Our apartment is gas heated by two gas heaters, one in the living room and one in the bedroom, which were pre-installed when we bought the place. After 7 years living here, we found out that the heater downstairs had the flame not working properly, which is why it has always been not enough to heat the large living room (9 meters by 3) - our neighbor had the same model, and his flame was three times as much! Blimey!
Thinking we were smart, we decided to address this during summer. A licensed gasman (gasista matriculado) asked for $70,000 (about 60 USD) just to have a look at it. So we decided to take the offer of the handyman who was installing our new window to have a look at it. He had to take the heater with him, disassemble it, and find out what was wrong. Six months later, he still had the heater with him and no solution was found. His diagnosis was that there were no spare available (hard to believe). We asked to return it and it was still working the same. Honestly, I think he did nothing but sat on it, because it working the exact same way as before.
Fall came and we are (were - ? keeping our fingers crossed) still in need of a new heater - having abandoned the idea of switching to electrical heating after the electricity increases of the last months, despite the gain in aesthetic -- gas heaters are a sore eye.
We found out that the same old and ugly heaters are still sold since they installed ours over a decade ago. Same design, same models, same 3 brands.. after more than 10 years! It is still unbelievable to me to see such static markets/products coming from a country where we have a new line of products with a slightly different design or mayor technical improvements every year or more often.
Anyway, after a thorough research, this is what I found out:
Gas heater (estufa/calefactor) are divided according to the following characteristics:
- tiro balanceado (there is an exhaust pipe) - mandatory for bedroom and bathrooms, safer
- sin salida (no exhaust pipe)
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- gas envasado (gas tank)
- gas natural (gas is supplied through the network)
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- con visor (there is a glass to check the flame)
- sin visor (no such glass)
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- con chispa manual (the spark is created by pushing a mechanic button)
- con encendedor chispero a pilas (the spark is created by a battery) - one more thing that could break, but apparently easier or faster to light the heater since more expensive models have it
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Finally, the size (as in heating capacity) is the ultimate and most important criteria.
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Since we are in Argentina, you don't have the luxury to pick from a variety of models and brands. Especially if you have size limits (the wall space available was just 67 cm), you already have an exhaust pipe hole in your wall, and you want to be able to check the flame visually. Needless to say, that's the most expensive choice on the market.
The same model that we had, a (5000 kcal/h tiro balanceado by LongVie con visor) is now north of 500k pesos (about 416 USD). Ironically, my 'smart' idea to buy it directly from the manufacturer lead to a quote of over 880k pesos (link) - discounted from over 1m pesos... WTF?!...and anyway out of stock!!! IT IS A JOKE (it is not, I wish it was *my* joke, but it is Longvie's).
The cheapest price we found yesterday was $524,999.00 at Rodo. Now, being today a semi-holiday, it worked nice for us as Rodo is one of the few places that accepts USD bills at slight less than the blue rate.
The main line didn't want to reveal the exchange rate for today, they suggested to call the only store in the city that had that model in stock. We called, and we were told $1200 over the phone. We headed there, and once we were about to finalize the purchase, they changed their quote to $1150, which is below the official rate, even!
We left, and while still in the car, fiddling with my phone, I re-checked Mercadolibre and one big seller had it on offer for $504,000 today! It was a brand new listing as we had saved among the favorite the cheapest ads, already. Since the seller is a famous name, I wanted to double check on their website to see if there was a even better price... and there was! $439,999. However, they only have one store in the Province of Buenos Aires, in San Justo, and my husband refused to go. Therefore, we found a cueva taking our worn out USD at 1190 (after bargaining), deposites the money at the bank, transfered the money to MercadoPago), ordered it with home delivery (extra 19.800 ARS) and it should arrive one week from now.
I still think that it is ugly as fuck even if it is 90k cheaper than at Rodo. And I can't stop thinking about smart homes of my peers in Italy, where you can regulate the temperature with an app and come home to a warm house, or keep the heating on during the night without being afraid to die due to carbon monoxide poisoning in this time and age.
The 'deal' when going straight to the source.
