[carboy]

Originally Posted by catchjyoti

Need to buy two home lockers for my new home. In one locker I plan to keep extremely important documents (passports, aadhaar, investment docs, educational certificates) and in the other family jewellery.

It's not required to keep your Aadhar safely. You can print it out whenever you want. As a matter of fact, Aadhar is not even a document. It's just a number.

[V.Narayan]

We are looking to replace our existing Siemens refrigerator. Which brand would members suggest between LG and Samsung. I plan to purchase from Vijay Sales, Gurgaon provided they take away the old one. In the old one either the compressor has given way or the starter the switches on the compressor. We would be looking for a large refrigerator say 500 litres plus.

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

We are looking to replace our existing Siemens refrigerator. Which brand would members suggest between LG and Samsung. I plan to purchase from Vijay Sales, Gurgaon provided they take away the old one. In the old one either the compressor has given way or the starter the switches on the compressor. We would be looking for a large refrigerator say 500 litres plus.

You can go with either of the brands with whichever model suits your needs. Personally, I will recommend LG since I have their AC, Microwave, Refrigerator and am happy with them over the past 15 years.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Which brand would members suggest between LG and Samsung.

Both have the best after sales service in the market. Old LG appliances were absolutely great but recently with their newer products, I have seen problems - it may be my bad luck for all I know. So I have been going with Samsung recently. But LG would still be #2 choice for me after Samsung.

[Aviator_guy]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

We are looking to replace our existing Siemens refrigerator. Which brand would members suggest between LG and Samsung. I plan to purchase from Vijay Sales, Gurgaon provided they take away the old one. In the old one either the compressor has given way or the starter the switches on the compressor. We would be looking for a large refrigerator say 500 litres plus.

I found LG to be better for refrigerator, AC and washing machines vs Samsung based on personal experience and also feedback from friends. Service is very prompt, products havd been niggle free (touchwood).

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by sagarpadaki

You can go with either of the brands with whichever model suits your needs.

Originally Posted by carboy

Both have the best after sales service in the market. But LG would still be #2 choice for me after Samsung.

Originally Posted by Aviator_guy

I found LG to be better for refrigerator, AC and washing machines vs Samsung based on personal experience and also feedback from friends.

Thank you Gentlemen for the trouble you took to reply. We decided we were ok with both brands and picked an LG fridge whose dimensions best fitted the cavity in our kitchen meant for the fridge. Delivery on Monday due to Eid over rush but that we are fine with. As the old one has conked out wifey told be that I'd better learn how to order on Swiggy!!!. Talk of stress man. Our cook is a Muslim lady so understandably she too is on leave. My wife is a kitchen illiterate and I'm one of those on-line illiterates - happily we have lived for 4 decades

On a more serious note all our current range of appliances are from Siemens - don't ask why; long story. While the operations so far for 10 years have been flawless the initial installation & commissioning was so bad, so bad that I sweared on all my pet fish and the neighbour's dog I'll never touch one of these German brands again.

[kavensri]

Can someone recommend a decent (not so expensive) air blower to clean my AC?

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by kavensri

Can someone recommend a decent (not so expensive) air blower to clean my AC?

A blower may not help much. A good brush is better for IDU and water spray for ODU. For filter a wash under the tap does the job.

Any way there are lot of blowers available on AMAZON. Just study the specs and the user reviews.

A wired blower is the best, but you can get battery operated one (I have both and the battery operated one is excellent for car while the wired one is fine indoors).

[kavensri]

Originally Posted by Aroy

Any way there are lot of blowers available on AMAZON. Just study the specs and the user reviews.

Any recommendation on the power rating (wattage)? I see some for around Rs600 with power rating of 600w. Will that be good enough?

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by kavensri

Any recommendation on the power rating (wattage)? I see some for around Rs600 with power rating of 600w. Will that be good enough?

https://www.amazon.in/Jakmister-3in1...%2C210&sr=8-15

There are a lot of cordless blowers at around 2K, but they are without battery or charger. They are meant for use with your current cordless tool battery. If you have a cordless tool ten you can get these, otherwise a corded one is the least expensive choice.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by Shreyans_Jain

My understanding is that heat pump type dryers take a lot of time for a cycle - in tune of 3 hours. Your Bosch dryer is condenser type. How good is it? How long does it take to dry a full mixed load?

Not sure if this is relevant any longer but my mum has a Samsung heat pump tumble dryer (I have a Bosch heat pump tumble dryer in the UK ).
(NOTE: John Lewis has a nice tool that lets you calculate and compute the lifetime energy costs and savings for your appliance, useful for getting an idea)

Dryer cycles range in time from short 40 minute cycles to typically between 2-4 hours (on average assume it'll be 3 hours). In both cases there's rarely been times that we've needed to run a second cycle but there have been a few occasions where one does need to empty the condensation tank of water (you can plumb yours in should you choose).

Yes the time taken is much longer but primarily the energy savings are night and day. Heat pump tumble dryers barely use half the electricity of typical condenser ones. Furthermore, they don't need to get as warm so they're much gentler on clothes. Both the Bosch and the Samsung in my experience have really good moisture sensors so often on the respective ECO settings, despite showing a full time of say 4-5hrs, it'll shut off automatically earlier if it feels clothes are dry (one need to remember that humans can't actually sense dampness, we can only sense temperature and texture).

Also, they're WAY quieter than run of the mill condenser dryers. Mum had an old Bosch that would sound like a helicopter in comparison to the new one. Admittedly heat pump dryers are a fair bit more expensive but if you use them frequently, you'll make your money back easily within a few short years, and definitely over the life span of the appliance in a typical household.

[Sebring]

What a coincidence. Was wondering what this heat pump is (on overseas trip)

Originally Posted by ads11

Not sure if this is relevant any longer but my mum has a Samsung heat pump tumble dryer

[ads11]

Originally Posted by Sebring

What a coincidence. Was wondering what this heat pump is (on overseas trip)

Ah yeah that's one indeed. Best way to think about it is that a heat pump is a refrigerator in reverse. It uses a coolant, not to draw heat out but to maintain the level of heat in the drum. This obviates the need to suck in as much fresh air and then heat that air to a much higher temperature in order to dry the clothes, basically like a hair dryer. As a consequence you get significantly higher energy efficiency.

Ever since I had my eyes opened to the benefits of heat pump dryers, it's hard to really justify the old condenser type unless you have an extremely sporadic use case.

One other implicit drawback of typical condenser dryers is unless you have proper ducting to vent the exhaust air to the outside, you're going to have all this moist warm air ducted into whatever room you're in and that could really lead to damp issues with paint etc.

My experience in India has been that most sales staff don't have a clue about the differences between dryers, and in general with a lot of home appliances (and again I understand that given the background of most employees, you can't expect them to inherently know a lot of these things but you'd hope the company would teach them). Often I've found myself having to correct the say Samsung staff when they come for the 'installation demo' and give wildly incorrect info. The one that especially gets my goat is the people from the dishwasher company saying the machines aren't designed to clean off Indian food. Which is patently untrue because I've shown them how it can. In fact I bought my mum the companion Samsung smart washing machine to go with the tumble dryer and the cheek of the Samsung fellows to ask me to show them how to run the various functions on it. I told them I'm going to invoice the company for my demo services not the other way around.

All that being said, I've found that if you have a query, ask team BHP or Reddit and you'll have plenty of knowledgeable responses come through.

Oh and in case it didn't come through from my last two posts, if you need a tumble dryer, stump up for a heat pump one. You'll easily make your money back over the lifetime of the appliance plus you'll be saving energy!

[carboy]

Originally Posted by ads11

My experience in India has been that most sales staff don't have a clue about the differences between dryers

Well, I have used tumble dryers for 15 years both in India & abroad & I have no clue about which of these dryers I have used have been heat pump or which of these were condenser dryers. They all looked the same. Abroad, I have always lived at rental apartments with dryers inside the apartment & they always have what they call laundry room hookups - so the water connections for the washers aren't visible & neither are the exhaust for the dryers. I have an IFB dryer currently & again I have no clue what type it is.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by carboy

Well, I have used tumble dryers for 15 years both in India & abroad & I have no clue about which of these dryers I have used have been heat pump or which of these were condenser dryers. They all looked the same. Abroad, I have always lived at rental apartments with dryers inside the apartment & they always have what they call laundry room hookups - so the water connections for the washers aren't visible & neither are the exhaust for the dryers. I have an IFB dryer currently & again I have no clue what type it is.

And that's perfectly normal, I don't blame you. Until I had to buy appliances for an unfurnished house, I didn't really have a clue about this sort of thing (a recent misconception that got cleared is what exactly constitutes an induction hob - in India I feel any cooking surface that's flat and isn't gas fired, is considered an induction 'burner', and that's the misconception I persisted with myself as well when in reality it's in the name, magnetic induction only). I was more having a gripe about the sales staff in India not having a clue either, which doesn't help in perpetuating a lot of these misconceptions. In any case I don't think it's hammered home enough, in India and the rest of the world, the implications of just stumping up for the slightly more expensive appliance and the benefits in the long run from lower operating costs, basically the savings in lifetime costs. And it needn't be a purely environmental aspect either (though the benefits here are clear), just looking at it purely in cost terms it makes sense.

Anyway, that's enough of a PSA from me about tumble dryers.