maintains while on vacation mode (15 degrees celsius) is not cool enough for you to consider a safe temperature for storing food when you’re outdoors. Bacterias is capable of multiplying between 5 and 60 degrees celsius.
Availability of Vacation Mode in refrigerators
Vacation mode is not a common feature among traditional refrigerators that comes without a display or control panel. Modern refrigerators with displays and control panels are the models that are able to utilise the feature. Several side-by-side or french door refrigerators also come with this feature. This feature is usually placed on the display panel, control panel or has a separate button for it.
What can you do to save electricity bills if your fridge doesn’t support the feature?
There are some basic fixes that can be done if your refrigerator doesn’t support the vacation mode and you want to save yourself from the headache of coming back to a messy fridge after a few weeks away. Make sure you close the water valve if you don’t want to come home to water leaks.
If you are going out for weeks you should remove all your food and ice from your fridge. Don’t forget to unplug the refrigerator to cut off the power supply. It is also better to wipe excess moisture from inside and leave the doors open. This will prevent the existence of mould or odour.