Wooden J Box:



Inverted Meter and CT In Plumbing Pipe:



Inverted Meter Enclosure:



Multiple Meters:



Open Taps At Inverted Meter:



Open Transformer In A Home:



Pole Mounted Meters:



Service Drop 4 Ft Above Sidewalk:



Single Meter:

Leaves me speachless - saying this is appalling would be a compliment.

Wow.....even the worst stuff here is better than that! Way better.

It appears to be a very bizarre mix of American and British equipment. And I highly doubt any type of standard is remotely followed.

what a wreck!! I would choose a new profession if I had to work on some of that stuff.

looks as if they spend more time and money to do it wrong, then if they just adapted a standard and did it sort of right.

Exactly my impression! American enclosures, British color coding, and a little local variation thrown in for good measure.

Remember that those open taps are 230V-ish to ground, 400V between phases.

Take a look at the second picture: All the CT cables are carefully formed, the CTs are evenly spaced, the service conductors are neatly arranged. It almost seems like this work was done by someone who was at least trying to take pride in their work, but they'd only been trained to the crippling standard of quality we see in the rest of these photos.

-John

Yeah, it must be the colonial influence plus the proximity to the US which results in such a weird system. I'm always amazed by 2nd and 3rd world wiring systems and how we take what we have for granted when it's so much worse elsewhere!

Wow! That's even worse than some of the stuff that I have seen in Mexico. I know that utility companies are exempt from following the NEC here, but I think that their standards are actually higher than what might be required by the code.

That "standard" being used in the photos is nothing short of frightening.

what is the dominican home depot phone #,
i need to clean the shop out back somehow.

I reckon it might be more useful to have the fire department number memorized: (767) 448-2222. Or 999 under the British influence!

According to some of the people that I talked to in Dominica, the government hired consultants to evaluate their system and make recommendations. As it is right now, 90% of their power is from hydroelectric generating stations up in the mountains. The average cost for electricity in Dominca, per month is $80-$100 EC, per month. $1.00 US is equal to $2.60 EC. These are residences that are approximately 800 sq. ft. and have no A/C in the majority of the cases. Of course, there is no insulation or anything that would equate to energy conservation. The only thing conservation wise that occurred was when the Cuban consultants recommened that they start using fluorescent bulbs instead of incandescents in their homes. According to the peron I was talking to, the government bought lots of these and passed them out.

They did say that the new Prime Minister is attempting to bring them into the 21st century. The comment was made that the old Prime Minister, as well as his predecessor were as corrupt as corrupt could be.

Come on now, you're not being fair!
It looks like whomever is responsible for the the work in the second photo was at least trying to bring a workman like manner into the world he lives in.

The open taps are bad, but not as bad as they appear - the screws visible in the picture are actually isolated from the wire. I found similar taps in a meter cabinet in Austria (standard lock, keys available in every hardware store) and was pretty shocked, so I held my voltage tester to the screws and got 0V.

Anyway, that's what you'd call "Russian" here

Interesting stuff,
Is that what looks like an electrical cabinet key hanging on the wall in pic #6?
In pic #8, I don't really like how them overhead wires are hard up against that corrugated iron roof sheet either, that's just asking for trouble.
Nice pics, always good to see how things are done in other countries around the world.

YIKES! Please tell me that xformer is not medium voltage on the primary.....

Any more photos of actual house wiring and devices in a typical house in Dominica?

How important is energy conservation if its a hydro electric supply anyway?

Obviously there are no trial lawers over there!!!

I must have missed this one. Utterley Speechless.