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Originally Posted by rkg Godrej has priced them insanely. Just like CFL and Led bulbs are priced. As advantage in terms of power savings and saving earth( noble cause) is fully negated by pricing. For example in Bangalore, the usage will be limited to two months @ 6-7 hours per day., it does not make sense to pay double and triple the price for R290 models over R22 models |
LEDs were priced so. Now 9W LED bulbs are available for 70 INR with a 3-year replacement warranty. These are available at electricity bill pay centres (Government's UJALA scheme). Also, 20W LED 4 feet tubes are available for 230 INR with a similar warranty. All of them are made by OEMs, I have ones made by Philips, HPL, Surya and I read that there are a lot many more companies. We have replaced all our CFLs with LEDs (Had replaced incandescent much earlier) and these ones are as good as the ones that we had paid 400-700 INR earlier. One LED bulb out of ten stopped working in a few months and they replaced it immediately. The LED tube is brilliant despite being just 20W. Even though the lumens are lower than 40W fluorescent ones, may be the directional nature of LEDs lit spaces better. Have planned to buy a few more of these. BEE 5 star rated fans have also started selling under this scheme. Apparently, the procurement cost has also reduced, win-win for consumer, environment and also the government.
Quoted from ET: "Currently, over 22 crore LED bulbs, 16 lakh LED tube lights and 6 lakh energy efficient fans have already been distributed across 25 states and 7 Union Territories.
This has led to daily energy savings of more than 8 crore KWh, resulting in avoidance of over 5,956 MW of peak demand. "
Let's hope the cost of R290 falls down over the years. Much needed considering the amount of ACs that are being used today. Until then, R32 is the best bet. Also, I recently witnessed at a car AC service centre that the gas can be stored in a container and reused after the repair. This should be the practice for home and commercial ACs too.
About stabilisers, here in Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, the voltage in summer is so bad that stabilisers with input of 90V are the norm. We manage with 130V input models as we have a 3-phase supply. For single phase meters, we have to use 90V ones. And this is not a scam, I have regularly monitored the input voltages in our house and other people's houses, and talks of fans running at their slowest speed during peak summer is pretty common. All this, despite Odisha being a power surplus state.
Here are a few long term reviews of our ACs:
I have the beloved Sharp AC, and it has been working fine for around 3 years now. Touch-touch-touch-wood. The best AC we have had so far is actually a Godrej 3 star fixed speed one, around 5-6 years old now, chills like a bomb. Believe it or not, we have used both these 1.5 tons Godrej and Sharp in a 280 sqft room, low ceiling but top floor (white paint on the roof). They have worked because I never use a temperature lower than 28 degrees. And yes, the Godrej used to cut off too. Sharp inverter definitely has lowered our electric bills substantially. Maintenance wise, the outdoor unit capacitor was replaced once (less than 100 INR) and once rats had eaten wires because the holes for pipes was left open. Godrej service was prompt and they had fixed it up in a day, the swing motor costed around 450 INR.
We have 2 1.5 tons window ACs too, one 2-year-old Voltas 5 star and an 11-year-old Electrolux. The Electrolux is a fantastic chiller. It developed a leak and vibrated a lot after the 9th year mark. We have a genuinely great AC guy, he repaired it completely for around 2k INR. No other major maintenance cost so far. We are still using it in the guest room where it is only used occasionally. The remote has stopped working completely, even the on-board buttons aren't working, so it operates at 25 degrees all the time. The newer Voltas is not bad but the air throw is slightly towards the right even at the extreme left swing position and as the place of the AC is at the right end of a wall, some part of the cold air falls on the right wall. The Electrolux had a better throw and used to cool the room much quicker. We have angled the Voltas now and it is slightly better. It does consume 350 watts lesser than the Electrolux. A window AC with the fan output on the left side would have been ideal for us but there were none available. The Voltas remote display is poor, half of it is not showing up but the signals are very quick and respond in opposite directions too. The on-board buttons are poor too.
There is a 10-year old LG split and this like the Electrolux has been moved to a room where the AC is used less. A Hitachi 5 star fixed speed has replaced it, and this cools much better (lower bills too) than the LG. The LG used to stop working during our extreme 45 degrees afternoon heat. None of the other ACs in the house do. It is now fixed in a smaller no direct sunlight room and the outdoor unit is under a proper shade.
I clean the indoor fins using a wet toothbrush and filters with water. Also, splash water on the outdoor condensers. I have noticed it does improve performance.
Only the dreaded Sharp has Aluminium condenser, rest all are copper. A friend's Samsung Al condenser was now replaced with a copper one by our AC guy for just 5500 INR.
Also, we paint our roof white every year with white cement paint. It helps a lot. Temperatures reduce by around 5-10 degrees. Without the paint, the top floor (where we reside almost always) is a furnace. With the paint, it feels like the floors below. We have found that cement paint is the ideal combo of price and longevity. Lime, which is more popularly used here on roofs, erodes off during the rains. The cement paint also erodes but much lesser. We will try elastomeric paint on a small roof some day as it is quite expensive now (10 INR/sqft - Asian Paints Roof Guard or something). If anybody has used it, please let me know if it lasts 3-5 years as they claim. Till then 0.75 INR per sqft cement once a year is VFM.
P.S - I have no political affiliation. I am a treehugger and environment blogger.