# will the smart meter send signal to hydro if we pull it out?



## Anathera (Feb 16, 2016)

Yup it usually sends an email to the on call guy and the homeowner or landlord will usually receive a visit or call the next day. In our case we pulled one in an emergency forgetting about the smart part and got a kind chewing out for it but we know our poco guys well and were not fined


----------



## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

After a half hour the NSA sends out a swat team to see why their surveillance is down as well.


----------



## dmxtothemax (Jun 15, 2010)

Help help !
I am being kid napped !


----------



## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

dmxtothemax said:


> Help help !
> I am being kid napped !
> 
> View attachment 89930


He never should have touched the meter.....poor guy...

Subjected to soap on a rope city...


----------



## A Little Short (Nov 11, 2010)

It depends on the POCO and how they have the meters set up. I know this is a Canaduh poster but I will just say what happens in my area.
One of the POCOs have the meters but don't use any of it's features just yet. They said they wanted to wait until all the "bugs" were worked out but wanted to have the meters in place when they do implement the features.

The other POCO uses some of the features such as remote meter reading and loss of power or partial power. So if we pull one of those meters a signal will be sent to the POCO office and they will dispatch a lineman.
If they find the meter was pulled they will get severely irritated and can fine whoever pulled it.


----------



## PlugsAndLights (Jan 19, 2016)

If disreputable electricians get caught pulling meters.....:vs_bananasplit::vs_bananasplit:
P&L


----------



## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

A Little Short said:


> It depends on the POCO and how they have the meters set up. I know this is a Canaduh poster but I will just say what happens in my area.
> One of the POCOs have the meters but don't use any of it's features just yet. They said they wanted to wait until all the "bugs" were worked out but wanted to have the meters in place when they do implement the features.
> 
> The other POCO uses some of the features such as remote meter reading and loss of power or partial power. So if we pull one of those meters a signal will be sent to the POCO office and they will dispatch a lineman.
> If they find the meter was pulled they will get severely irritated and can fine whoever pulled it.


There you go, giving the guy the glimmer of hope...........:whistling2:


----------



## spinninwheels (Oct 28, 2012)

I going from memory here, and granted this is BC, and on a Gulf Island. But if you have a permit pulled on the residence, and if you contacted BC Hydro in advance, you may get permission to pull meter. And of course that's for service change only. BC Hydro shows up later to reinstall smart meter.

Otherwise:no:


----------



## samgregger (Jan 23, 2013)

Pull meter, disconnect load side wiring, plug back in meter


----------



## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

samgregger said:


> Pull meter, disconnect load side wiring, plug back in meter



I think it's a futile issue.


----------



## sbrn33 (Mar 15, 2007)

mike883 said:


> back to the old days,my boss pull out the old analog meter to change the fuse panel for his customer, I believe some people do their side job in this way as well
> 
> now lots of house change to the smart meter, and i got question about that: if we pull out the smart meter, will the smart meter send a signal to the hydro, and the hydro send some people to the house to give us a fine?
> 
> anybody knows or have this kind of experience?


Do things right and pull a permit like you know you should.


----------



## oliquir (Jan 13, 2011)

our smartmeter was vandalized in our summer house (was pulled and then they trow it away ) we had to call hydro and police when we saw that it was missing, hydro never realized that it was pulled


----------



## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

oliquir said:


> our smartmeter was vandalized in our summer house (was pulled and then they trow it away ) we had to call hydro and police when we saw that it was missing, hydro never realized that it was pulled


Not using all the features sounds like a waste of money, not sure why they wouldn't as it defeats the purpose.


----------



## 99cents (Aug 20, 2012)

If I pulled a meter I may as well remove my ass right away because somebody's going to have it anyway.


----------



## mike883 (Mar 22, 2016)

thanks everybody


----------



## Voltron (Sep 14, 2012)

I've pulled lots of smart meters. Never had the po-co-police show up, not once.


----------



## Majewski (Jan 8, 2016)

I haven't seen or heard of poco showing up out here.....


----------



## WIsparky71 (Mar 7, 2015)

The poco will show up in our area. We don't pull meters, but when they come to disconnect for us, they have to call the office so they know they are going to be disconnecting. They claim they have caught a few ppl. On some service calls while I'm dealing with the 800 number and waiting for them to show up, I debate pulling the meter myself to see how fast they come running....


----------



## inetdog (Apr 13, 2016)

I don't see how a meter can send a signal (phone home) after it has been pulled. Nor how it could distinguish being pulled from a loss of power. 
But it certainly would stop sending a periodic signal indicating that it was working. (Also potentially useful for localizing power outages.)
Or it could fail to respond to a status request from the central computer.


----------



## GrayHair (Jan 14, 2013)

I worked with a lot of this type stuff, but not in this application. How often a meter reports is probably in the meter. The question is, what is the poco monitoring; IE: are they even looking for a "heatbeat" from each meter and in what time frame; once every 4, 6, 8, 12, etc hours?

Unless they're anal about meters being pulled, I doubt most of them monitor them closely. They may look for groups of missing meters and use polling to help locate the source of an outage.


----------



## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

GrayHair said:


> I worked with a lot of this type stuff, but not in this application. How often a meter reports is probably in the meter. The question is, what is the poco monitoring; IE: are they even looking for a "heatbeat" from each meter and in what time frame; once every 4, 6, 8, 12, etc hours?
> 
> Unless they're anal about meters being pulled, I doubt most of them monitor them closely. They may look for groups of missing meters and use polling to help locate the source of an outage.


I lean toward the thought that the POCO pays more attention in locations that theft is a significant problem.


----------



## Meadow (Jan 14, 2011)

It depends more on the POCO. Some haul ass when the signal comes in, others ignore it or don't have the resources to catch it. Wish all POCOs were the latter, makes emergency repair a heck of a lot easier and your business reputation remains in all others.


----------



## nbb (Jul 12, 2014)

sbrn33 said:


> Do things right and pull a permit like you know you should.


You forgot that you are on ET, and need to blame every mishap on the United States executive branch. I know this is general electric talk, but that doesn't stop anyone else from bringing their controversial talk BS here.


----------



## dmxtothemax (Jun 15, 2010)

I would tend to agree !
The technology is certainly there for them to detect such things,
but weather they want to, or do so, is another matter.


----------



## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

As said many times, a lot is going to depend on how the PoCo is set up. Some of the smart meters are communicating periodically once in a great while, some periodically more often, some only when polled (the PoCo sends out a request to the meter, it answers only when asked). Some, like mine, have a wireless network set up wherein your neighborhood has a little repeater node on a pole somewhere nearby, talking constantly to around a dozen or so smart meters on a relatively constant basis to update a memory log, then the PoCo network polls that node periodically to collect the data from that log or send signals (such as "Disconnect" or "Disable HVAC"). If you pull one of those, the network node knows right away, but the PoCo likely doesn't until their system talks to the node. But on some of THOSE, the node sets a "flag" that the network is looking for a lot more often, which is how they detect a downed line.

So bottom line, you will not know without asking and if you ask, they will scold you immediately. Pulling the meter under load can damage it. So in many cases you can just call and ask for a disconnect and they give the command to the meter, it immediately opens the contacts inside of it and then they tell you it's OK to remove the meter. When you are done, you call them and they turn it on again.


----------



## HackWork (Oct 2, 2009)

JRaef said:


> As said many times, a lot is going to depend on how the PoCo is set up. Some of the smart meters are communicating periodically once in a great while, some periodically more often, some only when polled (the PoCo sends out a request to the meter, it answers only when asked). Some, like mine, have a wireless network set up wherein your neighborhood has a little repeater node on a pole somewhere nearby, talking constantly to around a dozen or so smart meters on a relatively constant basis to update a memory log, then the PoCo network polls that node periodically to collect the data from that log or send signals (such as "Disconnect" or "Disable HVAC"). If you pull one of those, the network node knows right away, but the PoCo likely doesn't until their system talks to the node. But on some of THOSE, the node sets a "flag" that the network is looking for a lot more often, which is how they detect a downed line.
> 
> So bottom line, you will not know without asking and if you ask, they will scold you immediately. *Pulling the meter under load can damage it.* So in many cases you can just call and ask for a disconnect and they give the command to the meter, it immediately opens the contacts inside of it and then they tell you it's OK to remove the meter. When you are done, you call them and they turn it on again.


That's why you shut the main first.

Have you seen the PoCo call in to have the meter shut itself off before pulling it? They sure as hell don't do that around here.


----------



## MechanicalDVR (Dec 29, 2007)

nbb said:


> You forgot that you are on ET, and need to blame every mishap on the United States executive branch. I know this is general electric talk, but that doesn't stop anyone else from bringing their controversial talk BS here.


Oh aren't we a tad sensitive?


----------

