frankmehta wants® 4 AirConditioners: General/Hitachi/Sanyo/Samsung??

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Mate , I would suggest you to stick with either Hitachi or Panasonic,they are two very good brands and built to last.i have 5 different brands at home and office and trust me what expirence i have had all these years i can confidently say that these two brands are amongst the best.though have no idea about the OG,but have heard they are quite good when it comes to cooling but not efficient.my 2 cents :)
 
go for hitachi if you wanna, but dont go their atom series. they dont work at all in delhi temps ! they suck. i have complained 1000s times but those split never do their job. then i got this samsung one which is really good lookin and has a cute LCD on it with temps ..
it has little different technology when it consumes the air.. for 27k 1.5ton official price last year..good piece..
 
These are two very good 1.5T split 5 star AC's which i suggested to someone else too

LG-LSA5NF5VFC1 - 27k

5 Star BEE Rating , 40 dB noise levels

Hitachi-RAU018GPD - 33k

5 Star BEE Rating , 34 dB noise levels

I have a 1.5T Samsung and Hitachi split in my house, and quite frankly , i find the Samsung one to be more silent.
 
MY GOD. This thread is really really really helpful guys. Keep the suggestions coming! Great!

Overall consensus from all the opinions:

Hitachi: Best

LG: Really good

General: Not efficient, bulletproof, but not getting good opinions off late

Samsung: SO SO

Voltas: Recommended

Anything else??????

Are Hitachi's VERY high maintenance? And are the spares expensive? How are they to service WRT say General/Samsung/LG?
 
I just now bought the Hitachi RAU014QPD follow me and its the best i have used at max load. I has various options like silient pro, manual modes to suit ur own needs. Besides its almost noiseless in '' quite mode".

I got it for 30k(1.2)ton. You can also go through the pdf files they provided to clarify ur doubts.
 
i have quite a few daikin's at home and two O generals.

the daikin's are good no doubt but a headache require maintenance

star rating energy efficiency. before you fall for that remember that the difference would be just a unit or two of electricity between most of the splits. if u want my advice go for the OG quite simply as neither one has broken down,required the very least of maintenance and has the best cooling
 
Recently (couple of weeks back) purchased 2 AC (Split) , Daikin 1.5 and Hitachi 1.2 for my house, have been using 2 Hitachis (windows) for past few years, no issues with the hitachis so far.
I would recommend Daikin 1.5 for the bigger bedrooms, cools really fast and noisless too.
 
Went to the market today. Some good news.

I have almost finalized on the Ace CutOut (or FollowMe, depending on what you'll say) range of Hitachis. The factor which sold the AC's to us is the absolute surfeit of features it comes with, compared to the Generals'.

Also, the power efficiency and the oft-spoken cooling capacity of the Hitachi has been noted and edged it closer to our hearts.

Dad was super happy when I told him that we would be spending about 15 k over the Grey market (all inclusive for 4 AC's), but in the process, we would be getting one year of warranty from Hitachi on the entire AC and 5 years of Compressor warranty. This was enough to convince Dad, since both our Generals blew their compressors in 4 years of use (we live in a house overlooking the sea)

Also, the people at Chroma are throwing in a sweet deal which might prompt us to buy extended warranty on the AC's for a nominal price.

Here's how the final pricing is working out:

Models in Question Price

1* Ace Follow Me 1.2T 30500

2* Ace Cut Out 1.5T 33500

1* Ace Cut Out 2.0T 40000

Add Rs. 1025 to each AC and you have 3 years Extended warranty

Are these good prices or should I still scout? I am no longer looking for Grey market pieces.
 
shravank30 said:
Which ever model you choose, go for only 5 star rated ACs

In Mumbai ACs have to run almost everyday throughout the year due to high humidity and form a major part of you electricity Bill.

A higher cost for a 5 star rated AC will pay for its self in the 1st year itself & also because it is 5 star rated
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This largely applies only for Indian made or assembled as the import taxes as much as 30% extra can kill any long term saving expected to be made. After the lifetime of the unit you will still be over what a cheaper unit would have cost you.

If you want a foreign brand expect to pay a premium for it. That is the way it goes if we want to protect our industry otherwise you would have had much more efficient models in the marketplace by now.

shravank30 said:
you can be assured that they have used the best components to achieve that efficiency
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Just better not best.

frankmehta said:
Dad will NEVER agree to Godrej. No offence though! Voltas had a good name. I have had an experience with a Voltas last month, and I found it inconsistent in performance. Cooled very quickly but didn't maintain the temperature for too long :)
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Was this Voltas manintained regularly ?

Depending on usage you need to refill the gas on a regular basis. You should enquire about this refilling when you decide on the model you want as your efficiency will depend on it.
frankmehta said:
My dad has an AC adviser who tells him the tonnage. So I think dad will never go against his school of though :no:
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Does this adviser oversize the AC's for the room ? Its important as an oversized AC will not pull enough mositure out as it shuts off too soon, given you live in a humid environment moisture removal is important. See here
frankmehta said:
Service and support?
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I would say this would be critical, it really affects the choice of the model if the support network is lacking. If its a fancy compressor then only the manufacturer can do it as they tend to be sealed and not really maintenable. Your avg repiarman might get it fixed but your efficienty might take a hit if not done properly.

I did not get whether you want only splits or window units as well. In some cases the window units can outbeat the splits for VFM, but you need to tabulate the specs.
 
Let me add some more points.
1. Irrespective of the brands the cooling efficiency boils down to the installation procedures. This makes the dabba brand more superior to premium brands if installed properly. You wont notice the performance of the A/C unless to check the pressure and areest the leakage and top up with fresh refrigerant. Our A/C came down to 7.5C in the grill after running 30 mins now its only 10C
2. One of the forum member mentioned about gas recharge. An ideal setup should not have any type of gas recharge through out their life time. If the sealing isnt proper (leak) it will absorb air and humidity from the environment and fouls the oil inside the compressor. So even a 5* unit will perform poorly and use higher bills compared to 2*
3. Peroidical check on the compressor mount ensures the life of the compressor. Replace the bush every 3 years to avoid compressor failure.

Soon I will be doing with a leak down test (vaccum and burst) in our machine with my friend.
 
vijaycool said:
Let me add some more points.
1. Irrespective of the brands the cooling efficiency boils down to the installation procedures. This makes the dabba brand more superior to premium brands if installed properly. You wont notice the performance of the A/C unless to check the pressure and areest the leakage and top up with fresh refrigerant. Our A/C came down to 7.5C in the grill after running 30 mins now its only 10C
2. One of the forum member mentioned about gas recharge. An ideal setup should not have any type of gas recharge through out their life time. If the sealing isnt proper (leak) it will absorb air and humidity from the environment and fouls the oil inside the compressor. So even a 5* unit will perform poorly and use higher bills compared to 2*
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I'd like you to go into more details re:gas recharging. There are many cowboys out there offering these services but the only way to know is if the unit does not cool like it did before. Unfortunately determining whether its not cooling is due to gas leaking or whether the unit itself is going bad isn't too obvious. The cheaper units could leak gas more often than the better ones because they use cheaper quality tubes.

Then again i've spoken to ppl with splits and they tell me they've never done a recharge ever as they've not shifted the external unit and the unit cools just as well. This could be down to the quality of installation as you said.

vijaycool said:
Soon I will be doing with a leak down test (vaccum and burst) in our machine with my friend.
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Can you elaborate on this in more detail :)
 
blr_p said:
Can you elaborate on this in more detail :)
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There are 2 factors that affects efficiency.
1. Leak
2. Foreign particles.

The delivery side (small tube) of the compressor is relatively high pressure around 300 psi. So even a minor leak will get down the performance of the machine.
The second point which i mentioned is not taken seriously by many installers.
They just connect the tubes and open the valve.. Bingo their job is done. However the issue will build up slowly. The longer the tube between the compressor and the indoor unit, the more headache you have. In a closed loop system apart from refrigerant no other gas must be present. But the technician already connected the tube filled with air. This will reduce the efficiency significantly. Moreover the humidity inside the air will condense near the capillary filter and act as a barrier to pass the refrigerant.
During the first installation installer needs to vaccum the tube before opening the valve or open the suction valve for few secs so that the refrigerant and air will go to the atmosphere. You may loose only 20-30 gm of gas which is negligible.
I got all these knowledge from my friend who works in Daikin for large refrigeration projects >100 tonnage.

Vaccum test : To detect the leak the tube is heavily vaccumed and held for 4 hrs. There should not be any change in the vaccum reading.
Burst test: If they can able to find the leak in vaccum test the tube is pressurized with dry nitrogen at high pressures excess of 300 psi. so the weaker component will fail.
 
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@frankmehta,
did you go in for the Hitachi's finally? How has it worked out for you??

Has anyone had any experience of Lloyd A/c's? They have a good deal at vijay sales...1.5T at 24K...just wondering how good the after sales service is for lloyds.

About the Hitachi's ...there is still a Q mark over the service aspect...anyone with bad experiences with Hitachi's ?
 
Sorry for not updating this thread for a while.

Hitachi is now OUT, since Dad feels it's not got a good customer service record.

Toshiba and White Westinghouse out for the same reasons.

Mitsubishi out due to cost.

I think it's going to stick at 4 Generals.

2*1.5 tonners

1*2 tonner

1*1 tonner

ANY IDEA ABOUT THE STAR RATINGS OF THE GENERAL ACs?
 
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