Which home/office AC (air conditioner) to buy ?

[esteem_lover]

I cant understand VOLTAS & BLUE STAR grouped with OG & Daikin. It seems you have got your choices entirely wrong. Have you bought any of those brands to comment on them ??? i have bought national, onida, OG & Samsung. From this, i can tell you that samsung is VFM. OG & Daikin are a class apart & then comes hitachi & carrier. all else follows.

[Samurai]

I have Samsung, Carrier and a local brand (all 1.5 ton splits) at home, and lots of Voltas splits at work. My best experience (about 3 years) has been with Voltas. Carrier is a suspect, it stops in the middle of the night for no reason and wakes me up. It won't respond to remote, I have to do a power recycle to start it up again.

[Rtech]

I think I mentioned elsewhere about how the carrier split ac almost burnt down my house. They never gave me good service from day one.

I also have LG now, which is far superior, cheaper and more reliable that my carrier.

[satish_appasani]

Can anybody help me with the url to Voltas website for home users? www.voltas.com has content only for corporate and industrial sectors.

[iraghava]

I've used Samsung products and the biggest problem we had with was our refrigerator which needed 5 compressor changes in 2 years & even then never worked. Especially during the 4-5 summer months when it was really needed. Never bought Samsung after that.

As for A/c's I have 5 LG window A/c's and all are great, never had a problem with any of them. But have to agree that Hitachi & Daiking are a class apart.

[passion4cars]

HITACHI .... and make sure you have it installed on near the CEILING and NOT on GROUND ......as INSTALLING on ground wont be evry efficient ...as in the minute you turn off the a/c you will feel WARM in about 10~12 minutes....but if you install on the UP side ( as in near the ceiling) it will more effitive and will cool faster.....and since its INSTALLED UP it will circulate cool air more efficiently.......

I HOPE U UNDERSTOOD what i am trying to say by SAYING install on UP....

Tnx n Rgds
P4C

[maxbhp]

Originally Posted by iraghava

I've used Samsung products and the biggest problem we had with was our refrigerator which needed 5 compressor changes in 2 years & even then never worked. Especially during the 4-5 summer months when it was really needed. Never bought Samsung after that.

As for A/c's I have 5 LG window A/c's and all are great, never had a problem with any of them. But have to agree that Hitachi & Daiking are a class apart.

Thats quite normal , At one of the offices (BAnk) they had installed couple of Samsung's .One of the AC unit needed a capacitor/compressor replacement within 2 years of Installation.

Hitachi infact is considered the current (Lower capacity-home/office use) leader.But for sheer cooling capacity I have heard General is superior.

[moralfibre]

I prefer General when it comes to AC's. They do not have a service network but I dont think they need any. I have had good experiences with their AC's.

[Sam Kapasi]

Originally Posted by Rtech

I think I mentioned elsewhere about how the carrier split ac almost burnt down my house. They never gave me good service from day one.

I also have LG now, which is far superior, cheaper and more reliable that my carrier.

Also, the carrier was a reciprocating compressor, while the newer LG is a rotary. Earlier it was preferred to by reciprocating as they were repairable. Today it doesnt matter that much.

I do have some knowledge of airconditioning and I can tell you this - The Korean brands are excellent value for money (LG, Samsung, both equally good). However when it comes to Air conditioning on a whole new level, nobody can touch the Japanese Brands.
Hitachi, Daikin and Fujitsu-ten (that make General) are fantastic and definitely worth the extra you pay for them.

[kalpeshc]

OG and Hitachi (very quiet) best for above average budget. If you want to splurge (for excellent quality) then you can still move up to Daikin if required.

[esteem_lover]

And white westinghouse & sanyo too. I remember Sanyo had rotary comp way back in 1996 or earlier.

[mobike008]

Satish, i would recommend you to go for LG 1.5 ton window AC ( ~18K). I bought this AC, 2 summers ago and it's running beautifully and chills my bedroom very fast and my room size is kind of larger than average size ( approximately 18ft X 15Ft)

With regards to electricity bills, here is my experience

Without AC ( all other equipments including heater usage) : ~ 800-900 bucks.

With AC ( About 4 hours in the night, since out the whole day, plus high usage on weekends): ~ 1600 bucks

Hope this helps !

[DriverR]

Was trying to find out more on the best way to measure an A/C's efficiency, when I came across this one liner in Wikipedia - "In an automobile the A/C system will use around 5 hp (4 kW) of the engine's power." I never realised how much power the A/C took. No wonder there is a decrease of performance!

Source - Air conditioner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Towards the middle of the article, the last sentence of the "Equipment capacity" section)

[extreme_torque]

Somehow i have never liked the LG's and Samsung's window AC's... they just dont chill in the delhi summers even if the room is of average size. I am not saying this of hearsay, some of my friend have them and made my decision to by someother brand easier.
I have one whirlpool AC at home and it a hell lot better than the LG or Samsung, almost as good as the Carrier.

[rchimni]

I just bought an Onida AC a couple of days back , bought it from India times.com so no say really with the brand, Just had it installed and I notice it has Matsu****a compressor ( the ones that come on National AC'S ) and is quite a chiller,though its early days at the moment hope the chilling continues !