Good Morning from Cabrera,DR,
Ok let's take Water first:
Yes you can find companies that will dig a well and set it up for you but shop around and if you have a friend who lives in the DR to make recommendations. Most of the cities have a water company. You can contact them on the internet to check their prices but an average water bill will run around $7.00(US) a month.
Ok now Electrice: The countries main electric company is edenorte and they conderve power every day for a few hours they shut down the power,but most homes have a back up battery system that cuts in when edenorte cuts power , That is done country wide,you just learn to live with it. Most homes do not have A/C so that keeps the bill low, As for 220 volt power ,yes it is available in most cities. Have you selected a pat of the country you prefer?, I live in Cabrera on the North Short, it's a small town of about 30,000 people and it is away from the tourist areas so prices are reasonable and the Crime rate here is very low. As soon as you get here find a local you can work with because when Gringos want to buy anything we pay a higher ate than the locals. Let your Dominican friend do all the negotiating for you, you'll save money. I hope I was of help to you, take care and God Bless.

Post a Reply

20abuse

Choosing an expat health insurance provider is an important decision. Get a quote from our trusted expat health insurance partner, CIGNA. With Cigna Global Health Options, you can create an international health insurance plan that's perfectly tailored for the needs of you and your family.

Learn More Get a Quote

Hi
The information from Raven is very helpful and accurate. Nearly everyone I know uses large bottles of water you find in offices to drink and maybe cook with. (cost under a dollar) I use tap water to clean my teeth and I have a well 200 meters down. There are filter systems out here you can buy so you can drink the water, If you head for Cabarete /Sosua area email me and I will pass on what I.ve learnt over the past seven years.

Post a Reply

00abuse

Thank you for all the great information, ber7 helpful. Do you know how many amps are typically delivered to typical homes.

Post a Reply

10abuse

Thank you for the helpful information. 200 meters, wow, that very deep, but would be worth it for safe personal supply of water. Are the newer developments focusing on payable water or just 5 gallon supply as usual?

Post a Reply

00abuse

Hi
One large development I know is digging more wells to supply many villas. Others tend to use the City water that wasnt available to my small community of 40 villas in Sosua Hills. You will find yourself adding to a growing list of questions before you arrive. I have over 100 clients of which many have not been to the island but are thinking of retiring here in a year or twos time. I get asked many questions over the years but no one asked about amps which I don't have an answer for but someone will respond I'm sure,..

Post a Reply

10abuse

Choosing an expat health insurance provider is an important decision. Get a quote from our trusted expat health insurance partner, CIGNA. With Cigna Global Health Options, you can create an international health insurance plan that's perfectly tailored for the needs of you and your family.

With over 20 years here, we have seen a lot of changes that have affected just about everyone everywhere. From good water supply to none. Elec. became better to now going to poor again. What you have now you may not have next year.

Water. Areas will differ in the amount of contaminants found in the water and trucked water is no better. Never drink from the tap. Keep your mouth closed in the shower. I would not brush my teeth with it. Use a sanitizer agent when washing food, dishes and wiping down counters.

Most have water storage with houses using cisterns mostly. They also use rather primitive in ground septic tanks that drain into the soil and can leach into a cistern and well.

My area has not had city water for 3 years. Many wells drilled; over 30 within 1/4 mile of me, with the same results of very bad water heavy in salts with PPM over 2000 and heavy with bacteria. Indoor plumbing corroded very quickly. Pools could not be kept clean. Laundry problems. Plants burned and died. Could not be used at all at some places. Most of those wells shut down within 2 months.

When we built, we installed filters and UV to provide potable water to all indoor plumbing from our cistern. The cistern gets a pool chlorine tablet once a month to keep that clean. 20 years and we nor or guests and animals have ever had a water born problem. We had a lab test it every couple of years and is always over 99% pure. This is not a real expensive water system and it sure beats hauling 5 gallon jugs for people, dogs and large animals.

The well we put in needed another set of filters and a UV lamp. We then put in 3 RO units that provide 500 gpd each that goes into our cistern and then treated again with the older system. This setup was costly but when you have NO WATER at all, you do what you need to do.

We also installed rain gutters and use a leaf eater /catcher and first flush system in the downspouts that are plumbed directly into our cistern. Remember that we have the filters and UV so that water is treated along with all of the water.

We did sanitize our cistern after getting some very bad trucked water. If you install a whole house system like ours, we will need to sanitize the cistern AND all the plumbing to insure that baddies are dead before drinking the new clean water.

I'll post about elec. later.

Post a Reply

10abuse

What I posted concerning water is what we have that meets our requirements. We have 2 rental apts., 2 pools, dogs and horses. We have had as many as 12 people staying here so you can see that our water needs can be very high. Most don't need what we have but since this is what we have it is better to relay what I'm familiar with and what has worked for us.

This is were we live and this is our home. Adapting is part of our lives.

Electricity? This IS a shocking subject. As with our water, we have certain requirements and promises. We will always have safe water and electricity.

With few building codes and no one checking them anyway, it's difficult to know what is hidden. Kind of a joke here that a person is a master electrician if he can steel elec. from the pole and lives. One size/gauge wire in one color works for everything. If the wire is to short just grab whatever wire you can find and twist the two together... maybe a little tape too. What's a ground? The breaker keeps tripping so its a bad one so no need to check the wire that you can smell burning.

I've lived with all of this and corrected over and over. Being the last house on the line also gets us the brunt of power surges that fry everything and having the main line NOT grounded properly has been very costly.

I have seen and lived in places in the D.R with a single 20 amp breaker for the whole house. 120V only. Most have 240 V. service but few have the proper double ganged breaker and use single 20 amp to 50 amp main breakers for the 240V line; then branched to smaller circuits.

But you need to look at and test a few things. If the wall outlets don't have the grounding plug then you know you have a problem. Remove the main breaker box cover and look at the wiring and test with a Volt/Amp meter. A plug in polarity tester is cheap and easy to use on outlets.

We have 200 amp service with two 100 amp sub mains to the smaller circuits.

We have several surge protectors and different levels from our main to every appliance. Most work only 20% of the time and degrade each time they get a surge.

The last surge of over 280 volts fried our main breaker in the ON position and then fried our main automatic disconnect and several other components. Several hundreds of $$$ to replace.

We are just finishing up replacing/upgrading our solar, inverter and batteries. They have served us well for over 10 years yet of elec. bill keeps going up as we unplug everything and have solar. Our bill came 3 days ago with a drop of U.S. $400. Edenorte was here this morning seeing if we did something to the meter. We will finish installing 8 more solar panels this week that should get us off the grid completely using our generator as a backup. Our systems power EVERYTHING on the property with us using energy management. Even a couple of AC units. (the inverter starts/stops the generator if needed.)

This was a capital expenditure but we expect to see the payback in less then 4 years and the savings on not having to replace electrical equipment gone.

We imported everything from the U.S. via the local shipper that we use. No custom taxes on the inverter, solar panels or solar controller.

Again. Most areas have dirty and unreliable power with some better and some worse then others Check the area before renting or buying. Find a GOOD electrician that knows what he is doing and gladly pay for his inspection services. Having personal surge protectors for appliances is suggested.

I hope that this helps. If I have made you a little nervous then I've done my job. Hope for the best but watch out for the worst.

Post a Reply

10abuse

Your explanations were excellent. Thank you very much, the picture is much more clear. Thankfully my husband is very handy and informed on electric, it's great to know it's possible for our needs to be met with electric and water.

Post a Reply

00abuse