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Update: Smart Meters still being Installed despite not be given consent by Homeowners

J529

By J529
in Off-Topic General

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ronthecivil Canucks First-Line

ronthecivil

Posted
Posted

Two things wrong with your question.

1st, smart meters are not hundreds of feet away from your home. Most, if not all, are attached to your house. It's possible that you could be sitting in your chair watching TV with the smart meter a few feet, maybe even a few inches from your head. Maybe that will do you no long term damage to your health. But maybe it will. Some people dont wanna be guinea pigs for that.

2nd, people do hold cell-phones to their heads for hours every week. But they do so voluntarily. With the smart meters, people who are opposed have no choice.

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trek Canucks Regular

trek

Posted
Posted

Smart meters run on the 900MHz (cordless phones from the late 80s and 90s) and 2.4 GHz band (Wifi). People will be exposed to that type of RF pretty much anywhere they go whether it's in their own homes or in the city. If that was dangerous we'd all be screwed already.

Plus they only transmit periodically at less than 1W. That's nothing.

I like how a Baby monitor puts out almost 4x as much RF than the smart meters people are whining about.

http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/43EF885D-8211-4BCF-8FA9-0B34076CE364/0/452012AmendedReportonBCHydroSmartMeterMeasurements.pdf

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MadMonk Abbotsford Regular

MadMonk

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Two things wrong with your question.

1st, smart meters are not hundreds of feet away from your home. Most, if not all, are attached to your house. It's possible that you could be sitting in your chair watching TV with the smart meter a few feet, maybe even a few inches from your head. Maybe that will do you no long term damage to your health. But maybe it will. Some people dont wanna be guinea pigs for that.

2nd, people do hold cell-phones to their heads for hours every week. But they do so voluntarily. With the smart meters, people who are opposed have no choice.

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silverpig Canucks Prospect

silverpig

Posted
Posted

Two things wrong with your question.

1st, smart meters are not hundreds of feet away from your home. Most, if not all, are attached to your house. It's possible that you could be sitting in your chair watching TV with the smart meter a few feet, maybe even a few inches from your head. Maybe that will do you no long term damage to your health. But maybe it will. Some people dont wanna be guinea pigs for that.

2nd, people do hold cell-phones to their heads for hours every week. But they do so voluntarily. With the smart meters, people who are opposed have no choice.

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Wetcoaster Canucks First-Line

Wetcoaster

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Posted

Smart meters only transmit periodically, and at very low power levels. See the light bulb next to you? It's what, 60W if it's an incandescent, maybe 15W fluorescent? That's 15W of continual power output via radiation. How many do you have in your house? And you're worried about 1W from outside only occasionally?

Also, the radiation from light sources is much more energetic and potentially damaging to you than some RF.

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J529 Canucks Regular

J529

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http://www.timescolo...n-duped-1.65441

Smart-meter foes fume at Coleman; some say they've been duped

On the defensive and battered by a growing wave of critics, Energy Minister Rich Coleman closed the week trying to insist that he wasn’t forcing an unpopular smart-meter program on tens of thousands of unwilling and angry British Columbians.

But numerous B.C. Hydro customers — who say they have been pressured, tricked, ignored or otherwise forced to accept one of the new meters in the past few weeks — tell a different story.

Rae Dhesi opened the door of her South Vancouver home Tuesday to find an employee of Hydro subcontractor Corix Utilities.

“The fella was very nice and said he had to install the meter,” said Dhesi, a retired mother of two.

“I said, ‘I don’t want a smart meter. I’ve phoned [Hydro] and told them I don’t want it.’ ”

The installer explained Hydro’s new policy: Anyone who refuses a meter gets an in-person visit from a Hydro official to talk about their concerns. If the person can’t be swayed, Hydro and Coleman say, the company isn’t allowed to force installation.

Dhesi went inside to look after her children. Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door, but she said she was busy and didn’t answer it. Within five minutes, the installer had swapped out her meter and left, she said. She didn’t hear from the Crown corporation again.

Like some others, Dhesi said she’s worried about the health effects of the meters’ wireless technology, which transmits data to Hydro computers. She doesn’t want it near her children and is demanding her analogue meter back. Hydro, which has described the smart meters as a necessary modernization, has said it won’t return old meters.

Jim Downing also told Hydro he did not want a new device, even putting a sign on his Surrey home’s meter box. But when Corix installers arrived on Jan. 25, he said, only his girlfriend was home.

The installer told her it was mandatory and that she didn’t have a choice, he said. “So she said, ‘Oh well, OK.’ ”

Downing was furious: Corix took permission from someone who wasn’t even the registered customer, he said. “I was not too pleased, for sure.”

The same day Corix swapped Downing’s meter, the Times Colonist published an op-ed by Coleman saying Hydro would install the devices only with the customer’s consent.

The ensuing confusion over whether customers are able to opt out of the $1-billion smart-meter program prompted the B.C. NDP to call for a cooling-off period.

Coleman dismissed those concerns. “I think the only confusion [is] sometimes I wonder if people read stuff,” he told reporters Thursday, referring to his newspaper op-ed.

“It says very clearly we’re going back to talk to our customers, we’ll not force any customers to take the meter, we will install the ones after we talk to them and re-educate them.”

B.C. Hydro, he added, will “work with them in a respectful way.”

But that’s not good enough for people like Grace Kim, who are stuck with a device they specifically — and repeatedly — rejected.

The stay-at-home mom sent two letters to Hydro refusing a smart meter. Kim said she’s almost always home — except for that one moment in mid-January when Hydro arrived at her Vancouver house.

“I don’t want to fall into the conspiracy-theory category, but I do feel someone was checking on when I was home and installed it when I wasn’t,” she said.

Kim said she is trying to make the best choices for her children’s health, but Hydro hasn’t given her any choices other than a mandatory wireless meter on the outside wall of her children’s bedroom.

“All I’m saying is give us options,” she said.

Now Kim and others are zeroing in on Coleman, demanding answers as the May provincial election approaches.

“He threw that out there, that without consent you’re not going to get a smart meter,” Kim said.

“Well, I have a smart meter. So what are you going to do about it?”

Coleman did not return repeated requests for an interview.

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Buddhas Hand Canucks First-Line

Buddhas Hand

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Election Ploy. Nothing more. Government doesn't want to angry people with the upcoming Election, thus why they will back off until after the Election. This should be an Election Issue. There are Health, Privacy Issues associated with Smart Meters, but also each B.C. Resident should have the choice of whether they want a Smart Meter or not. Not having a dictatorship telling everyone that you must have one or else. Government has botched this worst then the HST. Regardless of who wins the election, I fear Smart Meters will still be forced on those who don't have one and don't want one.

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Wetcoaster Canucks First-Line

Wetcoaster

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They have been. By those that oppose smart meters.

Unless of course they oppose it because they object to a time of day billing. But you never really hear about that and even if it was done as much as they say it's not in the plans it would still be a good idea.

So even the worst case scenario helps the environment AND makes the province money. And don't worry BC, if the government flip flops and puts out a good idea you can always call up your buddy Vanderzalm to flim flam the populace into voting it down.

And we wonder why the rest of the country makes fun of us as being a bunch of high as a kite pie in the sky burnouts!

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