Don't rush the job!

Britcouple

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Aug 13, 2009
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I feel kinda sad writing this post. When we arrived in this country we already owned a house here that we knew needed a generator and inverter system due to the long electricity outages where we live. After reading DR1 and the many excellent posts, specially by Hillbilly, we contacted him to ask if he knew of anyone reliable who could supply and install these for us. After a visit to see his system in Santiago(with some excellent coffee supplied) and a chat with his son while we were there, as we were speding quite a lot of money (about U$18k in total) we decided to employ his son to supply/install an invertor and generator system the same as theirs (although different sizes of equipment).

After paying, the inverter system and generator duly arrived and after a couple of the usual hiccups they were installed and work excellent, quite a result!

Unfortunately, over a year later and too many phone calls and emails to remember, I am still waiting for the generator diesel day tank to be supplied and installed. This means about every other day I have to go get diesel, get out my ladders and climb up onto the roof where the generator is installed to fill it up...inconvienient but also dangerous climbing up and down ladders carrying large cans of diesel. Once the tank is installed it may be only a once a month or whatever occurance.

My problem appears to be that Hillbillys son had a company called technicaribe supply and install the generator to comply with the warranty (ok, no problem with that) but apparently they also had to install the daytank to comply with the warranty (ok, no problem with that either) which would take place a couple of weeks or so after the generator installation due to the tank was being manufactured.

So here I am, over a year later and still no day tank. I keep getting told it is all technicaribe's fault (may or may not be true,I don't know!) I have even suggested that hillbillys son get the tank and come and fit it himself as no doubt the warranty would be void as it is over one year now, to which I get no reply!

The point I am trying to make is things can and do go wrong here in the DR no matter how well you think you picked someone to carry out your work and I don't think after one year it can be put down to 'gringo impatience' and 'yes' we do still love the place as it is only an 'annoyance' and not a matter of life or death.

I realise Hillbilly is not directly responsible for what his son does(although he told me he is involved with some of his sons work now) and it may be 100% true that it is technicaribe's fault but I did not employ technicaribe to carry out the work, so either technicaribe have little respect for Hillbilly and his son to complete the work or Hillbilly and his son have little respect for me.
Either way I find it a little sad as Hillbilly with all his experience has been, and continues to be, a fantastic source of information and help for any DR1 reader.

For any newbies reading this, I would tell them to heed any advice given by hillbilly, he's a wise man with more years experience of the DR than most of us 'non natives' could hope to achieve, but for me it has not gone quite as I hoped. But who knows, maybe a conclusion is just around the corner, if I'm still allowed to post on here after this I will update with my greatest thanks. :cheeky:
 

Ken

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Jan 1, 2002
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If in your shoes, I would also feel the person who I had engaged to supply and install the system had the responsibility to complete the job in a timely manner, whether or not this is the Dominican Republic.
 

Britcouple

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Aug 13, 2009
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What is it you 'dislike' cobraboy?
The fact that I actually 'like' Hillbilly or the fact the work is still not completed?
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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Fact is that Tecnicaribe are the sole suppliers of that equipment, and they have seriously dropped the ball. I have no idea why this is happening unless this is a case of a local company with clients by the short hairs who do not give a d@mn...

I am sorry that they have not complied, but I have absolutely nothing to do with this, and apart from doing the installations, which I believe were done properly and functioned, I am not sure to what point my son was involved in the day tank thing. I will ask him and see just WTF is going on here.

HB
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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So it happens that he just walked into the house and I had him read Tim's post (I accidentally wrote "pist"--jeje) and he was a bit more than upset. He talked to the people at Tecnicaribe and they said that they had gone to Tim's place but there was nobody home and " they can't be bothered making trips that far in vain." (Which I can agree with) But what brought out the time-honored WTF from son was " Why the FFFF didn't you call first,you have the number??? To which they had no answer...

Said son is going to Santo Domingo in a few minutes and he WILL visit the head office of Tecnicaribe tomorrow A.M.

So, maybe this will be cleared up...

Hopefully,

HB"
 

Chirimoya

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Dec 9, 2002
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To the OP: your grievance sounds reasonable, but did you air it on the board before contacting HB privately?
 

greydread

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Jan 3, 2007
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So it happens that he just walked into the house and I had him read Tim's post (I accidentally wrote "pist"--jeje) and he was a bit more than upset. He talked to the people at Tecnicaribe and they said that they had gone to Tim's place but there was nobody home and " they can't be bothered making trips that far in vain." (Which I can agree with) But what brought out the time-honored WTF from son was " Why the FFFF didn't you call first,you have the number??? To which they had no answer...

Said son is going to Santo Domingo in a few minutes and he WILL visit the head office of Tecnicaribe tomorrow A.M.

So, maybe this will be cleared up...

Hopefully,

HB"

I feel icky. Like I just listened in on someone else's "party line" conversation.

HB-Situation well handled, BTW. Now I'll just wander off and find some of my own business to poke my nose into....
 

Britcouple

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Aug 13, 2009
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To the OP: your grievance sounds reasonable, but did you air it on the board before contacting HB privately?

No Chirimoya, As I said in the original post,I have contacted HB before, and after his last post, he knows I have a great deal of respect for him and it is more a case of a bad situation rather than anything 'untoward' going on, but hopefully it will get sorted now and I will be free to once again sing HB (and his sons) praises :)
 

Britcouple

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Aug 13, 2009
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I feel icky. Like I just listened in on someone else's "party line" conversation.

HB-Situation well handled, BTW. Now I'll just wander off and find some of my own business to poke my nose into....

LOL greydread. Didn't put the phone down though did you????? hehehe