When buying a new appliance or air conditioner For the home, we usually look at the main characteristics such as cooling capacity, washing machine drum load, dimensions, even the electricity consumption marked on its energy efficiency label.
But there are times when devices have a number of Additional functions that go unnoticed because they are somewhat “hidden” in the remote control keys, even in the instruction manuals, but that can be very useful for saving electricity and making our lives more comfortable.
Which are? Well, here we are going to review some cool features that are usually present in many computers, although we do not usually use them:
auto restart
If you live in an area where there is frequent power outages Surely on more than one occasion you have had to stay halfway through an activity because suddenly the power went out. Everything turns off, the air conditioning stops working, the washing machine stops working, the TV doesn’t work, etc.
After a while the electricity returns and everything should return to the state it was before. Well, no, it is not always like that, since there are teams that after a blackout they stay in standby mode and you have to turn them back on manually.
Therefore, it is convenient to look in the instructions if our model has the so-called “auto restart mode” and if we have to activate it ourselves or it comes already configured from the factory, a functionality that allows return to the previous state of operation after the light goes out at home.
Programmers and timers
Another function that is usually present in most air conditioning equipment and in the most recent washing appliances are the timers and delay start schedulers.
Its usefulness is very clear: they allow us to tell the equipment to be in operation during a certain time, generally given in hours or fractions thereof, to turn off after exceeding said time. Or the opposite function, that is, we can prepare them and have them ready to start working (for example a washing machine or dishwasher) but we ask that you wait a specific time until a certain time arrives.
Both cases are very useful for saving energy, adapting consumption to times when the electricity price is cheaperas we saw more in depth in this article when talking about the delayed start of washing machines and dishwashers.
Fan mode in the air conditioner
As we have already seen in depth in this article, the fan mode It is a function that is present in most models of air conditioning and consists of providing a constant flow of air using the internal fans of the device, but without activating the compressor of the equipment.
The result is the emission of air at room temperature, as if it were a classic fan, with a lower noise level and a much lower power consumptionsince the compressor is not turned on, which translates into an electrical consumption generally less than 50-60 watts compared to the more than 500-1000 watts that we will use in cooling mode.
Its use will allow us to obtain several results mainly. to get started we renew the air in the room especially if we leave a window open totally or partially. We will also produce a smaller thermal sensation in the room, we can filter and purify the air of the room if our model has advanced filters inside, reducing spring allergies, mites, dust, etc. In addition, we save on the electricity bill if we do not really need to cool the room considerably, but only move the air.
Dehumidifying mode in air conditioners
The fixed and portable air conditioners In general, they also have an operating mode called “dehumidifier” that we can activate by pressing the indicated key on the remote control.
Its usefulness is clear: it allows remove part of the ambient humidity from the room to the outside of the house through the drain pipe that leads to the outside or to a container through the water outlet pipe in portable models without wall installation.
What can it be used for? Well, if we live in areas with harsh winters where there is a high humidity or even near the sea or a river, we can activate it to make the environment inside the house more comfortable, achieving an ideal ambient humidity of between 45 and 60%.
ECO, night and similar modes
When we saw what tricks we could do to reduce the electrical cost of our devices, one of them was always use ECO modes both in the washing machine and in the dishwasher and in the refrigeration systems.
These are functions that in general will make the equipment do not work at peak performancelowering the power of its resistors and compression systems, but thereby achieving greater energy savings.
Of course, it must be taken into account that this lower expenditure on energy takes longer to complete its functionwhich in the case of dishwashers can easily extend to more than three hours.
Holiday mode”
If we think about leaving home for a few days and we have this function in our refrigerator or freezer, it should be left activated. The holiday mode” in refrigeration equipment what it does is raise the target temperature a few degrees from the usual 3 or 5 to between 10 and 15 degrees, lowering electricity consumption, but also, we must not forget, preserving the food that we store in it worse.
That is why it is an interesting measure if we are only going to leave things not likely to spoil easily at that temperature such as drinks, bread, fruit, vegetables, sausages and the like, but not if we want to store fresh meat or fish.
It is also convenient that if we are thinking of leaving a temperature higher than normal before let’s clean the fridge inside to prevent the proliferation of bacteria that could spoil food or cause bad odors when we return.