Hi, Just wondering if anyone purchased a Fanco Horizon DC Ceiling fan as recommended by Choice?
I purchased two in Feb 2020 and both were fine until Dec 2024, when one stopped working. I called my electrician who confirmed that the receiver had died and needed replacing. I contacted Fanco and asked where I could purchase a receiver, only to be told that as they had recently discontinued this model, no parts are available. My only option was to buy a new fan.
Firstly, I expect a ceiling fan to last a lot longer than 4 years 10 months (I have others in my house that all work fine -one is 30 years old and two are about 18 years old), and secondly I feel that parts should still be available as per the ACCC.
I argued my point and said I would be happy to pay $150 (the cost of a receiver if I could get one) but they wouldn’t agree. I did end up getting a discount, but not one that I was happy with, but I was feeling the heat and had to get a working fan. I also had to pay my electrician for the first visit plus then for a second one to install the new fan.
Has anyone else had this experience with this same fan (or even another Fanco model)?
Thanks
Traci
Welcome to the Community @traci15
Since you have already resolved your problem your chances of satisfaction might be reduced, but you are right that your consumer rights seems to have been ignored by Fanco.
A scan of the net suggests a ceiling fan should go for at least 10 years so anecdotally yours failed prematurely. Assuming you have a purchase receipt of some form read the Australian Consumer Law regarding quality and so on. Then write a formal Letter of Complaint to the retailer who sold you the fan citing your consumer rights, expectations for a product considering its price and market position, what went wrong and what you want (reimbursement?) and a response by when.
Send it as a complaint not as a customer service issue. cc: Fanco.
Please let us know if you have any success.
Thanks. I had already written a formal complaint which was ignored. I have now lodged a complaint with NSW Fair Trading who will step in and speak to Fanco and try and get me my refund. I am not holding my breath, but if they get a dressing down from Fair Trading, I will be happy with that as I actually bought 2 of these fans at the same time, so if the second one also falls, it might mean I get treated a little better than I did this time.
Fair Trading say it could be about 9 weeks so I will just have to wait patiently. I will come back here and post any updates as they arise.
When you talk about your fan’s receiver dying, I assume you are talking about the remote control receiver. If this is correct, you don’t have to replace with OEM (original equipment manufacturer) parts, just as you may choose to buy non-OEM parts for your vehicle.
We have remote control ceiling fans and the receivers die from time to time. After buying OEM parts when I didn’t know better, and the fans were relatively new, I now replace them with generic receivers I buy online which are in some cases better than the originals. They are also significantly cheaper too!
Hope that helps.
Update. I had Fair Trading take this up for me with Fanco. They have agreed that I should only have to pay what a new receiver would have cost if they had made them available (which they should have). They have processed a $159 refund which I have received. They did however say that my extended additional 6 year warranty on the motor was now reduced back to the standard 2 years, but I would expect that the reason they had offered the extension was because they are confident that the motors last at least that long or longer.
It is great you got a good outcome. Thank you for posting about your result.
In general a ceiling fan is expected to have a lifetime of around 10 to 15 years, properly maintained of course (cleaned blades and such). Some more higher quality units have expected lifetimes of around 20 years.
So regardless of what a warranty may offer in regards of 1, 2, 3, or even 6 years of cover, ACL (Australian Consumer Law) rights would be expected to cover the product for a much longer time. So while a warranty may offer some extra benefits (some of which are really already built into ACL rights), they are not the end of a consumer’s protection from product faults.
There are many examples of where warranty claims failed or the businesses said that warranty had expired, but ACL rights claims have survived. I recently had such an experience, where we were told that some elements of the repair process were not covered by warranty due to some period having been exceeded for warranty coverage. Yet our rights due to ACL meant we got a result that was free to us as expected by our rights.
Just because the ACL offers the protection, it doesn’t mean coverage will automatically mean that a consumer gets the outcome. Often the process to get the repair, refund, or replacement requires action such as formal complaints in writing, complaints to Fair Trading, and action in Tribunals and Courts.
