It is bad! Very, very bad!
My wife and I arrived in the DR full of optimism and eager to start enjoying a new chapter of our lives. We did not expect or even consider that this move could in fact be the last chapter of our lives. We arrived with four suitcases containing mostly clothes, toiletries, a few comfort items and very little in the way of electronics, save for a cell phone and computer tablet. The rest of life's accouterments would arrive months later by ship in a large metal box. How was I supposed to know, that in that metal box would be the very tools I would need from day one to stay alive long enough to pass on this cautionary tale?
Being smart Gringos, we opted to rent a villa here while we figured out our new country and explored the possibilities for the future. When we first viewed the property we had selected from some 3700 Km away, it was a disaster. The pictures on the internet listing in no way reflected the current state of the property. In the pictures, the plants were newly planted and only a couple of feet tall. In reality, the current height of the plants and the exterior paint suggested that about 5 or 6 years had elapsed since the only pictures of the property we ever saw were taken. On this day, we had just returned from Santo Domingo, from another one step forward two steps backward Migracion experience and were looking forward to seeing our future retirement oasis for the first time sparkling in the sunshine, being openly inviting and affirming that all we needed to do was move in and drink beer all day.
That's not what we got. No electrical service to the property, no running water. The pool water was a putrid black colour, peeling paint that in days long passed might have been blue and a white villa that was more brown/black from mold and mildew than it was white. Cupboard doors hanging askew on their hinges, most plumbing fixtures completely disconnected from where they were supposed to be. Shredded windows screen, doors that would no longer open and of course no air conditioning despite the written assurances of the rental agent to the contrary many times over. I submitted a 5 page list of fixes that we expected to be completed prior to us taking possession of the property 5 weeks hence.
No problem I was told...
We returned in Sept. and ascetically the place looked good. My list had been whittled down to a few outstanding issues that were scheduled to be addressed. Here is where this cautionary tale really begins.
Looks can be deceiving. Because of my past vocation, I am a bit more knowledgeable when it comes to electricity than your average Gringo. I am not an electrician, but I am licensed to install and work on electrical circuits back home and have done so for 20+ years. I began to get the hint that all was not quite right in paradise when I kept getting little shocks when I touched metal objects around the villa. By way of example, the cable box, the metal media stand that held the TV, the metal hinges on the freezer door atop the refrigerator etc. Most light fixtures in the property, flicker at night and I have posted about this in the past looking to see if this was a common occurrence here. It is and it is a sign that you might wish to take to heart.
I had no high end audio visual equipment to connect and of course I had none of my electrical testing equipment. I had no choice at this time but to accept the situation as it was and avoid licking the entertainment stand and cautioning my wife to be careful when she dusted the top of the refrigerator. These were not painful shocks I was experiencing, but that warm buzzing/tingling feeling that is a prelude to a full discharge blast that anyone who has worked with electricity comes to recognize very early on in their career.
From September to late December, we lived in a bubble of false security blissfully unaware that we were surrounded by the potential for serious injury or death every waking and sleeping moment starting from the instant we stepped through the front door. None of the stuff we brought with us had a three pronged electrical plug. Nothing was power line sensitive enough to hint at the problems we were about to encounter.
Everything changed the day after my container was delivered which by the way was December 23, Merry Christmas. The first thing I unpacked was my desktop super computer. I was looking forward to my 22" monitor and a full sized keyboard to make my forays on DR1 less irksome. Connected the computer to a power source, tuned it on, ZAP! The thing wouldn't boot. By accident I discovered it would boot just fine if it was lying on its side. Scratched my head and laid it on its side out of the way. Zap, this time I got a painful shock from the metal grill covering the power supply fan. Ouch! This is not supposed to happen. Three pronged plug, excess current should pass harmlessly down the ground wire not into my hand.
The next items I unpacked was my voltage tester, multimeter and electrical outlet tester. Plugged in the outlet tester and it lit up much prettier than my Christmas tree that I would not have time to set up before Santa arrived. Lots of red lights. Not supposed to be any red lights. Rarely saw red lights in the past, because the serious circuit faults needed to trigger red lights just don't happen at home. Electrical inspectors, written standards, licensing and training for people who work with electricity usually prevented life threatening errors from occurring. Usually, no red lights. I went from room to room checking every single outlet and every single one was fubar. Reversed polarity,open ground wires, no ground wires. A couple of outlets returned results that the tester was not coded for. All lights lit up, that's not supposed to even be possible, yet here I was, staring into the face of Death himself, in every room of my new home, and it gets worse, much worse.
I rewired the outlets in the living room and the kitchen myself. Got the tester to show an all clear. One outlet in the kitchen had 4 inches of melted wire insulation next to the outlet and the electrical box was covered in soot. There had been a fire at some point in the past. The villa being constructed of concrete is the only reason that this building was still standing. Changed the outlet, fixed the wires, could not get the ground wire to work. Not my problem, added this to my mental list of things to bring to the attention of the property management.
Computer seemed to be working, no more shocks, voltage tester showed no extraneous current, so I proceeded to hook up my plasma TV. Two hours later, the cable box was smoking and the coax cable at the connection to the box was too hot to touch and melting. Fudge!. Won't be watching TV tonight. Called Delancer the next day, they came out couldn't get the service to work on the existing coax cable anymore and had to run a new line. At this point, back home, the cable tech would have immediately recognized that the cable run was fried and would have begun looking for the cause of the problem. Not here in the DR. The solution here is run a new cable, hook up a new box and head off for a cerveza after a job well done. I knew differently. During the daylight, the new cable equipment and the TV worked normally. At night I saw trouble. About 8 pm I got a shock from the TV when I was moving it closer to the wall. Ouch! I could smell that tell tale smell of burning electrical components coming from the new HD cable box. Out comes the testing equipment again. I have 118 volts in my cable line. I have 118 volts coming down my HDMI cable. I have 118 volts everywhere that there shouldn't be electricity. I turned everything off and unplugged each item. Disconnected the cable wire and it was still energized. Aha! Delancer screwed up and they were sending voltage into my villa via the cable wire. Made a note to Call Delancer tomorrow. I wanted it to stop and I was worried that some tech working in the rain would kill himself.
About 11 pm, after writing a long winded email to the property manager detailing the current problem and asking them to speak with Delancer as my Spanish is not good enough to convey the severity of my current situation, I paused before hitting send. Something was not right. My brain was telling me that I was in error. Just to check, I plugged everything back in and fired up the voltage tester. Everything was it it should be. No stray voltage to be found anywhere. I had to sit down and reassess. I sat in the dimly lit living room, light supplied only by a banker's light sitting on the far side of the room. Finally, the eureka moment. I turned on the ceiling lights, tested again and there was extraneous electricity in every piece of metal I tested on the ground floor. Turned the lights off and all returned to normal. Fudge! This is not supposed to happen. Went back to the email, rewrote it, this time exclaiming that the Villa was sending 118V out into the world down the cable line and someone was going to die. In the past we didn't use the ceiling lights because they made the supplied TV's picture jump. Another sign of a serious problem that I casually dismissed at the time. The picture on my own TV didn't jump when the lights were turned on - so I figured it was a problem with the old analog TV, of course I was wrong.
Spent the next day going over the Villa with a fine toothed comb. It was bad. So bad in fact, that I had to get a Gringo electrician in to get a second opinion. Right from the day this place was constructed, the electrical was done incorrectly. Over time as more and more was added, the problems compounded and got worse and worse.
There is no functioning ground in this villa. Most of the wires leaving the circuit breaker panel are red. Not red and white, or black and white. Most of the wires at the switches and outlets on the wall are black and black or white and white. Somewhere between the breaker box and the outlets, someone has spliced different wires, in the middle of a wire run! Oh man, I just know those slices are wrapped in electrical tape and not wire caps. Some idiot at some point connected several hot wires to the ground circuit thus nullifying the function of a ground circuit and sending power all over the place in directions that it should not travel.
The first electrician listened to my story, took a look and immediately did an about face and left. He could not or would not even tackle this nightmare. A second very knowledgeable and experienced professional was enticed to pay me a visit. He took the job and is going to be here so long, that I might have to deduct rent from his invoice.
I can't speak to every home nor can I say that the extreme wiring mess in my place is even representative of the norm here in the DR. However, if it can happen here, it can happen in your home too. If electrical stuff isn't working as you think it should or you are experiencing mild electrical shocks you need to have the problem investigated and taken care of before just the right conditions exist that will result in serious harm. Like plugging in a electrical razor after getting out of the shower while you feet are still wet.
A partial list of the problems we have found so far:
Outlets wired with reverse polarity
No ground wires in some outlets.
Open ground wires in other outlets
Switches wired to interrupt the neutral wire instead of the hot wire. (flickering lights when turned off)
220V appliances being fed by multiple 110V circuit beakers when they should be on a single 220V breaker
No electrical cut off switch from the EdeNorte drop to the electrical panel.
An incorrectly connected inversor where the current to the house cannot be turned off.
Wires of the incorrect size for the current they are conducting.
Circuits that should be protected by a circuit breaker that are not
A mess of wires that only a master puzzle solver can figure out.
Spliced wires that should not be spliced.
All connections covered with electrical tape when end caps should have been used.
Power being fed directly into the grounding circuits.
Two way switches that do not function as two way switches.
The list goes on and on and I am sure much more will be found as we progress through this mess. It seems that there is a problem with every single circuit, every switch, every outlet, every ceiling fan and every electrical connection. This level of incompetence should be impossible. Even a person with no training whatsoever, should just by sheer luck mange to wire one switch or outlet correctly.
It is for the grace of god himself, that there has not been a big fire or serious injury at this property in the past. Maybe there has been, no one would tell me if there was. There are two dead refrigerators in my garage, now I know why. If you plug in a UPS or a surge protector and the little red light indicating a circuit fault lights up, you have issues that must be fixed. If you get shocks (mild or severe) when touching electrical equipment, you have potentially life threatening issues that need to be corrected. You cannot assume that the person doing work in your home is qualified or competent to be doing so. You cannot causally dismiss those reoccurring signs that something is not quite right. You have to assume there is a problem and be told by someone who knows what they are talking about that your concerns are unfounded. You might need a second or third opinion if you still have doubts or suspicions.
The electrical problems that I have found here, boggle my mind. Before moving to the DR, sh$t like this could never happen so I was not predisposed to accept that it could. At risk was my safety, my equipment, my wife's safety and even the safety of people who never step foot into my villa (the poor cable guy). The electrical work that was done in this property before I arrived (even the three air conditioners installed as recently as Sept. 2014) should be criminal and at home it is! Here, it's just another day in Paradise. If you're not careful, it just could be your last day in paradise.
