It’s time to go on vacation, leave home for a few days in summer or at any time of the year to take advantage of a long weekend and go on a getaway. In addition to packing your suitcase and leaving your surveillance equipment ready, there is one appliance that you should pay special attention to.
It’s the refrigeratoran increasingly technologically advanced device that is usually on 24 hours a day and that now while we are away will probably have to keep doing its job if we don’t want to waste the food we store in it. How do I prepare it for these days of absence?
Step one: prepare the kitchen
First of all it is important adapt the kitchen during our time away from home, so that the refrigerator works as little as possible but keeps the food cool.
For example, if we have awnings and blinds It is advisable to leave them down so that the sun does not shine in, and also to make sure that the window or windows in this room are closed and even the door as well so that a microclimate is created and hot air from outside the house does not enter.
The idea is to create a space as cool as possible where the kitchen temperature does not rise excessively and thus the fridge will work less in case we leave it on.
I’m going away for more than a week: better to turn it off completely
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If you are going to be gone for a long period of time (more than a week) and you don’t have a lot of food stored, it’s best to use it up first, use it up, donate it to a family member, friend or neighbor and turn off the fridge completely.
According to a study published by the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU), keeping a refrigerator running for a whole month can cost approximately between 3.5 and 7 euros depending on size, features and performance.
But it is not just about saving money, but also about ensuring that the food is in good condition when we return, and if we are gone for many days, some of it will probably end up spoiling and developing microorganisms inside the appliance that will then have to be cleaned.
A good practice at this time when we leave the refrigerator off is choose to clean shelves and racks so that they are ready when we are going to use them again and in this way avoid any food remains that may have been left behind and thus not have bad smells later.
Turning off the freezer and defrosting it is also recommended, to help prevent the presence of ice and frost, which increases energy consumptionThis occurs in models that are not “no frost”.
Before turning off a freezer without “no frost” We must bear in mind that it is not a quick process. The time depends on how full the freezer is, so the process can take from 24 to 48 hours.
With the refrigerator already turned off, and also the freezer and already without ice, it can be left unplugged and In the case of the refrigerator, when it is empty, it can be left with the doors open. to avoid bad odors.
Raise the temperature or select “vacation mode”
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If we are not going to leave it completely off, what we can do is change the temperature of the refrigerator (not the freezer) to select a higher one that consumes less, something that some models already have planned with a special operating mode called “vacation”.
The idea behind this functionality is that when you activate it, the Refrigerator temperature rises a few degrees passing from the between 3 or 5 regulars which would correspond to the ideal temperature at between 10 and 17 degreesdepending on the manufacturer. In this way electricity consumption is reduced of the device, which as we saw some time ago is considerable in this type of appliance.
In general activate this mode It only affects the refrigerator part in combi models or side by sidebut no to the freezerwhich allows us to transfer to it everything that we want to continue preserving in perfect cold conditions and leave in the other part foods that hardly need refrigeration.
Depending on the manufacturer, we may also find models that They directly turn off the refrigerator part and leave only the freezer active. Therefore, to know exactly what our model does, it is advisable to read the instruction manual beforehand.
Raise the temperature of the refrigerator by activating this mode logically will preserve food worse that we store in it. Therefore it is an interesting measure if we are only going to leave things not susceptible to spoilage easily at that temperature in a few days as drinks, breads, fruits, vegetables, sausages and the likebut not if we want to store fresh meat or fish.
It is also advisable that if we are thinking of leaving it connected, as it has a higher temperature than normal it is recommended that before Let’s clean the inside of the fridge well to prevent the proliferation of bacteria that could spoil food or cause bad odors when we return.
Some models with vacation mode have intelligent programming that reactivates the normal functions of the refrigerator when opening the door again when we return. However, in most cases you have to cancel the function manuallyso it is advisable to look at the manual to find out how ours works.
On the way back: check if there have been any power outages
When we return home after a few days away we may think that the fridge has continued to work perfectly in our absence, but perhaps the light may have gone out for a few hours.
If this is the case, it is not enough to look at the differential panel to know how long it has been, since a lowered lever will only indicate that there was a power surge somewhere in the network, but we will not know if there was a power cut or how long it lasted.
In addition, we may have installed a switch that resets itself, in which case we will not know how long the power cut lasted. The problem in these cases is that one or more power cuts may have occurred. potentially spoiling food that we keep in the freezer and of course in the refrigerator. How do we know if this has happened?
Well, there is a very simple trick that we can carry out with great ease. It is freeze the water in a container small glass, jar or just have some large ice cubes ready. Before we leave we make sure that they are well frozen, made into a block and we put them in a container or a plastic bag in the freezer in case they melt.
If upon returning we find that these ice blocks have lost their initial shape or are partially melted, probably the fridge has undergone a defrosting process significant enough to spoil food, even if it now appears to be frozen well.
Cover image | Meruyert Gonullu
At Xataka Smart Home | This is the ideal temperature for the refrigerator and freezer to save on your electricity bill and keep your food safe