110 V appliances confiscated by Saudi Customs,huh!

Thanks for the advice Vpainter, this a bit comforting to hear. I'm stil concerned however,we are still at the beginning of 2013 so maybe there was a grace period that expired.
I bought many new 110V appliences, the best I could find, based on advice from most people to bring your own appliences. The warning I received was from Aramco, this was the instruction number one at the top of instructions list, so if I ship my items that would be at my own risk.
I hope to hear from anyone who shipped his items recently, to see if they also received this warning, shipped their appliences and didn't face a problem. Thanks

Does the compund in Dhahran have power outlets at 220 Volts and 110 Volts. I will be coming from UAE and will ship appliances that are 220 Volts. Will this be OK.

If this is true, then this may become a huge issue not just for new hires, but also for existing Aramcons who may bring things back from repat trips or have things shipped in. Does anyone know if this pertains to all 110 devices, or is it larger appliances that would be confiscated?

Perhaps someone on this forum who is involved with safety can speak with knowledge on the ramifications of plugging 220 electrical items in a 110 wired home, including the issues of transformers and plug adaptors. There is much contradictory information if you google this, on whether it's safe and whether items will work. I'm guessing burning down your Aramco housing due to electrical safety violations doesn't get your iqama renewed...

As I've mentioned in this forum previously, when we called to get just one additional 220 plug put in the kitchen, we were told the program was on hold indefinitely for safety reasons and they put us on a wait list already 100 deep at that point. This was a few months ago, and we've never been contacted about the wait list. I will call them back this week and let you know what they're saying at this point.

I wonder if the ban on importation of 110 appliances will also extend to people's luggage and carry-ons, or if this is more about freight that is shipped. For instance, what if an Aramcon family has 110 personal care appliances, medical devices, computer and phone charger cords, etc. and needs to take them to the US on vacation. Will all of that stuff then be confiscated upon reentry in Dammam?

I hope the residents will be instructed on how to handle the situation, since it is not our choice that the camp is all 110 and that's what we're supposed to use in our homes. I feel badly for new hires packing up their homes. Whether or not you decide to risk sending over the 110 items, Vpainter makes a good point about labeling everything to make it clear to customs that you're coming into an Aramo camp. Use removable labels for sure; we overlooked that detail and still have unsightly labels and glue residue on things. The movers were very thorough at wrapping everything up in much padded paper with heavy tape. Most of those items were never opened by customs. Among those items were our kitchen appliances, lamps and the like.

Aramco upper management may have to get involved in this issue for Aramcons.

Rumor and conjecture aside, here is the real story as I know it.

We are about a week out on our shipment. I have approximately $11k in 110v electrical items. I stand to lose a lot if my 110v items are confiscated.

We know of two parties that have had 110v items removed. This was out of a much larger number that have had their items passed through intact. The thought right now is that one individual on the dock may be acting as the 110v police where others are ignoring the import ban. We hope he is not our guy and keep our fingers crossed. Our e-boxes arrived with the 110v stuff in place. As such, we have a microwave, vacuum, and steam mop in our possession. This arrived 2 months ago.

I have had Aramex ship in some 110v electrical parts from Amazon to add convenience outlets in my workroom ceiling, and some UL listed powerstrips. This stuff is NOT available in any location in the immediate vicinity nor in Bahrain. There are a few NOS odds and ends in the Khobar souks, but that is diminishing.

You will NOT be seeing any 220v outlets extended to any area of the house for a while. They were using the hot and neutral legs to run 2 phases of 110v (110 x 2 = 220...sorta...in lay terms) to the outlets without any neutral. The 220-240v items available for purchase in town uses a single phase 240 hot, a neutral and a grounding conductor. This is not safe to operate on 220 without the neutral and the ground. Community Services and Utilities will be working up a plan to add circuits safely to houses using safe and listed transformers...but don't expect that to happen for quite a bit.

Many consumer electrical items are dual voltage. Most cellphone and laptop power supplies are. Our Sony TV is dual voltage as well as my wife's curling iron. Anything with a motor will NOT be dual voltage. You can figure this out by reading the data plate on the appliance.

There are lots of transformers and regulated power supplies available locally. I would suggest using listed devices that provide fan cooling for the transformer as part of the unit. The standalone transformers without fans used to step up the voltage tend to run quite hot, even at design wattage. That could lead to a house fire, or burn somebody accidently. Simple wall plug adaptors are only for dual voltage appliances.

Had I known that this would be an issue, I would have made some "improvements" to my machinery that I brought in to upgrade it to 220v...in appearance, but maybe not in reality...

ASC is aware of the issue. The notice that Canpeng received is the same that I got last week. They are using it as disclosure for those of you that have not shipped your items. I will let you all know the outcome of our experience. If I had the chance to make a few adjustments, my extra luggage would have been LOADED with appliances as they were not much concerned with that.

Best of luck to you all!

Thanks to everyone who's sharing thoughts on this, this is very helpfull, I will call the embassy this week and see what they have to say about that. By the way, the Employee Shipment Unit in Dahran was the original source of the information, if anyone wants to phone them up