Powerless in Riberas?

This little thread is out of sequence, but for a reason. I was in TX and CO last week and had meant to share some of the experiences of the road, but today my horridscope said it wasn’t going to be my kind of day – and boy was it right so far, so here ‘tis.

Electrico in MX is two things, expensive and intermittent as provided by the CFE (Comision Federal De Electricidad). First of all NOB voltage is generally around 120vac, here it is always at least 125vac and can go to 135 or 140, or as low as 99 volts (where what little I have is at the moment). We put anything serious and worth keeping on a regulator for protection which usually protects against burn out, but of course not against about drop out.

You tend to keep a lot of long extension cords handy, I had been warned about this before moving so brought mine along. This estate has 3 power meters and sources, two on the main house and one on the casita. The main house is on one meter and the pump house for the pressure water system, UV filter, front gate and pool pump on the second meter. 9 out of 10 times when the main power fails the pump house is still ok, so I keep a 50’ cord in the powder room next to the computer area and when the power goes off I quickly implement Plan B and chuck the cord out the window, run down stairs and plug it into the pump house and it runs the PC’s until main power is restored.

This morning about 7:30 as I was typing an Email and everything went black followed by a distant explosion (meaning either a main transformer exploded or Al Queda has stuck again). The regulator started beeping like crazy, I hit the “shut down” button and went for Plan B, cord out the window. After plugging in the cord to the pump house and the PC regulator I hit ON and it continued to beep unhappily. I grabbed for my power meter and sure enough it was only 99 volts, not enough.

Next I considered Plan C, that’s where I take a shower, but no, can’t do that, no pressure pump for the water. I decided I’d go check the mail and get some water at the store and hit the gate open button which worked, though slowly, and headed for the pool supply where I get mail, it was closed and that was when I realized it was only 7:40am, we’re off DST now in MX and I thought it was later? I did a retorno and headed for Soriana briefly and realized it wouldn’t be any better so returned home and fortunately the gate let me back in.

I decided to string all my cords over to the casita and borrow some volts there, but as I approached I heard the pressure pump there making a moaning sound – you guessed it, also 99 volts, so I unplugged it to put it out of its misery. Only once before have I seen all 3 circuits off or low at the same time, guess the horridscope was right, maybe I’ll do toast some bread on a stick over the gas burner.

Part II: It's about noon and we're off to Plans D-E-F or whatever. I decided mid morning (I think) that I'd go to Joco to the Bodega Aurrera and get some cat food for the outside guys and as I passed the casita, my neighbor said that sounded like a good idea and she had never found the place so we tooled off to Jocotopec for some shopping. Turned out to be a bust for the most part, they didn't have Shorty and Gray's favorite food (anything edible) in 10lb bags, but we got other stuff and returned to the compound and either the 99 volts is enough to run the gate opener or the battery backup is macho as we still had ingress and egress.

I fell back to the next plan and started doing manual things like fixing the front railing around the porch etc. and finally about 12:15pm I retired to the teraza to soak up some sun - how did I know it was 12:15pm? - because the battery operated clocks are still running, we all have a couple of “non-CFE” clocks to fill in the gaps.

As I was sitting on the deck I heard the pool pump start (wouldn't you know the most useless and expensive electrico thing I got starts first?).

Eventually we got back all legs of the power grid so the weather station is back up, I got a shower and it's a beautiful Fall day in MX. How do I know it's Fall? - simple, the African tulip trees are blooming like crazy and duh - the calendar says "Oct 30th".

Welcome home to MX, it’s the challenge we love – I think? (and now the battery on the laptop is about empty)