1) From a member who was forced to take a smeter – as many are having to do to avoid facing huge charges and/or loss of power. Notice – problems with his dryer. Coincidence? Has anyone else had similar problems? If you have a smeter with or without the transmitter turned off, pay attention to it. If it gets warm to the touch or has water inside, or if you notice unusual electrical things like lights flickering, call BC Hydro/FortisBC emergency line ASAP. People who have had fires have noticed this sort of thing in the days before the fire.
BC Hydro Emergency 1-888-769-3766
FortisBC Emergency 1-866-436-7847
We were able to keep our analog meter until yesterday Dec. 14 2016. We have had several contacts from BC Hydro in the past trying to tell us we had to accept the Smart meter or be cut off. In the past we had managed to keep stalling them off and had an analog installed last year but it was near expiration. We had been told it expires this month and had to be replaced. There were no options left, it would be a smart meter.
Our meter was located on the side of our house at eye level where we had to walk past every time coming and going from our house. It was only about 18 inches from our head so we decided to have our meter base relocated to a pole in our yard about 100 feet from the house. This was quite expensive but gives us a little piece of mind.
Today we tried using our electric clothes dryer and the control panel on it will not allow us to adjust drying time and some other features. The dryer is just 5 years old and has never had a problem until the first use after Smart meter installation. This may be just coincidence or is it smart meter related? Have you heard of any other similar problems after smart meter installation ?
We are still 100% opposed to smart meters. Thanks again for all the help and support.
If anyone else has had similar problems, please email me at:
dsnoble@shaw.ca with “problems” on the subject line.
2) Below is a letter from an Electrical Engineer in the US who has been warning about the dangers of smeters, having taken an ITRON apart, and confirmed many design flaws, as a result of the utility cutting power due to a hot smeter.
3) Site C is unnecessary, expensive and is being pushed by the Liberals which, according to one of the people who is most knowledgeable about the project, is a dereliction of duty. The YouTube embedded in this article should be shared widely. It is less than 5 minutes long. Please put this on your facebooks and tweet it.
https://www.desmog.ca/2016/11/02/case-vanishing-site-c-video
4) In Saskatchewan, the 10 (only 10) that failed and resulted in a
total recall, met required standards but, as the President of the utility acknowledges, the standard was not good enough to protect the public.
In BC, we still have dangerous ITRON smeters and they may satisfy the old standards, too – but even the newer standards, e.g. UL certification in the US, does not mean they are safe. A couple of the very same smeters that burned and caused fires in the US were certified by UL. BC Hydro will not acknowledge this.
Jessica McDonald Jessica.mcdonald@bchydro.com, CEO of BC Hydro, should be so honest. She could learn a thing or 2 from a man of integrity.
“I said at the end of 2014 that it was unacceptable how 10 of the more than 100,000 installed smart meters failed. We value the confidence you have in SaskPower as your power provider, and we learned much from that experience. SaskPower will not compromise on safety. At the time, our meters met the industry standard. This meant one thing: the standard was unacceptable. We’ve since worked with our peers across the industry to create a new Canadian standard for smart meter safety and performance. Any new meter we take forward will need to meet this new benchmark, along with the extra testing and due diligence that goes with it, including failing in an entirely safe manner if the meter stops working. In the coming years, we will continue to rigorously test meters before formally seeking approval from our Board and before coming back to our clients.”
5) In the UK, concerns continue about the “$tupid” program, and whether the technology will be obsolete by the time they finish, and if there will be any benefits.
“Ferris added that he is skeptical about the potential benefits to consumers smart meters will bring, as government is “still using quite optimistic assessments compared to other countries”.
6) Do we really need driverless cars? Didn’t they used to call those “trains”?
“Take, for instance, the “safety” benefits of self-driving cars that include avoiding tens of thousands of highway deaths each year. The truth is, no one knows for sure how many lives could be saved by driverless cars, because data on the role of human error in crashes is incomplete and misleading, relying heavily on self-reporting. The types of accidents we’ll face in this automated future, in which these cars are meant to run together in proximity at high speed, may be fewer, but they’ll be new, different, unpredictable and, on occasion, larger and more grisly than the ones we know today.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/opinion/google-wants-driverless-cars-but-do-we.html?_r=0
Letters:
From: X
Sent: December 16, 2016
Subject: Here are my comments — Re: Somebody with Facebook acct please comment!!!
The comment here from Consumer Energy is very informative. I am an electrical engineer of over 30 years experience and have direct experience with these meters and similar products. I have taken a couple of these meters apart and know how they were engineered and manufactured.
Yet again another AMI meter is involved. The utility companies are not telling the whole story, surprised? I am not at all surprised. The AMI meters were rolled out to the nation everywhere with very unsafe install practices. Most of these meters were installed “Hot” without the safety practice to have the homeowner turn off the inside breaker first. At the meter box they insert the two top pair of tabs first (incoming power), then engage the bottom two tabs (to inside house power). If the customer does not have their main breaker off, as they approach the lower contacts in the meter box a small spark occurs resulting in pitted and brunt contacts inside the meter box and the meter tabs themselves. There are also times when as the result of metal fatigue the clamps that engage the meter tabs do not have adequate gripping force as if when new. The utilities say this is a customer problem.
What?
Did the utility take any precautions prior to installing the new meter? There is a tool to check the quality of the insertion force, but in Michigan they have never used one. So, if your house burns down it is all your fault because you did not sit at home for many days and wait for the utility worker to show up, for you to obtain a tool to check the insertion forces, or buy and have an electrician install a new meter box waiting for the utility man to show up. These AMI meters (all of them) are fire hazards.
When the utility suddenly shows up and removes a meter like was done here it is because they do not want any negative publicity, not because they want to protect the customer.
” We found that around the base of the meter there was evidence of burn marks,” Consumers spokesperson Debra Dodd said.” Of course there was, the meter was internally melting due to heat from the poor install practice manifesting itself or an internal meter quality defect or a fatigued jaw grip. They know the meter stopped transmitting the RF signal, not that they knew there was an overload condition. They really cannot tell that and if there was a higher than normal load from inside the house the main breaker at the breaker panel would have tripped before there was a problem. That is how you can tell they are not telling the whole story.
I applaud the electrical contractor for being so fast to help . Consumer Energy was only acting to protect themselves, not the customer. If Consumers Energy was concerned about the customer they would have rejected the AMI meters from being suitable to be installed next to flammable materials such as house siding. Consider this, where have high voltage, AC, high current 200 AMPS power devices be directly controlled by a circuit board in the extremes of temperatures of winter and summer across the entire world without a single fuse in the design. None, only these AMI meters are. We all have electronics in our cars that are exposed to these extremes, but this is all DC fused circuits. If our car circuit boards short out it trips the fuse. The car may not work, but it did not set you on fire while driving it.
The old analog meters lasted 30-50 years and never burned down a house, they had no electronics in them and could survive the extremes of our weather.
These meters are not saving anyone any power, in fact they cost you money to run them, that you pay for. All these meters are increasing the demands on the power grid. The old meters did not cost anyone anything to run.
The only way the AMI meter will save power is the imposition (forced) Time of Use rates at 4 to 8 times the normal power rates from about 11 AM to 8 PM that will force you to turn off your power because it will bankrupt you, not any altruistic thoughts that because you can see your usage real time that you will do this. The utilities know that if you are a senior citizen you have no choice in the matter because you are home more than working families. This is discrimination of a very insidious type.
We as consumers are getting railroaded to further emptying our bank accounts and enriching the coffers of the utility. You really think the energy companies are trying to save the planet? No way that is happening.
Sincerely,
X
http://www.wnem.com/clip/12964065/electric-company-restores-familys-power-for-free
(click on play symbol below video – it takes a few seconds to start, first an ad, then the news clip)