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There will be more collapses, and many White goods sellers also for most in air-conditioning even some of the biggest names, Airconditioning is the least profitable or even loss making part of their many ventures.
For me air-conditioning a factory, theater, mall, religious building or commercial building is what I enjoy doing, I am an air-conditioning system designer and not atrader. Selling splits is just service to friends, where covering costs, and earning a good name is the priority.
My advice to all is depend on ESSD's (exclusive sales and service dealers) and not retailers, the cost will be more, but performance, and future service will be far better.
There are companies whose products are available only through ESSD's and not in retail, you see these AC's in use in corporate offices and a few premium households, you want find any complaints about them in most forums. Buy products made by these companies and you will have a trouble free experience.

Rahul

No retail would automatically mean less opportunity for any complaint on public forum. Again if professionally appropriate then can you suggest any such brands? Would Trane fit the bill? I'm asking because we have collectively wondered about the after sales and service support of this particular brand.

Hi, I won't be able to help you much as I don't have any first hand experience or specific knowledge about the parts replaced or the exact charges paid. As I was myself keen on Inverter ACs (Daikin being my preferred brand), whenever I could, I used to actively seek feedback from the end users (amongst friends, family, neighbors & even my hair salon owner), And the reliability part of it was simply not encouraging.

I did bring up some of the known issues with the Daikin techs while discussing the installation, they said that the older units were prone to electronic failures due to the 'Heat' & 'poor power supply' but claimed that the situation has 'improved' with the current generation.

Inverter ACs are the future and I don't have any doubt regarding their superior efficiency & performance but looking at the issues, it seems that these machines are still not perfectly acclimatized for our demanding conditions.

Like many others I dread drilling my walls. So making a 3" hole in the wall for a/c is giving me nightmares. Is there any vendor or installer in Bangalore who by default use core cutting technique or hole saw for drilling walls?

Had a look at Daikin; not sure if that was a profit margin related advice by the sales guy but he says that power consumption will be little higher for Daikin. Gave no logic though.

Thank you for sharing your experience. Filling gas every year does not look normal. Was the problem area traced down?

Your insider view and expert advice is much appreciated. I'm planning for a bluestar. Now, my installation arrangement is such that the indoor unit and the out door will be separated just by a wall. That essentially means very short distance between the two. Please let me know if we can do away with longer pipes and cut them short? If that's possible, I expect much better cooling as transmission loss will be cut down significantly.

Thanks Pratyush for your practical advise. Had a bad experience with LG, hence avoiding it. Will look into whirlpool though.

Regards.

In most of the cases with modern splits the volume of gas in 3m pipe supplied is factored in the gas charge. Just consult the installer if the pipes can be shortened.

Nope, it wasn't. They would say everything is fine now, and then they would come back next year and leave saying the same(the technicians I mean). It was our first AC. But I would still not generalise against them. Maybe ours was a lemon.

We finally exchanged it for a Hitachi.

From what I have seen they don't use any hole saw, they just use a regular drill bit and make a hole.
Then patch it up with some white cement. Which no doubt is a shabby job.

However for the kind of concrete construction we have in India I doubt even a hole saw will make any difference, once it breaks through the outer plastering the rubble inside is loose and would not give a clean circular hole anyways.

Am also not sure if hole saws for Concrete are available.

I need to place the external unit in one of the balconies and surely this will look odd with out good workmanship.
I was looking for a drilling job similar to the one mentioned in the following post.
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/gadget...ml#post3414738

A doubt. Is there a standard side(left/right) on the Indoor unit from where the pipe from the indoor unit are routed out to the outdoor unit? Or does it vary from manufacturer to manufacturer?

Not really. Whilst it is true that the hole may not be a perfect round through the wall, it does not need to be. Get them to put a piece of PVC drain pipe, cemented with white cement. It can easily be finished nicely at each side. Your interior paintwork at this point will be covered up by the IDU itself. They may plug the pvc pipe with a little cement too. This can easily be knocked out, years down the line, when your units need to go for repair.

Remember that all holes through walls should slope slightly down towards the outside to prevent rain water flowing in.

I think you have the option from where you want to route it. There is a breakable slot from where you can route the pipe.
Thanks again. Will check with the tech guys.


Regards.

This is a good question and the Daikin installers messed up the drilling in my BR. This was about 4-5 years back and after they drilled the holes for the IDU using the template, they realized that the large hole for the ODU connection cannot be placed where they intended due to another room starting in that area. This was inspite of me questioning the guy if he was aware and how many installations he had done etc. I escalated to the dealer and they gave me the Chennai head for installation's cell number. On calling him, the first thing he asked me was "who gave you this number!!!". Instead of listening to the customer it was more important to him how his number was spreading. Anyway, back to the point, the senior installer who was sent to correct the situation took out the copper tube (right to left) and stretched it out directly through the wall and connected it to the ODU from outside the wall itself. usually the joint is put in the IDU itself, but due to the mess they had to bend the tube and do it this way. I dont know if this is good or bad, but it worked without having to start the drilling process all over again.

They should pressurize the system with Nitrogen, and check for leaks, once found leaks should be repaired, system evacuated using a Vacuume pump, and then charged with gas. Almost no one in India uses the correct methods and most charge only by estimation, experienced technetians usually come to within 5% of the correct calculated quantity.


All Ac's that are supplied with copper pipes can have pipes cut to required length, in case of Aluminium pipes you have to ditch them and buy copper pipes and flair nuts from the market.

Rahul

I have seen "Hole Saw" for concrete abroad. They are basically just like Hole Saw used for wood, but the cylinder is hardened steel and the Saw part is carbide bits. They were available in all sizes starting from 1" all the way to 6".

https://www.grainger.com/product/MILWAUKEE-SDS-Plus-Core-Bit-45L406?s_pp=false&picUrl=//static.grainger.com/rp/s/is/image/Grainger/45L402_AS01?$smthumb$

http://www.bamanufacturing.com/gp_series.html

http://www.amazon.in/gp/search/ref=s...qid=1461677919