sweettractors
Advertiser
My electric company started about 1 1/2 years ago reading my electric meters from their central office. My bills seem to be getting higher. Is this accurate and how do they do that? Ken Sweet
They read my electric meter from Central Office
- Thread starter sweettractors
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Redbug
Veteran Member
Hi Ken...
About 3 years ago at our place they installed new meters that send out their readings via radio waves. All they do is drive along the road slowly with another meter in the truck and record the output. A lot better for me since our place is fenced with a gate and dogs in the compound. Before that, we always had to put the dogs in the pen when they called on meter reading day. Much more convenient for us. I can say that I have not seen any change in billing for us.
Remember...this has been a hotter than normal year and you are using more AC, than previous years. On my bill, it has a section where you can also compare the previous year's bill to that month. I always compare them and that let's me know if something is amiss. Or...maybe your neighbor has an extension cord buried to your house...
About 3 years ago at our place they installed new meters that send out their readings via radio waves. All they do is drive along the road slowly with another meter in the truck and record the output. A lot better for me since our place is fenced with a gate and dogs in the compound. Before that, we always had to put the dogs in the pen when they called on meter reading day. Much more convenient for us. I can say that I have not seen any change in billing for us.
Remember...this has been a hotter than normal year and you are using more AC, than previous years. On my bill, it has a section where you can also compare the previous year's bill to that month. I always compare them and that let's me know if something is amiss. Or...maybe your neighbor has an extension cord buried to your house...
I think there are a few utilities folks on here that could provide better answers, but in short they generally fire high frequency signals directly over the incoming power line...kind of like what DSL is to analog phones. These protocols are generally designed with abysmal security, so if your life was only worth a few bucks, you could probably monkey with it by inserting something upstream from your meter (not that you would, just an observation). My guess is that if there was anything at fault, it would be the meter itself.
We're having this very same discussion in a local forum, and it prompted me to look for some weather history. Turns out Ohio has a great site that provides historical records of a number of meteorological parameters. The daily average temperature, on average, of the summer of 2010 was four degrees higher than it was in 2009. This doesn't sound like that much, but when you consider that there's a marked difference in comfort between 77 and 81 degrees, you can see how A/C could be working overtime this year.
Edit: As Redbug says, there are actually two prevalent systems, one is a local radio transmitter that requires a driver to stroll the neighborhood. Since they told Ken they read it from the CO, i guessed the other was in use.
OP
sweettractors
Advertiser
They may be reading by radio waves, however, about 3 weeks ago, our power went out at the shop and I called in the outage. They got my meter # from me and told me exactly the time down to the minute and second it went off. In addition, she said she just ran a check and I had power coming to the meter and the problem was on my side of the meter. Upon further investigation, she was correct, I had a old "Pole top Disconnect" that had lost electrical connection. How do they do that from the office? Ken Sweet
brin
Super Member
Ken, I am not with the power company and don't know except when we built our house 5 yrs. ago I had a discussion with our power company and asked for a meter that did not require them to enter our property since we have a gate that we keep closed and at that time they explained how it worked.. They can read that the power is going through to their meter and that tells them it has to be on your end and they can also read that you still have power to that meter again verifying that any problem is beyond their meter and somewhere in your circuits. Now that is what I recall...someone else may have more ..
dmccarty
Super Star Member
Our power company switched to a digital meter that is read by radio a few years ago. What really annoyed me is that we wanted this service when we built the house since the meter reader has to get past a gate and then go to the meter at the back of the house.
They had the equipment to read the meter remotely over the phone lines but they would require us to pay an extra $10 a month. Which we refused to do.
Eventually they put in the digital meter and all is well. Sure saves them some money.
My guess is that on Sweet's meter they knew power was up on the lines but they could not see his meter. So it was likely the problem was between the meter and the lines.
There is a local company that makes "smart meters" that has been hiring dozens and dozens of people. I get how the digital meter being read remotely is a good thing but other than that I don't see any advantage for us.
Our power bill has been the same with the analog and digital meters. I have tracked every power bill we have had since we moved into the house. This summer has been HOT for a LONG time. We had one record setting power bill for the summer but our highest bill was over our first winter.
Later,
Dan
They had the equipment to read the meter remotely over the phone lines but they would require us to pay an extra $10 a month. Which we refused to do.
Eventually they put in the digital meter and all is well. Sure saves them some money.
My guess is that on Sweet's meter they knew power was up on the lines but they could not see his meter. So it was likely the problem was between the meter and the lines.
There is a local company that makes "smart meters" that has been hiring dozens and dozens of people. I get how the digital meter being read remotely is a good thing but other than that I don't see any advantage for us.
Our power bill has been the same with the analog and digital meters. I have tracked every power bill we have had since we moved into the house. This summer has been HOT for a LONG time. We had one record setting power bill for the summer but our highest bill was over our first winter.
Later,
Dan
OP
sweettractors
Advertiser
Bird
Epic Contributor
The kind of meter reading Redbug mentioned has been around for a lot of years for both electric and water meters. Our town uses such for our water meters now. But the "smart meters" are another matter and are a bit newer and have gotten lots of publicity in Texas this year. The electric providers have been replacing the old meters with the smart meters and a lot of folks have complained to the Public Utilities Commisssion about getting higher bills and thinking the smart meters are defective.
So far, the testing I've read about in the news has concluded that most of the higher bills were the result of (1) hotter weather this summer and higher electricity usage or (2) installers recording the wrong numbers for the final reading on the old meters in which case customers were, in fact, overcharged.
They haven't gotten to us yet with the new smart meters.
So far, the testing I've read about in the news has concluded that most of the higher bills were the result of (1) hotter weather this summer and higher electricity usage or (2) installers recording the wrong numbers for the final reading on the old meters in which case customers were, in fact, overcharged.
They haven't gotten to us yet with the new smart meters.
You might call them to see if they have any historical information for you to look at. We have a dinky little co-op and they have a web site i can see all of our billing details for at least the last 12 months. You could check there to see how your usage compares from last year (at least as they have recorded).
I also wonder if they are fudging with 'power factor' calculations to make the numbers look different.
