What is Power Cool on a Samsung Fridge?

Keeping food in the fridge is not guaranteed to stay fresh for as long as you wish. The slow cooling of traditional enough might not be enough to preserve fruit and vegetable in a fresh and crisp form for days.

A good way to fix this is by chilling the fruits as fast as possible. Samsung achieves this by using the Power Cool function. With power cool on, the fridge will blast your fruit and vegetable with cold air until the interior temperature reaches 1°C.

This fast chill means your food and vegetables will stay fresh for longer. It is also quite handy in cooling a couple of beverages you forgot to put in the fridge for a while but want to consume as soon as possible.

How to Activate Power Cool On Your Samsung Fridge

Samsung never puts the Power Cool functions more than two buttons away. The actual activation process varies depending on your fridge model:

Some fridges have a dedicated Power Cool button that activates the program once you press and hold it for 3 seconds.
Others turn it on when you press and hold the ‘Fridge’ button on the control panel for three seconds. This will activate Power Cool.

Once active, the fridge will cool quickly before automatically switching off the mode once it hits 1°C. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about turning off the power cool.

Check this too: How to fix a mini fridge that won’t get cold

However, if you wish to cancel the mode, you can press and hold the button you used to activate the mode for 3 seconds. (Power Cool or the Fridge button depending on your model.) This will cancel power cool and return your fridge to the previous temperature setting.

How Long Does Power Cool Stay On?

Power cool will stay on until the fridge hits the target temperature of one degree, or you cancel it yourself. The duration will vary depending on:

The Fridge’s Starting Temperature

Since Power Cool works with a 1-degree target, it will get there faster if your fridge was already cold, to begin with. Bringing a fridge sitting at 5 degrees down to one will be faster than a fridge that was sitting at a toasty 12 degrees.

The fridge’s internal temperature varies depending on:

The set temperature
If you just introduced a lot of warm stuff into the fridge, the relative temperature will go up regardless of how cold the unit was

How Much Stuff You Have in the Fridge

For the temperature in the fridge to drop to a stable level, everything in the fridge has to sit at that temperature.

This means the more items you have in the fridge, the more energy they will need to cool down. Moreover, an overloaded fridge with little airflow spaces will have trouble chilling because cold air can’t circulate properly.

The general rule is the more warm items in the fridge, the longer and harder it has to work to cool them.

ProTip: This doesn’t mean you should keep your fridge scantily stocked. There is a level below which the fridge won’t be efficient and will waste energy cooling air. Keep your fridge generously stocked but arrange everything such that there are air channels for the cold air to flow throughout the unit freely.

Ambient Temperature

A fridge cools by pumping all the warm air out of the inside chamber and into the open. This is why the radiator fins or the back of the fridge get warmer as the inside gets colder.

Its cooling efficiency depends on how fast the warmth at the fins can dissipate into the environment.

If the immediate air temperature on the radiator is warm and there is little airflow, they will remain hot and won’t lose heat from the inside fast enough. This will translate into slower cooling times.

This often happens if:

It is summer, and the ambient temperatures are very high
The fridge is stored in a cramped space, and there isn’t enough space behind it for proper airflow to evacuate the hot air

How Often You Open the Door

Cold air spills out of the fridge door. The more often you open it, the more cold air you lose. The fridge has to compensate by working harder for longer to make up for the gap.

Instead of opening your fridge often during the power cool (or any other operation), plan your activities such that you grab up as much as you need every time you open the door.

Besides reducing how often you open the door, you should also limit how long you keep the fridge door open. Overall, you want to leave the fridge closed and undisturbed for as long as possible.

Fridge Size

Bigger fridges mean more space to cool and keep cold. Even though bigger fridges compensate by having bigger compressors, radiators, and more coolant, they could still take slightly longer to power cool than smaller units.

Apart from this, they also consume more energy when running. Buying a fridge that is only slightly bigger than you need is wise. Buying a very big unit because you think you might need the space in three years is wasteful.

The Unit’s Age and Condition

An older fridge will take longer to cool. Most of this goes down to deterioration over time and a drop in component efficiency. It could also go down to advancements in tech.

Check this too: How to Reset a Samsung Fridge

For instance, as the fridge ages, the door gaskets could get weaker, meaning they will leak cold air. The refrigerant and coolant could also get less efficient, translating to longer cool times.

Why is Samsung Power Cool Not Working?

Samsung Power Cool will almost always work as long as your fridge is working and cooling. This is because it relies on your existing fridge hardware to work.

Most people think it is not working since it takes so long to reach the target temperature. But as we have seen above, no one power cool cycle will be similar to another because of a host of variables.

The most notable ones that will affect how fast the power cool cycle runs are: