Smart Meter,Please

POTD Award for being the most sensible and rational post in awhile.

I agree..............

After they kicked in my privacy fence and read my old meter then left it wired so loosely closed that my Dane could have slipped through had she been out...I fought for a remote read meter! Meter and fence were here when we moved in but previous homeowner has no issue leaving a string outside the gate latch. I wouldn't bother with a gate if I wanted everyone strolling in but the electric company has the right to access their meter and I'm not eager to give up my electric service so this works well for both of us.

Doesn't anyone read their own meters? Been that way here for my whole life. Put the meter number on the bill, give them the check & the bill, get a new bill the next month.

They send a fella around maybe once a year to see if your reading is about right. I'd suppose if you came up with odd low readings you'd get a visit....

--->Paul

That's the way we did ours for many years.....they'd send an envelope full of pre-printed post cards with the 5 "dials" on them, we'd mark the position of the little arm on the dial, and mail it in. Once a year or so, they'd show up to confirm. That finally stopped about 10 years ago when they put in a radio meter, but the meter reader still had to ride around with a hand held unit stuck out the window to get it.

I have never ever read my own meter. And for many years from 1950 to 1975 I lived with my grandparents, and never once even back in the 50', 60's or even into the 70's never read our own meters in my area.
Even as far back as I can remember even having a "Smart Meter" back in 1977.
That one was electronically set so that at night I would get a lower rate then during the daytime. It was so "Peak Hours" would be better off for those that really need to use a lot of power.
So washing clothes using the clothes drier, washing dishes etc. took place after 8 PM. I would get a lower rate because I was off Peak hours~!~
So this smart meter stuff is nothing new and I have enjoyed those kind of smart meters since way back in the day LOL

I asked dh about the 240/120 thing. He said it would be possible but only if the meter had a shut down mode which would break the circuit on one leg. He said that any meter that could do that would have to be pretty big. And it would probably have to be shut down manually. He said they can currently do that with some transformers but those are very few.

I had read that the electric company would be able to limit your usage to 120 in several articles and had seen a news broadcast which said the same thing. Apparently I wasn't understanding the limit thing correctly.

Dh also said that anyone with electrical system knowledge could install an override switch so that if needed any appliance the electric company did have a shut-off on could be bypassed if necessary.

I know my old dial meter is inaccurate. If you shut off all the power to the house it still spins for a couple hours. Electric co keeps saying that is normal and since the meter still works they won't replace it. Funny how the meter stops after a total shut off at my other properties.

ETA: I would love to have remote read meters. It would keep the meter reader from walking through my flower beds in the winter. I don't want a meter that gives my usage by the hour or talks to the electric co.

I know how to read the meter and do every time I get my bill. But AEP doesn't trust customers to be capable of reading their own meters.

i'm going out on a limb and say a meter is a meter and is not a contactor (switch). you can imagine there is a switch in there if you like....

i've seen services that allowed the power company to shut down water heaters(they offered $discounts to allow this) it was a contactor activated by a signal ridding piggy back on the 60 cyc sine wave.
(x-10 type technology). The contactor was in a box (and filled the box) about the size of a shoe box.

IF one leg of your 240volt feed WERE dropped....half the lights and recpetables would be dead, what would happen to your oven, water heater, 240 volt ac, 240 well pump? i don't think so.....

If you're into tinfoil... here's some food for thought:

There is a huge movement AGAINST smart meters because, they say, by allowing your power company to put one on your house, you are giving "implied consent" to things you don't know about.

Do a search on "are smart meters surveillance devices" (or something similar) and see how many results you get.

Here's a vid:

I don't know if there's any truth in this, but I have enough DIStrust in our govt that I never give them the benefit of the doubt, anymore.

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"
I don't know if there's any truth in this, but I have enough DIStrust in our govt that I never give them the benefit of the doubt, anymore."

well, i agree. our government being a Representative not a pure democracy by design has to eye kept on it.

the problem is that it is not our electrical power to control as we see fit. if power companies want to (are forced to) they can brown out or blackout. I guess you are right as technology increases (smart house) appliances could indeed communicate with the power companies.

but the technology is not in the meter(new or not smart or not) to control certain loads.

looks like some here think they have control over equipment they don't own and over power they don't produce. perhaps we all need to look at solar strong and start making lifestyle changes. all though i disagree with the particulars in this thread, i think that in the future all power (gas, oil, electricity) will be a burden for us mortal men to afford.

Hey!! That's quite enough of you contributing to this thread in a logical, and technically correct manner. Now, put yer' foil back on, like the rest of us, and stop thinking rationally..........

Back in the early 70's, we had a barn with a meter... we rarely used the lights there. We had to read the meters and send in the info. Pop got into a tight spot, trying to raise us all, and took on two jobs (24/7/365 for two years straight), and just 'wrote in' some numbers on the barn meter, never checking it. Few years later, power company came out, saw the numbers were off, and assumed it'd rolled over, of course it hadn't. Pop had like two months of wages he had to pay for that stupid meter. His fault, took it like a man, and paid it... Meter was removed, though, the next day!

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Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

sorry,,,,,

He's our reader ,
He's our reader ,
He's the one that reads our meter ! , lol , fordy

Do some research on "advanced metering infrastructure".
http://www.certicom.com/index.php/ce...ility-industry
And "home area network technology" and "smart appliances".
http://www.aham.org/ht/a/GetDocumentAction/i/50696

After reading all this stuff I really want to invest in a whole house solar powered system.

Seems to me the 240 appliances I use run on just a single leg. The breakers are 2-pole single throw breakers--from the water heater, dryer, range, to the welder I set up last summer. I don't think I've ever seen a breaker that fed from both poles. An electrician would be in a better position than me to comment on that.
I like our remote meters, means less folks coming onto our place to see all of my top secret preparations and, in a stroke of espionage genius, taking all of that intelligence back to all of those secret government agencies, in coordination with the "new world order" folks working as minions for the Gorlocks coming in Dec. 2012, in an effort to neutralize my defenses and aid in the confiscation of my excess garden produce and the extra jars of preserved bananer peppers I've hoarded due to greed and unwillingness to give my fair share to those unable to provide their own green beans and pickled bananer peppers. Oooohh getting dizzy, must sit down.

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The modern service/breaker panel for home use has 3 connections, typically. Two hot, and a neutral thats tied to ground. The panel has slots for the breakers. If you take off the plastic face of the breaker, you'll see that the connections on each side alternate between the two poles. If you span two poles, you get 240 volts. If you connect from one pole/breaker to the neutral, you get 110V.

If you drop one pole, all 240v loads will be disabled. 1/2 of the 110v loads will be disabled as well, unless you set them all up on the non-controlled pole.

Its highly unlikely anyone has 3phase into their home, but if you do, the panel has 3 alternating poles. 208/220v between any two poles, and 110v from one pole to neutral. With 3phase, you drop 2 poles to stop power.

There's differences in electronic meters, as mentioned. Not all of them can control loads. Most of the electronic meters are put in so they can do remote reading. Some do time of day billing. Some can do everything like drop your AC if the power company doesn't have enough power for everyone. I think its a good idea... better to have no AC for max of 4 hours, rather than brownout/blackout for who knows how long.

Michael

a center tapped distribution transformer owned by your power company (barrel on a pole thing for those of us in country). has a secondary winding with a center tap that is (usually) a grounded neutral , wire run through the meter box to your breaker paned to a neutral terminal strip. each end of this secondary winding yields 120 volts ac, but 180 degrees out of phase with each other. L1 and L2. these wires run into the meter box and through the meter,continue on to the two back planes in your panel box . the planes have alternating terminal lugs. as single pole breakers are installed in the panel, they contact one plane or the other, supplying a circuit with one leg of power (120 volts as measured to the grounded neutral). if a two pole breaker is installed, it contacts two terminal lugs, one fed from L1 one, fed from L2, opposite polarity, total voltage (rms) of 240 or so. single pole breakers look like a single toggle switch....dual breakers are nothing but two singles riveted (in most cases) together and with their toggles mechanically interlocked with a connecting bar...so that if one breaker tripps, it opens the the other breaker. a two pole breaker is two breakers mechanically connected. every 240 volt circuit in, your house(single phase as opposed to three phased used in industry) has then . one for the 230 or 240 pump, one for the water heater, one for the oven, and if 240, your ac..

"There's differences in electronic meters, as mentioned. Not all of them can control loads. Most of the electronic meters are put in so they can do remote reading. Some do time of day billing. Some can do everything like drop your AC if the power company doesn't have enough power for everyone. I think its a good idea... better to have no AC for max of 4 hours, rather than brownout/blackout for who knows how long."

there would have to be a separate contactor on the ac circuit to be able to do that......the meter alone is not capable. unless....the ac unit has a control circuit that is carrier wave controlled.......did anyone here purchase an ac unit so equipped? i don't have central ac.....

I was in Military Radar and If I remember right, RF is nearly everywhere, covering the entire frequency spectrum, at various power output levels.

Assuming it even uses RF transmission (some dont, they modulate the power line itself), Smart meters RF power output is usually 1 watt or less.

In the home, TV's, lights, microwaves, anything with a transformer in it (which is nearly everything) emits RF radation, at various levels. Cordless phones, can emit 5 watts or more, of RF enegy.

If your Relative uses a cell phone, they can output up to 2 watts, or double the output, of a smart meter and they transmit right next to the brain..

I have not seen any data to substantiate, that a smart meter is any worse than other RF sources.

Live a day and learn a lot. That's what makes this site so great. So, even though the breakers may be installed on one side of the panel, the bus itself alternates so that every other position is on an opposite feed, meaning a two pole breaker is indeed connected to each feed.

I still don't believe that the smart meters are installed as a government experiment to suck out our thoughts and plant messages into our brains. Just makes more sense to use the water lines, since we get our heads much closer to the shower head than near the meter base.

__________________
"Only the rocks [and really embarassing moments] live forever"

"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands..." tick-tick-tick