Category Archives: Electricity issues

February 15, 2025 · 9:51 am

Power Outages in La Yacata

Things were trucking along with the electricity until suddenly, they weren’t. A freak hail storm just happened to hit the road the only transformer station in the area was located, which not having internet access (the towers providing internet access apparently went out as well), we didn’t find out until later.

When the power went out, I had my son call and make a report. There was an option to report for the entire community, so he did so. The average repair time varied from 10 to 24 hours. I had just stocked my new fridge with perishables. 24 hours would be pushing it. I had no classes that day, so that was one less stressor. Eight hours later, the electricity finally came back.

During the interim, my son went to the corner store in another colonia near us. Here, he discovered the power was out all the way across town as the owner had gleaned this bit of knowledge from customers who had stopped in from various parts of town. He also confirmed that Telcel wasn’t working to add minutes to our phones.

Once I found out that it wasn’t just La Yacata that didn’t have electricity, I felt a little better about the situation. I was imagining all sorts of worse-case scenarios, including CFE coming to take back the installation that connected us to the grid because they believed “we didn’t qualify” or some such nonsense.

Well, less than a month later, the power went out again. This outage seemed to be localized to La Yacata, and the internet was not affected. The power went out 30 minutes before my morning class, so I had my husband haul a desk to the third floor of my son’s house, where the solar batteries had been relocated. It’s an unfinished room with no windows, so the breeze created a sort of vortex, but the internet worked, and there was power to plug my laptop in. I got everything set up minutes before class was due to start and then got a message that the student had canceled. Whew!

I sent a message to Super Prez asking him to call the report in. He did. The estimated time for the service call to the community was 10 hours. Dios Mio! That would interfere with my other classes. Fortunately, in under 2 hours, we were back in business, and I moved my laptop back to my office in the main house. Ahh, the stress!

These incidents made it clear to me that I would not be able to rely exclusively on grid power. The plan is to finish that upstairs room as an emergency bunker for when the lights go out so that I can scramble over there and teach my classes. It seems you have to roll with the punches when it comes to CFE electricity.

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Want to start from the beginning? Check out La Yacata Revolution: How NOT to Buy a Piece of Heaven in Mexico, available on Amazon.

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Filed under Electricity issues

Tagged as electricity in Mexico, La Yacata Revolution, living in rural Mexico

January 21, 2025 · 7:13 am

Downed Lines and New Connections

We hadn’t had electricity for a month when we had our first outage. Fortunately, it was localized to just one house, but still, I couldn’t help thinking–this was why we didn’t have nice things in La Yacata.

What happened, according to the neighbor was a large remolque (dump truck) was going up the hill and caught on the wire connecting to the main line to the house. The damage was bad. Fortunately, it didn’t tear down the main line, just the connecting wire, so there’s that, but still.

I moseyed up the road to take some pictures and sent them to Super Prez, who made a report to CFE. CFE assured him they would be out in 24 hours to fix it. Super Prez also called the owner of the house, who isn’t living there currently, to let them know about the issue.

24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours….came and went—no sign of the CFE repair crew. Two weeks later, the owner called and asked me if I could get Super Prez to follow up. Every time she called CFE asked for a copy of the electricity receipt, which we hadn’t gotten yet. So I sent a message to Super Prez, and he called.

Not an hour later, a CFE truck zoomed by the house. Sadly, they disappeared into the horizon and did not stop to check the line. Later that evening, or the next, I forget which, a CFE truck was driving up and down the roads and finally stopped to ask for directions. Super Prez happened to be here with an update on other matters and got them orientated. However, since the entire pole had been mangled, it would need replaced and they didn’t have that on hand and it would have to be ordered.

While we waited for repairs, the owners of two of the five houses that weren’t included in the original CFE project because of their location approached us to ask about getting the electricity connected. Measurements were taken and considered. Technically, they both were just under the 50-meter maximum from the last installed post. The problem was that the line would need to cross a road and that might cause CFE to say no to their connections. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So, both owners went to CFE to ask about it, but both were refused. They came to me with the new requirements, which I reviewed and sent to Super Prez.

Requirements for Contracting:

For Tenants:
- Mandatory submission of:
  - Copy of the lease agreement.
  - Copy of the INE (official ID) of both the landlord and the tenant.
Power of Attorney:
- If the owner cannot be present to sign the contract:
  - Submit a simple power of attorney signed by two witnesses.
  - Copies of the INEs of the witnesses.
Ownership Documentation:
- Valid proof of ownership issued by the local delegate (applies to rural communities).
- Copy of the current property tax receipt.
- Valid proof of the official property number.
Official Identification:
- Copy of a valid INE, passport, or professional license (both sides).
Tax Identification and Fiscal Status:
- RFC with homoclave or current tax status certificate (issued within the month prior to contracting) when service invoicing is required.
- Mandatory for businesses.
Contact Information:
- Email address and phone number with national area code.
Technical Preparation:
- Printed photographs of:
  - Electrical connection box (mufa).
  - Base.
  - Grounding rod.
  - Circuit breaker.
Visibility of Official Number and Meter:
- Printed photo of the official property number visible on the facade and/or meter base.
- Photo of the nearest neighbor’s meter number.
For Legal Entities:
- Copy of the certificate of incorporation.
- Copy of the INE of the legal representative.
- Copy of the notarized power of attorney.

As we are neither an officially sanctioned independent community nor part of the municipio, the collection of documents was a bit hodgepodge. These included the new application, a copy of the property certificate, which served as the valid proof of ownership issued by the local delegate (Super Prez), a copy of the INE (official ID) of the owners, a copy of the articles of incorporation, a copy of the INE of the legal representative (Super Prez), a copy of the power of attorney, a copy of the current property tax receipt, and printed photographs of the electrical connection box, base, and the meter number of the nearest neighbor.

I organized this packet of paper into individual folders for the applying colonos and had them come and pick it up along with the photos of the various items requested in the list. One colono served as the guinea pig and took it to the CFE office where they were told that in addition to the paperwork turned in, he must present the número oficial vigente (official address number), which we didn’t have.

Our application for those numbers had already been given to the presidencia and they were sitting on the paperwork. So, Super Prez went to the CFE office in Salvatierra to find out if there was a workaround.

The downed line did eventually get fixed, but little did we realize that this was just the beginning of our issues with CFE.

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Filed under Electricity issues, La Yacata Revolution

Tagged as electricity issues in Mexico, having electricity installed in rural mexico, living in rural Mexico, problems with CFE, requirements to get an electricity connection in Mexico

November 26, 2024 · 7:42 am

Let There be Light – Part 4

The date was finally set for the CFE crews to coordinate on making the live connection from the intersection to La Yacata on Tuesday, October 29th at 10 am. Having faced delay after delay, I wasn’t convinced it really would happen as scheduled, so there was no fanfare at our house. Gotta see it to believe it!

We finished up adding the bits and bobs to switch from our solar setup to grid power. It was the longest 5 days ever. Our solar system needed renewal. The batteries were no longer holding a charge. The days were overcast, and even during midday, power was an issue. And I had classes to teach! I was as power-saving as possible. No lights on, only my camera light. As soon as the beeping started, I would switch to battery. The screen brightness was lowered, and all power-saving options were enabled. Still, I was counting down the minutes to see if the class would end or if my battery would give out first.

Super Prez had his work crew come out and install the muretes that were not yet placed. It took two days and considerably more effort than if the CFE crew with their winch and pulley setup had done it. I watched as the guys roped the murete and picked it up with the backhoe, then hold on to the other end while they bounced up the hill to the designated location.

Finally, those were done, even though they would not be receiving electricity with this first group of 43. I’m still a little fuzzy on what needs to be done to make those connections, but that’s a problem for next month.

Tuesday finally arrived, and then we waited and waited and waited. 10 a.m. came and went. Around 11 a.m., we disconnected the solar setup and waited some more. My husband said he wanted to make sure the CFE workers had lunch, so we raced to town for some carnitas and coke. On the way, we passed the first CFE crew, who were readying their part for the live connection. On the way back, the second crew had arrived. We told them to stop by for a taco when they had finished and headed home to wait some more.

We sent a message to Super Prez’s crew to come for some carnitas and gathered in my son’s house. And then, suddenly, there were lights!

The meter ran a full 24 hours before the CFE truck came by with its GPS locator and booped it into the system. The relief I feel knowing that I have enough power to finish my evening classes has been immense.

There is still more work to be done. We have started the application for the electricity project expansion so that EVERYONE can have electricity in La Yacata and hope to hear back sooner rather than later on that. We also need to move the process to electrify these muretes along. Meanwhile, we went window shopping for a refrigerator and TV just to see the prices and hope to add them to our home soon.

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Check out where it all began in La Yacata Revolution–available on Amazon!