While we were waiting for the flooring we installed in our home to ‘acclimatize’ to the room it would be installed in we ended up being hit with a very unpleasant surprise that had us seriously considering returning the flooring for a refund instead. Last year we were told that like it or not our home along with the other homes in our area, were being equipped with Smart Meters.
Now, Smart Meters are apparently all the rage and every posting I’ve come across regarding them have been touting them as marvelous, wonderful, accurate and money saving little inventions. I had heard of people getting huge bills thanks to them however but when our billings remained stable, we assumed that we were doing a pretty decent job of conserving. Well, I’m here to tell you that if you combine Smart Meters with stupid people, you get problems…big ones, costly ones and ones that just don’t add up except for the Hydro Company involved. When installers put these meters in they somehow got our home and 3 others mixed up and apparently everyone was getting the wrong bills. For almost a year! Four months ago two neighbors started getting higher bills while two of us stayed pretty well average and didn’t alert us to any problems. Seems the meters were indeed hooked up incorrectly and now, with the adjustments which credits some neighbors with pretty good credits for more time than the meters were even installed for, two of us have gotten bills that are going back well over a year before the meters were even in use in the homes.
Our Smart meter has been ticking off the kilowatts like a banshee. We’re already up to well over 38,000 kws since late last year and since we received a wonderful $2849 bill that is adjusting our usage back to almost a year before the meters were actually installed, we are really worried that this time next month will see us installing a generator to take care of our energy needs instead and handing that poorly installed meter back to the Company. A day after getting the $2k+ bill we recieved another bill for the current billing period, a 2 month period or 64 days as it breaks down, which was $580.74!
Prior to the Smart meters our average bill was running around $200, which was in line with other homes of our size in square footage and family members. When we heard that smart meters were coming in we quickly decided to work even harder at conserving energy and purchased a houseful of energy efficient bulbs, throwing out all the lights we’d had prior in order to install these. We started using our dishwasher and dryer only after 10PM at night, washing in cold water only, using the oven only when we had to and began turning tv’s and computers off when not in use. We also have done a lot of sitting in the dark most nights which is fine with me, I prefer minimal lighting, and over all we were pretty certain we were doing what we could to conserve. We went and purchased a highly energy efficient dishwasher a few months ago and are in the process of purchasing a high energy efficient fridge as well.
Now, I’m really confused. Our meter is showing us averaging some months consumption of between 85 and 95.5 kws per day!!! I learned that houses that are in the high consumption range can become suspected of housing a Grow Operation, how nice! Apparently, such illegal antics are present if a home shows a consumption of 93kws per day. Well, unless someone has one of these stashed under their bed, there’s no such thing in our home, rest assured. The past two days our consumption has been between 34-48 kws without running the dishwasher, doing laundry, no one showering (ewww), lights off and tv’s on for about 4 hrs the entire day. We even had the fridge and stove unplugged for about 5 hours while we laid new flooring in the kitchen. Usually homes that operate at high capacity, or an average residence will use roughly 800 to perhaps 2000 kws a month high side. As we’d never consumed more than 1800 kws for any billing period since moving in here, suddenly consuming mid 3,000’s but more 5,000 and our highest 6,116 for a billing period…needless to say we are suspicious of something.
At this rate, by the time winter hits we’ll be up in the $7-800 a billing period range and it won’t surprise me if that is a conservative guesstimate. We are consuming approximately 1800 kws per billing period less than my husband’s industrial business consumes during the same time frame and they operate 16 hours per day running massive energy hog equipment. We’re also approx 2000 kws per billing period higher than another home that operates with little to no conservation techniques and includes 6 tv’s most of which are running all day and night, a 24/7 powering of an oxygen tank for an elderly person, several computers and 2 laptops and until recently was also operating a heater for a pool. The house also has a jacuzzi in two bathrooms and they do laundry daily using hot, warm and cool water and the entire family showers daily!
I’m stumped. Trying to purchase a Kill-a-watt or some such monitor to determine what our house is actually using on an appliance by appliance and usage basis is ridiculous as none of the stores we went to today even knew what it was! I’m looking at purchasing a T.E.D (The Energy Detective) system but first a friend knows someone who has an actual Hydro issued watt reader so hopefully we’ll be able to use that to try and determine what, if anything is happening in the house. My instincts are telling me though that it’s got nothing to do with our actual consumption.
While our house sits dark most nights in complete contrast three neighbors have homes that are highly lit at night and there doesn’t seem to be much concern on their parts that their bills are exhorbitant. Of course there shouldn’t be because their meters are running at snails paces and ours is out pacing them by at least three revolutions to their one. Our consumption is approx. 14,000kw over and above all of their meter readings put together yet of the four, we are the only ones that don’t have an outside air conditioning unit. Ours is a water fed unit that runs off the fan of our furnace. Yes, it still uses power but it certainly doesn’t push out the level of power that these gigantic back yard compressor units are doing. Yet, we are the only home that is sitting with our air off. It makes little sense right now and to be honest I’m rather concerned that we were going to have to move in order to solve this, that or hire a Lawyer to help us fight this. Why? Well it took over 4 months for the Hydro Company to even consider looking at the meters when other neighbors complained their bills had suddenly jumped a few hundred dollars over 4 months. They are now getting credits for back a year prior to the installation so I guess someone has to pay for the Installer’s and Hydro Company’s mistakes. At this time though it looks like our house is the only one that is worrying about the fact that our hydro consumption has jumped over 150%.
Now I’ve heard that a home equipped with Voip phone service could have problems with Smart Meter readings but haven’t been able to find any conclusive info on that. We do have Voip service which has been ’sick’ as well the past 4-5 months and particularly ill the past month or so, just after the hydro company investigated. Our Voip just dies, dead silence, then it comes back. Sometimes it won’t allow us to dial out and other times it will also take the person’s line whom we were talking to, hostage and they can’t use their phone either! Yesterday our PVR began causing our tv to black out intermittently which coincided with our phone going dead sporadically at the same time. Right now I’m not liking technology very much. So if you’ve ever heard of Voip-Smart Meter problems, now would be a great time to share.
We’ll have to see were this goes but I’m already packing in preparation for a move – just in case. Yes, this has me worried and ticked to be honest.
…and that’s what’s new on this side of the fence. Maybe my story has helped someone else have a brighter day 
Hope so, don’t forget to pass the Karma forward if it did.
