AN ADVISORY ABOUT FEW MYTHS AND FACTS ABOUT AIR CONDITIONERS

 Subject: ACs : An Advisory

To: 


A Fwd.....

Dear All,

Wanted to share my two penny knowledge I have in this segment. One of my responsibilities in my current job is maintenance of ACs for my company.  Almost 350+ ACs of various capacities and makes are under my maintenance team.

Few myths and facts here.

(a) Brand Value of AC Vs Quality Perception. Fact (1). Most of the ACs sold in India are manufactured by contracted manufacturers like Amber Enterprises. The same Amber factory manufactures ACs for almost every company. 55% of ACs sold in India are manufactured by Amber. Check out Amber website. This is how flipkart and Amazon also own a AC brand without having a factory.  Rest now you can conclude on brand value Vs quality of AC.
Fact(2), is check out BEE site. Many reputed brands like O general, Hitachi, Samsung, Panasonic, etc are wrongly labeling their product as 5star, but these ACs failed energy efficiency tests at BEE. BEE has put out caution notices and warning public not to fall for such dubious propaganda. Rest you can conclude on brand Vs Quality Perception. 

(b) Inverter Vs Non Inverter. Want to give a caution/warning to all of you here. Yes Inverter ACs save power, but the Inverter ACs come with problem. I.e they have a special power board which keeps failing and cost of power board is between 11k to 15k based on AC brand and tonnage. This is almost 25 to 30% of cost of the AC. And in my experience I have seen power boards of Inverter ACs failing in 2yrs to 3.5yrs of life. More than money saved in power consumption, we end up spending more money on power board replacement. AC companies print in large bold font that the warranty on AC is 5yr. But this warranty is on the AC compressor. Power boards being electronic component, are generally supported by warranty beween 6m to 1year. 

(c) Sell More than the Requirement to Customer.  This is a known tactic by almost every FMCG company.  Most of us require 1ton AC. But companies want to sell 1.5tr AC so they make more profit with each customer in his life time. As per theoritical calculations and as per practical experience, following are the thumb rule capacities of ACs in residential segment. 
    (i) upto 100sft room 0.8TR AC is sufficient.
    (ii) upto 150sft room 1TR is sufficient.
    (iii) upto 250sft room 1.5TR is sufficient. 
    (iv) upto 400sft room 2TR is sufficient.

But AC manufacturers don't want to sell lower capacity ACs. Almost every company say they either don't have 0.8tr and 1tr in stock or they make sure the price difference between 1tr and 1.5tr is almost peanuts which will propel a consumer to buy 1.5tr. Same is with price strategy of Inverter and non inverter  AC, which makes consumer to buy a inverter AC. This is an unfortunate situation where consumer will yeild and end up buying inverter AC due to the price strategy. A rightly sized AC as per the requirement will give more power savings than to buy a high end inverter AC which is too big in capacity for the given room.

(d) Star Ratings Change. This is another fact that star ratings by BEE keep changing. Last year's 5star rating is now 3star rating. So last year 5star AC on an old model/old stock cannot be compared with this year's 5star rated AC.

(e) Portable AC. Never buy portable AC without an expert consultation. Portable ACs are meant for few specific applications and cannot work with good efficiency. Only in an inevitable situation should we buy portable ACs.

(f) Window Vs Split. Decision would be based on frequent shifting of home and security of window area if the home is unattended for long times and in ground floors.

(k) Small Bedroom is Better. Make your AC more efficient and save power by making your bedrooms smaller. Use following techniques. 

  (i) Make separate room for cupboards, dressing area, etc. Don't have cupboards in bedrooms and keep cooling them unnecessarily. Better if this new partition/ room is between bedroom and attached bathroom. Push every item of your bedroom into this new space / room. Just have your bed in your bedroom. It will also stop humidity ingress from bathroom. This is a very good idea with lot of other advantages. But your bedroom may look cosy and small which is against the perception of luxury.

 (ii) Use False Ceiling. If you can reduce the room height from 10ft to 8ft, u will save 20% of electricity, which is way higher than a 5star AC.

I hope this gives us a good amount of info to make a right decision. 

A Retd Naval officer sent this



Vinay Kapoor