Poor Quality Ceiling Fan, False Advertising
I just purchased an Asahi "Stainless steel ceiling fan", and was appalled by its quality considering it is a Japanese company... then I discovered it is a Philippines company that simply sounds Japanese and perhaps we can guess why.
1) It is NOT a stainless steel fan. The bottom side of the blades look "shiny", but the top side is... gray paint? Even fingerprints cannot be removed from this gray paint. (photos available on request)
2) The shiny "stainless steel" side is a layer of very thin varnish (why is varnish required on stainless steel?), on top of a thin layer of "shiny metal" (Nickel electroplating?), and underneath is ordinary rusting steel. (microscope image available on request)
3) The ceiling mount is simply a ridiculous large hook that needs to go *deep inside* the ceiling and hook onto "something". (photos available on request) The flimsy plastic cover is not even long enough to cover this hook assembly. I had to use the ceiling mount from my old fan instead.
4) The supplied wires that need to go inside the long (40cm?) downrod are only 8cm long and therefore useless. I needed to replace them with longer wire.
5) The wall-mounted speed regulator looks and feels like cheap plastic and has just three speeds (not 4 or 5 like other ceiling fans). Worse, speed setting 1 is so slow as to be useless, and speed setting 3 is incredibly fast to the point of being terrifying, way faster than any other ceiling fan I have ever used. This leaves only one reasonable speed setting for this fan (setting 2).
6) The bearings make a noise, especially noticeable at low speed, which suggests subpar quality.
The worst part is the false advertising of "stainless steel", which some people require due to corrosive environments such as a house close to salty sea air.
I tried contacting Asahi Appliances for comment, both through their on-site contact form and by emailing their "contact.us at..." email address but have so far received no response.
I will not be buying any more products from this Philippines company that apparently attempts to sound Japanese in order to take advantage of the Japanese reputation for quality.