Samsung & Power Outage

12 years ago

I'm looking at refrigerators and really like the way the Samsungs are made BUT...we live in an area where the power goes out often. Sometimes just for a few minutes, other times if there is a storm it could be out for several hours. In looking at the Samsung instruction booklets, it appears that if the power is out for any length of time that the electronic control has to be manually reset. Is this true? I mean, when the power comes back on, doesn't it just resume its normal operation?

That is a deal killer for us, so I'm hoping it's not true. The salesperson at lowes called Samsung hotline and they said it was true. I just can't believe that but if there are any owners out there who have had significant power outages, did your frig come back on as it was supposed to?

I mean, if we're not home and the power goes out for several hours, this could be huge loss for us. (food wise)

I would think there would be a lot of people upset abuot food losses if this was true. TIA for your replies

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Comments (7)

dodge59
12 years ago
Can't speak to Samsung, sorry, but we have a 5 year old Jennair that went through a 10 hour power outage, and the temp stayed below 42F in the Fridge and 14F in the freezer, (Course we didnt open it much during the power outage).
When the power finally came back on the fridge quickly got the food compartment back to 38 F by sacrificing a few degrees from the freezer--it got up to 16F (still way below freezing) not too soon later, the freezer was back at "0" F with no intervention on our part, (IE it went back to the factory settings of "0"F Freezer and "38" Fridge).

This is one of the reasons why i'm a fan of the single compressor Fridges, at least ours sacrificed some of the freezer temp to keep the fridge at a safe level, something a double compressor fridge is unable to do.

My guess is the Samsung would default to its factory settings, and lose the settings you may have programmed in, but not having any experience with Samsung, I could be totally wrong, but like You, I find it hard to believe that any Fridge, following a power failure would not revert at least to a "Fail-safe Mode" that would keep food contents at a safe temp.

Gary
stooxie
12 years ago
Sippimom,

We have a Samsung FD fridge that has the color electronic display. Seems to be running Windows CE and is my first fridge that actually has to boot up!

THAT SAID-- we have power outtages at every gust of wind here and we've had NO issues with this fridge. When the power goes out and comes back on everything starts up again normally. The settings are remembered. The only human intervention needed is to set the date and time again, if you wish.

It's a great fridge and has kept our food cool through many, many "dark" times!

-Stooxie
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weedmeister
12 years ago
No BSOD?
stooxie
12 years ago
Not yet!! Waiting for OS X in my toaster.

-Stooxie
fourkids4us
12 years ago
I have had a Samsung fridge for almost a year. My power goes out relatively often (several times a year or more compared to my parents' house whose power NEVER goes out). During Hurricane Irene, our power was out for five days. Thankfully, Snowtober hit about 90 miles to our west so we only experienced rain and no power outages this time!

I'm not sure what you mean that the electronic control needs to be manually reset. I haven't done anything to my fridge after a power outage, except after Irene. We had removed all of our food to coolers and our neighbors' fridge (he has a generator) so we didn't lose much. However, I did use the POWER COOL setting when the power came back on so that the fridge/freezer would cool down more quickly. That is the only time that I've done anything to it. For the short, random power outages, I didn't do anything.
momfromthenorth
Original Author
12 years ago
Okay, thanks to all of you for responding. That was very helpful. We may take the plunge but dodge you do bring up a good point about single vs double compressor issue and cooling. My main issue is the power going out and if we are away, not worrying about the frig coming back on at normal operating temp.

If anyone else has any comments about the power outage issue, I'm still all ears!
dodge59
12 years ago
Fortunately we have few power failures here, in Orange County Calif. We have all underground utilities, and a buried transformer went "Kaput"---1st it took them a while to figger out which one, then dig it up and replace it.

The Samsung Fridge is a "Dual Evaporator Fridge", (I think) so it will not be able to "Bleed" cold air from the freezer to the fridge,
(I know it's actually the warm air migrates to the freezer).

More important than the "bleeding" would be 1st, How good are the door seals, we have seen posts where some fridges do have problems with door seals, so do as much research as you can and perform a "Personal inspection" on the door seals, on any refrigerator that you are considering.

2nd would be , how well is the fridge insulated---
I suspects most are pretty darn good---they hafta be to pass
energy star ratings--alto we know there have been some
"Bogus ratings" so be careful---one suspects the higher the
energy star ratings of a fridge, the better it is sealed and insulated (given that most use the same or very similar compressor/compressors.

The best thing, (assuming you have a helpful and co-operative appl1ance store nearby, would be to ask
"said store" to power down a fridge you are considering
(for a "typical power failure time") in your area and see if the temp stays as a safe level for your food.

Good luck on your upcoming decision!

Gary

Samsung & Power Outage

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