The Samsung tech came by today to replace the spring loaded seal assembly on the left door of our new RF 18HFENBSR Fridge. Warranty "house call."
Discussed energy saving ideas and he showed me demo mode. This may be common knowledge but I was glad to learn you can induce "Demo Mode" by pressing and holding the Power Freeze and Freezer buttons until it beeps and display shows OF on both sides.
The lights stay on but the electronics and compressors are OFF.
He also suggested running the temp controls down to the minimum ( -8f freezer) before going into demo. Should keep frozen 48 hours. Reset the temps when you go back online with it. Same buttons restart normal operations.
Cool, huh?
I guess this would be handy if you were dry camping, perhaps in cooler temperatures, and trying to minimize your house battery consumption. However, we find once our fridge reaches stabilized temps, the compressor actually does not run all that often.
Always nice to know about these little "tricks", though, so thanks for the info!
I tried this overnight once at a Walmart. I do not recall the temps but it wasn't particularly hot out. Temps went up 20-30 degrees. The freezer was close to 32°. Refrigerator section was in the 50's. Not good for milk and other perishables. Try it out for yourself and see what results you get with the refrig empty.
These refrigerators have no off switch. I added a switched outlet to plug mine into so that I can completely power it off. If you are not using the icemaker (big energy saver) be sure to turn the ice maker off at the panel when you turn it back on.
You can also simply turn off the auto defrost feature. A large user of juice.