Things have been so crazy for me that I’m having a hard time hanging on! So let’s see, where to start!
Well, I guess one of the most incredible things is that I now host my own radio show – that’s tres cool. Something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time – even took courses in Broadcasting way back when and finally it’s all coming together.
Our Hydro Ottawa story has grown in length, almost a year now since we’ve been trying to get them to correct their Smart Meter errors – today, Jun 6/09 we decided that we’d been patient enough since Kim called us on March 16/09 to tell us she was going to put our request to have our account erradicated of the erroneous just shy of $3000 excess billing – we gave her 3 months to put this in front of her Supervisors but seems she didn’t quite have the time to give it any attention. Today we contacted our MPP office in Ottawa South, Lauren at that office has been an awesome help. She apparently sent a request to Ottawa Hydro May 20, 2009 to ask them to provide her with a follow up on the progress but she hadn’t heard anything back. Tsk, tsk…so she requested that we authorize her to deal with this situation again – thanks so much Lauren!!!
We fully expect Hydro Ottawa will want to move their tushies on this now – we’ve had roughly 6 months worth of billings that are about 2500kws lower than the old Smart meter was ringing up and given we’ve gone through the winter months with much less kws used than Hydro Ottawa’s defective Smart Meter was ringing up in Aug of 2008 when our home was pretty well as “turned off” as we could possibly get it without taking it off the grid completely – we are pretty certain that Lauren will work her magic and Hydro Ottawa will be trying to gouge someone else for their mistake somewhere along the way.
If you’re having billing issues with Hydro Ottawa stick with it because they certainly don’t have your best interest at heart – but utilize the avenues that will get you were you need to go – MPP, Media, Legal – whatever it takes – it’s money you deserve to fight for…and money they don’t deserve to have! If you think your Smart meter is reading ridiculously high – you’re probably right, particularly if you still have a 1st Generation meter with “known” motherboard malfunctions – don’t let Hydro Ottawa tell you they’re Smart meter is reading perfectly because they are fully aware of the motherboard issues and this is why they are currently introducing 2nd Generation meters….so call em up and get yourself a new meter if you have one from 2006-2007 – particularly if you are finding your hydro bills out of control.
My family took part in the Relay for Life in a small city this past weekend – the entire effort raised $305,000.00!!! That was so awesome. I was a little disappointed to see so few of my husband’s family out and active in this effort given that they have a mom, brother and sister in law who passed away from cancer – but next year I have a solution – I’ll just contact everyone – door to door and yank em out and get them up for even 1/2 an hour show up – least they can do right? My family drove 2 hours to get to the Relay – walked most of the night – then drove 2 hours back home so all I can say is I think anyone who lives just 10 minutes from the activities can give at least a 1/2 hour of their time for this great cause!
Well, that’s about it at this end – tons more I could add but apparently I have children who are fading away for lack of “instant” food 
so it’s out to the grocery store to ensure they keep up their strength – after all, they still need to clean their rooms!
Have a great day everyone – enjoy it to the fullest – like the Nickelback song – If today was your Last Day – you want to ensure you do it up right! I’ll try to get in here and update some tutorials and jewelry finds for you – schedules, schedules…have to learn how to work with those!
Take care,
Akaiya
It’s not only “Hydro Ottawa”
I had the guys out from Hydro one the other day. (Friday May 29th)
After a year of “high bills” after my “SMART meter” was installed,and being told that:
1>”there’s nothing wrong with the meter”
2>”Pay up or get disconnected”
2 guys showed up to “calibrate” and Check my smart meter.
After 1 1/2 hours in my laneway telling me how in over 20 years of testing meters, they never had one fail, (this is the good part) and if they did fail, they always slowed down, and the customer had been billed less than they were supposed to be.
They warned me again that if the meter was bad that I’d be back charged for the difference
They removed the meter, put on the test base, hooked up the devices and started the load tests.
First guy hooks it all up and gets second guy to verify proper hookup. The older guy had only tested a few of these new “Smart meters” so he had a second guy come along (a younger guy who had recently finished upgraded training on “Smart meters”) to verify his findings, so I could not “dispute his findings”.
I watched as they ran the tests
high load 30 a test 173.x%
lo load 3 amp test 173.x%
avg 173.x%
something MUST BE WRONG!! I’m being billed for 173% of my usage.
you should have seen the looks on their faces!
so they un-hook it all, then re hook it all again checking each step 2 times
run the test again
Same results, over 173.x%
So , they grab another meter, but made by another vender.
they hook this one up the same, checking each step 2 times.
ran the test, 100%, imagine that.
I have the “FIRST” smart meter (according to them) that has “EVER” done this.
They tried phoning their measurements canada guy, but got no response, from their rep, so they re-sealed it to my house.
I am in the process of launching my dispute, with measurements canada, and getting this resolved.
In the mean time I got my “TED” device, “the energy dectective” and have it monitoring the load inside my panel.
I looked at the Black and Decker power monitor from the big box stores first, it’s less expensive, but it only monitors the optical port of the meter, so if the meter’s bad you’ll never catch it with this one.
The meter is indeed currently billing me almost double what I am using.I knew this, but could not convince anyone at the hydro one billing office that their meter was faulty!
I’ll let you know how it all turns out.
>UPDATE<
Just got done at Measurements Canada.
made by Landis and Gyr a "focus" with 2.23 firmware for your reference..
My "smart meter" is really a slot machine.
They performed a wide variety of tests, and got different results, on all.
If we "unplugged" the meter, or the power went out, when it re-booted it came up with a different accuracy each time.
The first group of tests, right out of the box, came in at 128%
after reboot it was 135%
after reboot it was 119%
then 103%
There was some anectdotal evidence ,(unconfirmed officially) that there were "temperature related" issues with some earlier L&G meters, so we went further.
The inspector, subjected it to heating with a heat gun, without too much effort(within 10 seconds) I watched the percent rise by 17% to over 138% during the test, on the computer screen. The plastic was only slightly warm to the touch.
They chilled for about 5 minutes, and when we tested it it was now reading at 202%.
Holy crap shoot Batman..
They're writing their reports, I'll see them in a few days.
On an aside, they replaced my meter last Wednesday with a GE model, and I have only used 136Kw in a week, that's a far cry from the 4400Kw that they billed me for last month.. OUCH
Hi Kleinmeister thank you so much for your great information! You did an excellent job of your investigation including (and in particular) getting Measurements Canada involved. We discovered after the fact this is the route we should have followed and so we are still paying for kw usage that I think perhaps the birds in the tree across the street may have used as we could have easily powered all 4 houses on one billing being charged to our home alone
My understanding is that Toronto is now seeing problems with meters from the same manufacturer that Ottawa used initially. Hoping I can get my hands on the story that apparently was run in the TO Star. We’ve just notified the Ottawa Citizen of our little story since Hydro Ottawa credited and then tacked back on the defective meter charges.
You did a great job and I really appreciate your adding the value of it to this post. Thanks so much!! I’m sure we’ll see more of these unfortunate kinds of stories as these 1st gen meters continue to affect more people in the coming months.
Akaiya