My phone rang.
A woman with a heavy European accent spoke.
“ I vant a man” she said.
“A man?” I said.
”An electrician! Do you haf von, can e come now?”
“Yes madam, what is your problem?”
“My eelectricity bill, it eez veery large.”
“How large?”
“Well usually it eez fife undred zousand Rupiah a mons
but now I haf a bill for four and ze half million!”
“We’ll get someone round as soon as we can.”
“Can you send im quik, ze leetle veel, it eez turning
veery fast.”
“I will send him now madam.”
The electrician arrived at a rather nice villa and quickly
found the meter box. He soon found an “unusual”
wire connected to the box.
He took out his cutters and cut the extraneous wire.
“Suddenly it has gone very quiet” he thought.
He looked over the wall and noticed a building site next door.
Everything had stopped.
The landlord had been “borrowing” electricity.
This is not a rare occurrence. A friend of mine was up in
his roof wiring some lights once when he came across a wire
he couldn’t account for. It came out of a junction box
in his circuit and disappeared through a hole in the wall.
When he disconnected it he heard screams of complaint coming
from all over the district. Showers stopped, televisions died
and lights went out. Ibu “Looking looking”, the
woman who ran a tourist shop next door and used to physically
manhandle (sorry personhandle) unsuspecting passing tourists
into her lair to be exploited, shrieked in dismay as her curling
tongues went cold.
Connecting an electricity cable to someone else’s supply
or even directly to the PLN supply is a surprisingly common
practice in Bali. A recent comment from PLN suggested that,
in Sanur, on paper there is plenty of spare capacity while
the reality is that the system is so badly overloaded that
there simply isn’t enough power available. One can assume
that the same applies in other parts of the island.
The reason for this is the high number of people who are “borrowing”
power from the system without paying for it.
You may find that you are being far more benevolent to your
neighbours than you imagine. It might be an idea to do a simple
check. You could switch everything off in the house, don’t
forget the water pump and the fridges which tend to switch
themselves on and off, and then see if the “leetle veel”
in the meter is still turning. If it is still turning then
check again, there may be something you have missed. If it
is still turning you may have a problem and should get the
circuits checked for other faults or for one of those “extraneous”
wires.
At night you might wait for a popular show on television then
switch off your supply at the master switch and listen for
frustrated yells or cursing.
Another approach may be to watch your electricity bills to
see if the usage is excessive or fluctuates at times that
are different to your usage pattern.
Recently I came upon an old friend who told me that for years
he had paid the local Banjar a generous sum of RP150,000 per
month (My whole bill is less than that!) to come and read
the meter and notify PLN of the reading. After many years
(years?) PLN came and read the meter as a spot check. They
handed over a bill for Rp 8 million! It turned out that for
years the banjar had not bothered reading the meter but had
sort of “estimated” usage but of course still
pocketed the money. They were Rp 8 million behind in their
payments.
“Pay up or we cut you off” said the nice PLN man
in his best customer service tone. (At this point I will refrain
from relating the story of my “customer service”
experiences with a well known telephone company who I suspect
have a customer service training manager called Rasputin.
I now use Telkom). They eventually negotiated a deal to pay
the outstanding bill over 6 months.
It pays to check your electricity bill. You also need to investigate
before jumping to conclusions. A recent case of a ‘not
very obvious’ short circuit in pool lights which caused
heavy electricity loss indicates the point.
You should check the bill with your meter to make sure it
has been recently physically checked. I know mine is regularly
checked because my dog knows the meter reader well and likes
the taste of his left leg, he is a retriever after all. The
combination of a deep throated bark and a PLN wail is a very
memorable and comforting sound that tells me all is well with
my electricity bill.
Your electricity bill will tell you a lot and understanding
it can help you save perhaps a lot of money. Next issue we
will try and demystify it for you.
Phil Wilson
Phil Wilson a project director for Focus Indonesia and a partner
of MrFixit property maintenance services. Opinions expressed
are those of Phil Wilson. If you have any questions or comments
related to property maintenance he can be contacted at the
office on 0361 288 789 or through the website at www.mrfixitbali.com
Copyright@2007 Fixed Abode
You can read all past articles of Fixed Abode
at www.BaliAdvertiser.biz
