Buying a cooler in Delhi

We recently bought a desert cooler for the main hall in our flat. I thought buying a cooler must be easy, you step into a shop, look at a few coolers choose the best one the shop keeper recommends and walk out with a cooler. Make that walk out with a payment receipt, cooler will be delivered later.

As you can see, I had never bought a cooler before. I spent significant part of my last 11 years in Bombay and Pune where I didn't need an air/desert cooler. When I was in Delhi I didn't really have to take care of 'operational issues'.

Let me tell you what all you might need to see while buying a cooler in Delhi. I don't know if the same terminology is applicable everywhere else in India or abroad.

Fan
There are two types of fans available. Kit and Exhaust. The exhaust fans used for cooler was something that I had thought when I was a kid. I don't know whether I thought about it first or cooler manufacturers started using them first.

Exhaust fans are more powerful and are recommended if you are big room.

Fan Manufacturer
You can get 'local' fans or ISI fans or fans from top names like Bajaj, Cropmton & Greaves etc. Needless to say that price for a 'company' fan is more than the cost of whole local cooler.

Guarantee / Warrantee
An interesting aspect was that almost everyone gave one year warrantee on the product. That means it will run this summer and we don't guarantee about the next year.

Water Pump
When I looked inside a cooler last time, they used to have a huge vertical water pump in the center and we were instructed that water should not touch this water pump ;). This has been replaced with "made in china" cute little submersible water pumps.

Well anyway, we did buy a cooler and hopefully it will run this season without any problems.