Electric Bills

[mr bill]

Our electricity bills have shot up from roughly 200 pesos a month to over 3000 pesos a month, and we hare having a hell-uv'-a time arguing with the electric company. Has anyone else experienced this sort of problem and worked out a solution?

There are two basic tarifs that are used in residential consumption. Tarifa 1 which is governemnt subsidized and the DAC [alto comsumo] which is not. If you exceed 599 kWh in a bi-mester you move to the DAC - it may take three bi-mestres before it rolls off. When I had a similar problem and asked for extra meters and the CFE showed little inclination to add the extra accounts I hired an abrogado. Money well spent as I look at 56 peso bills

[Jzmackenzie]

Yes, we did. Ours went up 420% a few months ago. We finally got CFE to send out an engineer, there was a serious electrical drain. Caution! The first "repair" person was on a "sick day" from CFE to find a "side job" (us). His estimate to repair was totally laughable. We had our regular trusted friend find us someone who was reliable.

Wiring in Mexico is not the same code as you probably had in the USA and there are many more places for errors to occur. We had a major wiring problem "bleeding off" power into the soil. You cannot, will not ever get a refund, there is no translation for that request from CFE even if it is their error. In the process of the repair last May 110 volts ran through me in the shower, so do not assume anything! With everything "off" in our home and all power in the off main box off, our meter still moves.

Now we have two meters to reduce the use on each meter. It took close to a 8 months to get the second meter, but that is standard, a Mexican neighbor had the same problem. The more power used the higher the rates AND check to see if your place has 110 or 240 coming in. Our landlord had a business here so we have 240 and the higher amount is standard.

[soledad]

Our experience in both Puerto Vallarta and GTO is that everyone had a different rate and rate structure, In PV we had a condo in a 9 unit building and everyone had a different rate. The oldest owner had the lowest rate and the newcomer had the highest rate. Our rate and structure in GTO went up dramatically as did all our neighbors when they put in the new meters.

[jal]

Bill, why don't you try asking for a new meter, new contract, new bill. The other solution, someone told me, could be to smash your meter, to destroy it, and pretend that it just happened. Your bill will be frozen until you get a new one (it can take months). But the best solution is to find the leak, most of the time its the poor wiring, leaks or microwave plus fridge overconsumption. Last way is to get a friend from CFE who will slower your meter...