I bought the chimney and hob from the Advanta International in June 2003 for Rs. 22000/-
This also included the installation charges. The Installation was not satisfactory, it was loose so the chimney makes extra noise, and once the chimney is pushed against the wall, the extra noise stops.
At that time this chimney was one of the low noise chimney at a reasonable price. Plus the looks are simple and elegant.
The only problem with the chimney is that the switch blows off on an average of 6 months and the chimney comes to dead stop. The basic problem is in the design of the switch. Its a totally mechanical switch as you find in any table fans but the switches used are of the push-pull type which are not suited for the inductive load (at least the amperage is not adequate). And these individual switch pieces (4 of them) are soldered on a low quality PCB that is also not a recommended design for medium or high inductive loads. The result is that either the soldering melts away because of the heat from the switch or the PCB itself blows off due to the heat generated to carry the current.
I have a small family just my wife and me and the average usage of the chimney is just 1-2 hours daily, mostly in the low or mid speed. Very rarely we use the chimney on the full speed, when doing deep-frying only.
My friend who bought the same combo package with me has faced the same problem. His chimney has blown some 3 times and so has mine.
Out of warranty they charge Rs.900 for the stupid switch. I had no problems if the switch blew once and got rectified after repair. But looking at the architecture of the switch it seems they have made it a perennial source of income through the exorbitantly price switch and force customers to go for an AMC.
I don’t think it makes any sense for taking an AMC for a chimney!! What next you would need AMC for fans then!!
I explained the above to Mr. Kapoor in Advanta and he claimed that there is no problem as such in their design or the switch. They claim it to be fully imported from Italy. As it seems if made in Italy it would solve my problems, when it doesn’t work the commodity is useless whether its from Italy or Japan.
Also they claim it to be BIS Norm compliant check their website.
https://bombayharbor.com/rajivm.html (if not click-able check the google’s cached one, https://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:JUw_V7QPmhoJ: http://www.bombayharbor.com/rajivm.html+Advanta+Chimney&hl=en)
So if you are planning to buy the Advanta chimney. Beware to pour money every year to repair it switch. As when I talked to them they haven’t changed the design of the switch nor they intend to do so. All they kept saying its just a problem with my piece. Then I told him what about my friend’s chimney, he said that’s another one. What a coincidence, let not this coincidence happen to you.
I plan to put this in front of consumer court and the BIS, so that they are not cheating other customers.
I would update this review once I have any resolution on this.
Didn’t get any response from Advanta International and they totally refused to agree even that the product quality is below standard. I opened the switch again and as expected there was another point on the PCB which was blown out, so just took a soldering iron and soldered it using a supporting jumper wire. Probably after few more solders the switch would be strong enough to bare the rated load.
So if you are a electronics hobbyist/geek like me then you may buy this chimney.