A DAY IN THE LIFE

Well is should help your drought situation.  Here on the north  coast not much relief.

Bob K

What a let down!
MAYBE a quarter inch & not enough
wind to make the ripe mangos drop!
It's 2:10 here.
I think Bertha works for Edenorte!
Lots of promises & nothing happens!

hahahaha  that cracked me up!!!!

And like typical here she says "i'll be there today and then does not show up, does not even call. 

Bob K

Ahhh Bob that was good.........!!!!

Ok typical BS day for the electric here on the north coast over the last several weeks.
Power on/off/on/off/on/off 6 times in the last hour and now off for maybe a while as there I think is a scheduled outage for 6 hours today for "repairs".

Down deep I do not think there is a repair for the system and they are starting to run out a extra large band aids.

I actually like running on generator as we then have a full 110 rather than the normal 106-108 voltage. Lights are brighter, fans run faster, TV is brighter.

Bob K

Waow! That electricity problem surely sounds like a pain in the butt man.  Man id rather either just have the power on, or off! That back and fourth sounds like a damn tease.

I agree either keep it on or turn it off till you figure it out.  The off/on cycle also wrecks havoc on the electronics. We keep ours on surge protectors to minimize the power spikes with the off on crap

Bob K

One of the first lessons here -  surge protectors for everything!!!!!  I have them for everything I plug in!!!!!

Our electricity has been a bit more stable, off for  6 hours two days ago but no on and off crap for the last week.

On a totally different subject -  construction at my house again!!!! OMG you guys will love this.

So my house that I rent has no cisterna.  A cisterna is a big tank in the ground for holding water. City water comes in fills the cisterna.  Then you have a pump that pulls the water from the cisterna up to the roof to fill a tinaco.  When you have electricity the pump will cycle on when you use water and you always have pressure. When there is no electricity or when on the inversor, then the tinaco provides water via gravity.  Ok, that is how it works.

I had no cisterna and with only getting city water once every  8 or 9 days this was a problem. I had to turn the pump on for 10 or 12 hours (when we had electricity) to fill the tinaco.

So the lawyer for owner finally got off his butt to get the job done.  Last week they got quotes and blah blah blah. 

Saturday  night he called to say they will start this week, Tuesday at 9 am they show up with a generator,  guys and jackhammers!!! My cisterna will be 2.5 meters by 2 meters and 2.5 meters deep.  Apparently it will hold 4,000 gallons of water.  Ok that is one big cisterna.

The jackhammering has been going on from 8 am to about 5:30 pm since tuesday morning.  Today they are apparently going to finish the hole.  We have had  5 giant dump truck loads of stuff hauled away.  I live on rock and so it is especially hard and heavy. 

these guys work their butts off. Holy cow!!! They work hard and they work steady with a break at lunch of 1 hour. They don't bother me or make any more mess then is necessary, including not sitting on my outdoor plastic chairs so they would not get them dirty!

So the first day I have to go do a couple of errands.  I come back and there is a pile of rock and dirt.  So, ummmmm like how do I get in my house I ask????  Stupid me, you climb. Right.  I broke my foot in June and I have serious arthritis like symptoms in both feet, ankles and knees. But, I climbed............   

The story will continue.....

Oh the price we pay for modern conviences (sp) like water, electric, reliable cable and on and on and on

BTW electric is still out now going on 7 hours.

Bob K

Wow that is a whopper.

As far as surge protectors go, what is an acceptable Jules amount to protect your electronics and other sensitive equipment in DR? Or what is the Max Jules surge protection are you guys using? Thanks.

I will Bob answer that....

Another tip - dont leave things on or plugged in when not needed. I turn off power bars that are not needed when i leave a room. I unplug my microwave and kitchen appliances when not in use.

Massagewiz not sure of the answer to your question as I never really paid much attention. I always just bought the ones with the greatest protection.

Bob K

After 9+ hours of no electricity yesterday so ede Norte could do the repairs on the system the power came back on at about 6PM or so.  ONLY to go out again for 3 hours at 2am. So no fans, no AC, no breeze, NO SLEEP!

Truly a company for other to look up to as a business model

Bob K

So sorry honey, I know what that is like. Bloody hell.

gee.. I see this electricity problem  is pretty dominant in your everyday life in DR. Great tip about the surge protectors ! I bought a notebook this week and as I read your daily posts with great info such as "carta de conductor", residencia  etc..  and surge protectors.. I write it down in my notebook !

gee.. I see this electricity problem  is pretty dominant in your everyday life in DR. Great tip about the surge protectors ! I bought a notebook this week and as I read your daily posts with great info such as "carta de conductor", residencia  etc..  and surge protectors.. I write it down in my notebook !

It is the biggest issue we deal with here in both everyday life and in business!!!!

By the way - love the notebook  idea!!  Good for you, I do the same in my day to day business consulting work!

I bet !

Thanks !

Actually, friends & neighbours, the electricity "problems"
are a small price to pay in return for living
here in this beautiful country!
A small discomfort we all get used to,
but seem to love complaining about it!
Have a great day & somebody please make it rain!

So true!!!!  It is a trade off for sure. AND for the most part there are reasonable solutions. I have an inverter and 2 batteries - cost  17,000 RD or about $425 US.  Now I can withstand about a 10 hour outage and still have fan,  tv and internet. 

There are solutions to almost all problems.  You must be adaptable and often just a little bit patient.....LOL

Sure hope you get the juice back up and running, my boots on the ground are telling me it is really hot there at the moment, but there might be some relief on the way according to the weather report I saw last night  I will look further into the surge protector thing.  I always use one on my travels, but was wondering if you recommended a specific Min & Max Joules protection range. Thanks and stay cool.

We are into our "hot" season here  and this is normal weather!

In the Barrio Palmerito in Barahona, water and electricity are constant, but inconsistent.. The water usually is turned on around 7:00 AM and goes off at around 10:00. Times are approximate. Sometimes there is enough pressure to fill the tinaco on the roof, other times there is not, and a pump must be used. The sun warms the water in the tinaco, which is black. We have a 35 gallon blue plastic "tanque" filled with a garden hose that also comes in handy. The fact that the tinaco is black means that you can get a warmish bath as long as the water lasts.

The electricity is more problematic. It is usually on by 8:00 AM and goes off around 11:00. Some days, it comes on at 4:00 and stays on until midnight, other days it comes on at midnight and stays on until around dawn.People constantly complain about the cutoffs. However, no one on Avenida Bonifacio Feliz pays for water or electricity. Rarely do people mention that electricity and water are free.

There is good reception on Canal 57, that runs American and Chinese action films all day and all night with no commercials other than ads for movies that would be coming soon to a theatre near us except that there has been no movie theatre in Barahona for decades. Barahona has two real celebrities, other than ballplayers and musicians: Cassandra Damiron was a dancer in the 1950's, and Maria Montez was a Hollywood actress, a sort of Dominican Carmen Miranda, in the 1940's. Montez father was a Spanish Consul. There were posters celebrating a Maria Montez festival at the University auditorium The poster called her "La Reina del Technicolor". The posters were in color, but the photo of Montez was B &W. I like to think someone has a sense of humor. 

The tigueres of the nearby Barrio Camboya stage "huelgas" from time to time to protest the lack of electricity. Huelga normally means 'strike', but a strike is usually an agreement of workers not to go to work. Not so in the DR, where it means that some young guys pile rocks and occasionally burn tires in the street to prevent traffic on main roads to prevent traffic by larger vehicles. Motos  and pasolas (motorcycles and scooters) can almost always get through. On special occasions, there are skirmishes between the Policia in riot gear, and young hoodlums throwing rocks. The PN shoot off sound grenades and nasty little blue teargas bombs. The tigueres throw rocks, bottles and try to return the teargas grenades, which, by the way, and American made. Normally tire fires do not happen. A typical skirmish will come along around once a year or less. The huelgas seem to be sporadic, perhaps about once every two months,

Huelgas never seem to have any effect on lights or water. Everyone agrees that  making all the buses, trucks and guaguas detour around Avenida Cassandra Damiron to protest blackouts is stupid. The Tigueres of Camboya are always blamed. I have never met one, but I did see some in action in February, exchanging rocks and gas bombs with the PN. A couple were wearing flipflops, which seems to me to be inappropriate footwear for running back and forth over rock-strewn streets. One guy was shirtless, which also seems unwise, as teargas burns the skin of sweaty people.

There has been talk over reaching some sort of agreement over exchanging reliable electricity for payment of electricity bills. About one house in fifteen has an inversor, which is a couple of 12v DC batteries that charge when the electricity is on, and converts it to 110v AV when the lights go out. People who have inversores are less likely to agree with exchanging payment for reliability. I have seen no solar arrangements.

July 26 fell on a Saturday this year. All five colmados in the four block area closed their doors and turned off their loud merengues. Apparently there was a rumor that there would be trouble. Julio 26 is the day that Fidel Castro named his movimiento after. The tigueres in Camboya apparently are not internationally conscious and nothing happened.

In Barahona, there are local guaguas that go all over the place, to Polo, Vicente Noble, Duverge and other towns. Local transport is mostly by motoconcho. One or two adults and varying numbers of children ride on the back and occasionally in the lap of, the driver. Few motoconchos wear the required helmets. The fare downtown is 50 pesos. There are taxis, and you can rent a truck and driver, but washing machines, propane tanks, 70 pounds or more of groceries are hauled around by motorbike, usually 125 cc Chinese Loncins, Suzukis, and other less common brands. It is amazing how much can be carried on a motoconcho. To carry a propane tank, usually the tank which can be almost 5 ft high, is horizontally placed on the seat behind the driver, and a small boy holds onto it..

hahahaha  no electricity and water are not free they are STOLEN. And this is the reason we have issues in this country!!!! And don't get me wrong -  it is not  a poor person issue only, many of the wealthiest here steal electricity and water.

I do enjoy your posts!!!!  Thanks for sharing.

It would be a lot easier if our generator worked.  Needs a new switch and they are sending one from Santiago today and will be installed tomorrow.  So by then should  not be a problem.

Notebook a great idea

Yes it is HOT here and will stay that way for another month and a half

Yes I would not trade living here for a nanosecond. 

Bob K

And yes the biggest thieves of electricity are the rich and businesses, not the poor folks.  They may be more of them but the amount of electricity they steal is miniscule compared to the wealthy and businesses.

Bob K

We are having  rain showers off and on all morning so far. Maybe a full day of showers.  YESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bob K

We are overcast with sprinkles, no real rain yet! But, really who allowed all these mosquitoes in today? Wow.....lots of them around today i am getting the spray!

Yes they are the down side to rain but right now the rain is more important.  The town of Sosua has had NO city water now for 2 days other barrios in the area none for a week.

Bob K

what ? do I also need to write in my notebook that you guys are having water problems? Really? they turn it off at night? and the rich people and businesses are stealing electricity and water? Sacré bleu !

hahahahaha  get out the notebook!!!!

We are still in a serious drought.  There is not enough water here.  The south is not a little better off then the north coast.  I used to get water 6 days a week, now one day every  6 to 9 days seems to be the rule. In addition what I get is a trickle so I need to turn on my water pump for 8 to 10 hours to fill my tinaco. The owners of my house are now installing the cisterna.........yay.

We have serious issues with power in this entire country. Due to theft and line loss and bad equipment, lack of planning,  lack of maintenance etc etc  we never seem to have enough energy to satisfy the entire grid.    The government subsidizes the electrical generators.  Currently they are in arrears like 700 milliion dollars!!!!!  So then the producers cut back on production and we have even less supply then needed.

When this happens then we all get longer outages.  It is critical when living here  that you either live on a 24/7 circuit (with backup) or you are prepared for outages on a daily basis. The only circuits who do not have planned outages are the A circuits.

B circuits will have planned outages of about  4 hours a day everyday. When there is even less electricity available they will also get unplanned outages.

Cable / internet etc -  well we deal with interruptions and outages on a rate higher then north america but less then most other Caribbean countries.  Our infrastructure for that is pretty good!

Now talking about theft -  most cable companies steal at least some of their signals so they can distribute them to us.  I am referring specifically to ABC, NBC and CBS.  every once in a while those stations will go dark until someone gets them unscrambled again.  That happens all across the country.

Now with politicians stealing,  the rich and poor stealing electricity and the cable companies stealing blatantly,  just to highlight a few......................do you wonder why kids grow up thinking it is ok to steal.......

Planner great post and this is the first year in the 8+ years I have been here that water has been this kind of an issue.  I attribute 99.9% of the problem to the drought.  We currently on the north coast are about 27 inches of rain BEHIND.

Bob K

Thanks Bob. I remember my first year in Puerto Plata it was similar  -  horrible drought conditions!  But that was the last time until now.

In Palmerito, if you want water, you connect your house to the white plastic pipe that runs down the street. It you have no tinaco, you connect a garden hose to the connection that comes out of the ground or you fill up buckets and store  water for bathing and washing clothes and the daily mopping ritual abutions in a  tanque or perhaps an old washing machine in your house. I suppose that you could theoretically pay for water from the trucks that cruise down Bonifacio Feliz every morning.

If you want electricity, you connect your home to the grid and use it when it is available, about ten hours per day at irregular intervals. In theory, you could install a solar array or connect to your own personal planta and supply it with gasoline, Diesel or Propane.

Apparently water is just taken for granted. If there isn't enough, someone with a cisterna will sell you some or you can buy it from a water truck. I hear that not too long ago, someone from the electric company popped by and told some people that they were planning to have 24 hour power, but people would have to agree to pay for it. People USED to do this, but at some point people seem to have wired around the few meters and they stopped getting bills. A typical home was billed for around $300 pesos per month, about $7.00. There is a fellow who claims to be an expert at wiring around meters and installing wiring, doing so when the power is on. He has been zapped several times, and was out for about an hour once. People chuckle when they remember this moment. I suppose he tapped into a 220v line, or was standing in a puddle. His equipment consists of screwdrivers, some angle wire cutters and pliers. He does not own a voltmeter or an induction tester to determine which wire is hot and which is not.

No one considers tapping into water and electric lines to be theft. People mention that their taxes, in the form of the ITBIS, a national sales tax of from 18 to 28% covers public services like lights and water, I bought $1728 pesos in pain, and was charged $311 for the ITBIS, which was 18%. About US$7.20 on a purchase of US $40 worth of paint.

.

And of course they are absolutely wrong - they are stealing! Really quite simple.  And if you are doing it, then so are you.