Kelvinator Single Door Refrigerator KCE204

I am here presenting my views on a product that is the most common household product a Refrigerator that is one of the urgent requirement for the urbanites but now it seems to be available in a number of of rural houses in India.what makes it more appealing household product than anyother important accessory in our houses is the global change in the climatic shifts that is grossly increasing the worst of the hot and humid content in the atmosphere and hence a miniature of a cold climatic island in the form of refrigerator is the most handy as well as cheapest option present with the people in order to keep them away from the side effects of the worst climatic conditions.

Now coming to the point what we see is that the market is cluttered today with the numerous brands and product range avilable just to please a great number of customers and to grab them to whatever extent required, thanks to this aggressive compitition that is ultimately prooving sound to the ultimate buyer and prospect,So in the range of the thousands of refrigerator the brand that has outshined a nuber of other brands in its own era was Kelvinator ,Though it is the best one for me today also but now there are number of other good brands also in the race ,but certain things attached to my preffered brand make me as a loyal customer for KELVINATOR.I donot remember the date it was purchased as it is 10 to 15 years back story and that brand has shown outstanding performances to me ,only once in this span it gat defect and in a matter of few days with the help of local technicians it is wokin rather well than anyother brand.

Though I can see a number of remarkable brands in the market today but still Kelvinator would remain one of my favourite option ,as it has really performed well and has pronounced its durability, its safety, its technical well being.All in all a nice product .

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''KELVINATOR - the coolest one'' Heard that one before?

I quite remember a little penguin say that, about a refrigerator. Thoughtful considering that penguins are found in Arctic, or inside Kelvinator refrigerators! That's what I call a ''A cool idea''

It was a few years back that we brought this igloo inside our premises in the tropical climate of Mumbai. Why? Oh! Come on, so that we need not go to our neighbors requesting for a bottle of cold water or ice after returning from a particular hot day or when we have some guests or request the neighbors to keep our vessel full of milk in their fridge on a very hot summer day so that it does not get spoiled. May sound weird but that's what happens in many households.

Well so with a shoestring budget we got a small refrigerator for a family of four - Kelvinator Master Cool 165L for around Rs. 8000/-. We would have loved to get ourselves a 2 door but our budget would not fit. They were (are) above Rs. 15,000, almost twice our budget.

So how's this little wonder?

«« SMALL AND CUTE »»

Yes like penguins are. Kidding!

Actually when we saw the 2 doors, this one seemed too small. A tiny rectangular cubic box with a backpack...I mean it has coils at the back that would just about add some depth to it. But being small, this one just fits properly in our lil house. Though available in Icy blue and Gray, we have light pink paint on our walls and so chose the Red one. It does not have a handle but a groove or handgrip at the top. The height is small, though it has long legs, and we would require quite some bending exercises every time we use the fridge. So we also brought a tall stand for Rs 500 more. This also gives it a tall appearance.

«« INTERIORS »»

It has white plastic body within. The main body is divided broadly in three sections - the freezer at the top, vegetable tray at the bottom and the central portion.

Freezer: A small compartment at the top for making ice or storing of meat/fish. It is small in height - slightly more than two 1-litre milk pouches kept one on top of another. This one is supported on rods and the cooling tube surrounds this chamber. Now one thing is that the actual volume of this freezer is always less as it always covered with a layer of frost and icicles. (It's not frost-free) Below there is a plastic tray. When the fridge is defrosted using a ''defrost'' button, the melted water collects in this tray. It can be pulled out and emptied in basin. Sometimes we use this as chiller tray and keep fishes in it....hmm yummy! (read in Jim Carrey style).

Vegetable tray: Unlike the freezer tray and most other fridges of its size, the vegetable tray is surprisingly big and can stock a weeks vegetables, and we require plentiful as we eat more...LOL

Central Compartment: This is what remains within, between freezer and veggie tray. This is divided into compartments by wire trays. They definitely are tough but well spill something and the fridge is all dirty calling for a great amount of cleaning work. If you want a larger space within to keep that large vessel, just remove the tray and keep it outside. No adjustments here!

«« DOORS »»

This one scores on this section. It houses all the resources required for quenching the thirst of 4 parched throats in our house. The lower section has large pet bottle space. The CocoCola 1 & 1.5 litre fits in fine but the ThumsUp short and stout bottle gets squashed a bit. Above this there is a butter/cheese rack, where we land up storing all the masala packs, and eye drops. Again above this we have a small bottle rack where we keep small Bisleri (mineral water - 500 ml) bottles, sauce, essence etc. Right at the top we have egg rack - it's fixed. Wonder what Maneka Gandhi (anti non-veg protagonist) may store in this section?

«« COOLING »»

It is a single vent design. Cool air enters from top and moves out from bottom, i.e. normal convection current. There is a dial knob for cooling adjustment. The cooling is really very good. The small bottles on top door rack chills much quickly, both because it is small and it is at the top, but bottles in lower rack cool quickly too. Out here in Mumbai with temperatures just around 30 deg, we do tend to set the knob at slightly more than medium setting. Maybe that explains the quick cooling. The ice forms in 3 to 3.5 hours in setting mentioned above.

There is a light switch operated by the door.

Anything else - hmm of course the compressor. Well yes it has been working fine for so long. Keeps getting on and off in its cooling cycle. The fridge does shiver every time this happens.

«« ANY PROBLEMS FACED »»

Why me, yes! Small ones - replacing the bulb within and once a major problem happened and very recently too. Our fridge refused to cool anything and the cabin would smell horrible like some gas - freon? (I hope I did not deplete the ozone layer).We did get some local party (Refrigerator and AC servicing agents). They confirmed gas leakage. They took our fridge out for two days and returned after replacing some cooling tube and refilling the gas. So another Rs 1500 coughed off....or should I say chilled off.

«« DESIRED FEATURES »»

Lots. It doesn't have two doors, separate cooling or multi vent airflow systems. The trays could have been non-spill type. There is no door cooling. Then again it is not frost-free type. Defrost is thus not automatic but based on manually pressing the defrost option. The freezer is so small. The tomatoes look fresh for only 5 days and looked wrinkled and dehydrated after that. The vegetables look lifeless after a week. It does not have a deodorizer and so any fish in the fridge and even the cake smells like fish...fishcake! Then again it has coils at the back. The bottoms and sides tend to rust if the paint has been scratched off. Technology has definitely changed and this one is but a very conventional option. But then look at the price tag - it is half of what one may land up paying for the features desired.

If a Rs. 49,000 worth PC becomes worth Rs 20,000 in a years time, wonder why the fridge costs have not come down so far?

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It is still working. We have seen ads for others where it says that Ek din Hritik ka hal bhi apane pita jaisa hoga, sar pe ek bhi bal nahi hoga per ..... chalata hi rahega.

We have purchase this in the year 1981 and since that time it is working perfectly. Only gas filling has been done, no major break down. The door is intact where as the new refrigerators the doors comes out of the hinges, which was the case with two close friends new refrigerators of other brands.

Where as my in-laws has purchased a new refrigerator which is not working like giving problems with auto-defrost, not getting defrost at all, the door came out.

But this is the case with our refrigerator, our refrigerator is working since last 20 years.

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Truly to its brand slogan.. definetly the coolest one.. We have been using Kelvinator Refrigerator 165 L for the past 25 yrs and it has serving us to the fullest . I hardly remember any maintenence being done on it. Normally electronics goods have a certain life time, so with tht in mind we thought of buying a new one. No other brands came into our mind other than KELVINATOR. Since at times we experienced shortage of space ( thanx to my mom's habit of cooking ).. we wanted a refrigerator with sufficient storage space. we had two things one was of the space I just mentioned and other was less freezer capacity. Finally we ended up buying 220L Super cool Royal ''bottle green color''.This was of the one we were looking for.

Its got enuf space with abt 4 trays and with additional 1's for keeping bootles. The door compartments are also utilised to the maximum. It costs around 13,000 which I think is very reasonable. In all I guess another excellent product from an excellent company

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