Not properly grounded!

Life here has gotten busier. The arrival of some of our snowbird friends involve a more active social life than we had over the summer. Also, there are more events taking place for the same reason. For example, we went to a concert on Nov. 3rd (another next week) plus to the theater for a production of the Mousetrap on Sunday afternoon. This Saturday night we are going to a dinner/concert benefit in Chapala. People may imagine that because so many retirees live here that this must be a sleepy place. The exact opposite is true. Many of these retirees have been and remain very active; they are busy arranging a multitude of things to do. The problem is not what to do, but to restrict one’s activities to avoid becoming exhausted.

We had a reminder that in Mexico one must expect the unexpected. Barbara was having trouble with the washing machine that we bought only last January. We arranged for a repair man to come. With some initial lack of success, he did get it working properly and declared that it seemed to be alright. However, he had a gadget to measure the voltage. It was registering 140 volts--higher than the norm of about 120 volts in Canada and the US. However, it seems that in Mexico there is more variation, commonly 125 - 140. Most appliances made for Mexico are made to handle this, but appliances imported from up north often burn out the motors. Also, surge suppressors are virtually a necessity for most electronic equipment because there are more random surges here. However, this was not the big problem that was discovered. The repairman showed me that the 3rd prong of the plug (the ground) was in fact live!

I called Jose Luis who agreed to come the next day. He had a gadget which diagnoses whether or not plugs are wired correctly. He found that in that plug, not only was the ground live, but the neutral and live wires had been reversed; that plug outside was also connected to a plug inside the house to which our refrigerator was connected. Of course that plug was also wired incorrectly. I was getting in a bit of a panic. We had thought that the house was all wired with proper, grounded 3 pronged plugs. I was beginning to fear that all the wiriing in the house was bad. However, with one exception, all the other plugs are wired correctly with a ground. Obviously, someone who didn’t know what they were doing had messed around with those plugs. Jose Luis corrected the plugs to the washer and refrigerator by attaching the ground wire to the metal water pipe nearby with a clamp. I’m not sure what electrical inspectors in Canada would think of that, although in many houses the ground is connected just like that to the copper water pipe coming in from the street.

The other plug that was bad showed no proper ground; this is the plug that we were using for most of our computer and internet equipment! When Jose Luis opened the box, there was a ground wire, big as life. When he pulled it, it ended after about 8 inches. Apparently, it had been extended through the wall and connected to a metal post driven into the ground (we found the latter eventually). However, someone had come along and cut it off, probably when the house was repainted during the renovations before we bought it! It was easily fixed. A new ground was extended through the wall and connected to the post. Thus, in the end, it was all corrected quickly and inexpensively, but it is a reminder that you can’t take things for granted. By the way, the washer seems to be working properly now!