Chile Forum

CASTING CALL FOR LICENSED ELECTRICIAN IN LA JUNTA, AISEN, PALENA OR AREA THEREABOUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Role: Hook up Electric from Transformer and run down to my house in Sector Azul area of Futaleufu. Must get along with local officials and use local labor. Electric must work. Must not set house on fire. Candidate will stay with local family, be fed well and paid according to agree-upon contract. I will purchase materials.

Vicki

Vicki, you would not be the first gringo in the Patagonia that imported their own electrician. In fact, we have a client in Futa that brought in a U.S. electrician to wire their house. They where running a hydro-electric plant however. I also met an electrician a couple of years ago traveling in exchange for wiring some cabins down near La Junta. Electricians and bartenders seem to be able to travel the World cheap.

I'm getting ready for the next phases of my project in region V, wiring and plumbing. I note that the houses are all wired with what looks like 18ga wire (maybe 14ga) inside a plastic sleeve. I've gotten used to Romex since moving to the US and would prefer to use what I'm familiar with. What would this be called at say Sodimac? I see a brand called "Electromex" at Easy but it's only 20ga! (speaker cable)
Also, I have stayed with many friends in Chile and am always disappointed to see the huge daub of caulk applied at the tub/tile joint. I know that this is to seal the joint there, but are "tile in" tubs with a flange on the back walls such a rarity? I'll need to choose all these things in May and only have 5 days so I appreciate the help.

MikieO wrote:I'm getting ready for the next phases of my project in region V, wiring and plumbing. I note that the houses are all wired with what looks like 18ga wire (maybe 14ga) inside a plastic sleeve. I've gotten used to Romex since moving to the US and would prefer to use what I'm familiar with. What would this be called at say Sodimac? I see a brand called "Electromex" at Easy but it's only 20ga! (speaker cable)
Also, I have stayed with many friends in Chile and am always disappointed to see the huge daub of caulk applied at the tub/tile joint. I know that this is to seal the joint there, but are "tile in" tubs with a flange on the back walls such a rarity? I'll need to choose all these things in May and only have 5 days so I appreciate the help.

No help for your wiring quandary, but lol at 18ga...jesus.

As far as the flange-less tubs, if you can't find a tub you like with a flange, I would suggest using something like this:

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/Prod/Amer ... it-(single)/41887/Cat/51

You can look at any of the install instructions on American Standards site for their flange-less tubs, and it shows a detail of how to install it, but basically it just sticks to the tub rim with the adhesive, and butts up against the wall, and under the wallboard (which is raised slightly above the rim to keep from wicking moisture up the wall). The bead kit is then hidden by the tile and a thin bead of silicon.

I have seen 3 strand cable and 4 strand cable at sodimac/home center....but i don't know what they call it, and i didn't look at it closely enough to know the gauge of the wire......they have huge spools of all kinds of wire.....if you can't find the "romex" you want, then you'll have to run the wire through the orange plastic conduit that they use here.

most of the houses i have seen here don't have bathtubs at all....they have shower stalls....chileans don't generally take long hot bubble baths....partly because the califonts can't heat up the water enough to take a long hot bubble bath.....i'm sure that in the areas with more money...like providencia or los condes...they have specialty bath shops where you can buy the tub and all the bubble bath soap you want.

I don’t remember seeing “Romex” type cable when we went shopping for cable when I was installing a light for my in-laws. We used something similar, but not the same a when I am used to using in Canada.

We used a plastic sheathed cable… But the wires inside the cable were not individually sheathed like they are here. But the way the plugs and fixtures work you don’t really need them to be. I am not sure of what the gauge was… it seemed fairly close to what I was used to but, I can’t remember for sure.

We have had some clients bring their own cable (and the electrician) from the States. I have seen the heavier duty stuff, just in Chile they seem to use it mostly for things like the washer and dryer line.

Along the same lines I seem to be having trouble finding good cat5e cable now for networks. I am in the process of wiring a new office. Sodimac use to sell some o.k. stuff, but now they only sell the really cheap stuff and raised the price to the same as the expensive stuff. I wired my first office with it, and 3 months later had to rip out 30 meters of it and replace it with better quality cable. It was like the stuff just broke down on its own after a few months. The last thing you will check in doing networking is that your cable has rotted out after a few months, and will first blame everything from routers to network cards which are all much more expensive. Luckily my really big runs I had done with the higher quality cable, or I would have had to replace about 60 meters of cabling. Think I am going to ship in a box of network cable. In networking, it is not the cost of the cable but the cost of time lost fixing bad cables.

Chile might produce a lot of copper, but they sure do not do wire.

Just a little note and warning about wiring your own home, if you intend to get home insurance, the electrician and his work must be registered with the Superintendencia de Electricidad y Combustible known as SEC and the Municipality even in rural areas or you WON'T be insured.

That is not much of a problem, because in most rural areas they will not insure anywhere the fire department does not cover. They also will normally not cover for theft without an alarm system in rural areas.

Your wiring will be the least of the insurance companies concerns.

Sodimac and Easy don't even sell Cat 6 cable. My maestro found a place in Valparaiso where they have it (just bought 80 meters) and they generally offer more choice for cabling, plugs, and other electric gear. You have to know what you want though, the place is pretty much a desk next to a hangar, it's not a store for average consumers.

They use to carry it at our local Temuco Sodimac, one type of cat6 and two cat5e. They sold out it seems and never restocked. All I found last time I went was the cheaper cat5e, and from previous experience I discovered it is very brittle (darker grey brand if you find it). I had to replace about 30 meters in my office after about 5 months. Luckily I had installed the better stuff in most of the office and my house in the important and hard to get to runs in the walls, and just needed to replace the short drops from switches in particular rooms with the better stuff.

They also sell wall plates, but not the punch down tools.

Are private homeowners allowed to be their on construction contractor in Chile? It is generally considered a common law right in most states in the US to be able to pull your own building permits and supervise or perform your own work for your own private residence.