OT Power Co Rant

[Amarillo Doug]

Anybody else have problems with their local power co.? The idiots that work at ours here in Amarillo pulled my meter instead of the one they were supposed to pull at the vacant house next door and now they want to charge me an $85.00 reconnect fee to correct their mistake! I am D****ed sure not paying it so I may end up buying a gen set LOL.Thanks for letting me Rant about it.
Doug

 

[Anonymous-0]

I just got a $130.00 power bill. $53.29 worth of power and the rest some kind of bulls!!! taxes. How many ways can they tax one dollar.

 

[Gene Davis (Ga.)]

Maybe you should think before going too far off the deep end. The powers that be at the local electric coop here usually are very sympathetic with righting a wrong. You can seldom generate power for the price that you can buy it for on the grid. You might be the loser in the long run because the power co will not miss 1 customer.

 

[AtlasHayCo]

I am so shocked with some of the people on this site.

OK I pay about 500-600 month to heat my house when it is cold (3 months worth) and a little less other months.


We also pay about 500$ a month for the last two months to heat a small water shed, 2 water buckets for horses, and everything else.

PlEASE EVERYONE COME WITH SOME more staggering bills at least. 139$ electric bill, That wouldn't cook our food.

I am going to put a wood boiler in this summer, and maybe a wind genset.... Something has to give for me.

I know we will have 1 less water bucket next year - Horses are gone!

 

[pdz180]

I have to admit, I am in South East Missouri and just went through a severe ice storm, was without power from Monday night until ealry Friday morning. Black River Coop did a heck of a job getting things restored and working with the customers. We live outside of town and it was tough just to access our road due to downed trees. Our winter bills are $60.00 (Excluding propane) and our summers are $120.00 I can"t comoplain.

 

[Amarillo Doug]

I have already talked to the main office and their response was "You should pay your bill on time" That went over like a lead balloon.I promptly informed the supervisor that I was talking to that 1.MY bill was current and 2 .it was the meter at the vacant house next door they were supposed to pull and 3. if they persisted in trying to charge me for their screwup they would be talking to my lawyer the charge was immediatly dropped.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Couple of heavy copper strips and an insulated pliers and you don"t need a meter!!!!

 

[Anonymous-0]

get rid of the useless horses and save the 1000!!!! and why heat water for them in the first place ????

 

[JoshuaGA]

If I counted our chicken houses, would $900-1000 in the winter and $1100-$1250 in the summer, for the chickens only, knock you off your chair, and thats commercial. Probably $1100 total in winter and $1300-$1400 in summer.

JoshuaGA

 

[flashback]

I am so darned stubborn that I wont fire up the propane heater this year. My electric bill went to 375$ last month when our son was here and stayed up all nite and had the TV on 24-7 plus more space heaters. Hope its down this month. Dec was only 250. Still beat adding $700 for propane during the winter.
They get no more of my money as long as the power is on. Jack

 

[paul]

I run a small farm, some cattle, here in southern MN for about $50-70 a month electric. The killer is fuel oil heat over winter.... But electric is pretty good & dependable around here, REA service. Don't remember the last time the power was out more than 15 minutes, been years.

(I saw with crossed fingers, it's minus 19 right now....)

--->Paul

 

[AtlasHayCo]

They don't have live hydrants. I drag out a hose 300' to a 150 Gallon Water tank.... We are below 0 degrees tonight. Without a heater coil I think It would be a solid block in about 30 minutes. Wind chill is supposed to be nearing 50 below tonight.

Useless and gone. The wife is realizing how much more fun we have together on 4 wheelers. Not to mention the utility uses.

Does anybody know what the horse attraction is all about?

MY MOTHER IN LAW boards 80 horses and has over 20 of her own - she doesn't REALLY ride.... That is like having a 50,000$ tractor that is never - ever used..... ARGHHH!

 

[Anonymous-0]

If you haven't already done it, you should call the power company back and ask to speak to the manager. If in fact it was their error, I would bet that the manager would both want to iron out the difficulty with a good customer and also to find out how his "customer service" people are handling their phone calls.

If that doesn't work, take your latest bill and a record of your canceled check to their office. Everyone makes mistakes; a good company will make theirs right. Good luck!

 

[Anonymous-0]

Call the power comissioner's office. The power company HATES to hear from them. Your meter problems will be over. They are like the power companies big brother. The ones who watch over the power companies. When they crack the whip , the power company jumps.

 

[tn terry t]

biggest problem we have around here is the lazy meter readers my mother has a circle drive it runs about 35 ft from the meter base the lazy jackledded pickerwoods wont even slow down then they go around the house and NO they dont have the auto readers bout every 6 months we have to give them a jacking up cause the bill is double triple what its supposed to be ive seen them pull cross ways my drive at the road which is about 100 ft away from the meter pull their little book out and sit there guess the reading

 

[IH2444]

My local REA has remote read meters. They read perodically over the power line back to a computer in their offices.
If a meter does not read it raises a flag and they will call you to see if you have power.
Much better service from the power company than the phone company.

 

[ChrisB]

(quoted from post at 09:44:37 02/20/08) My local REA has remote read meters. They read perodically over the power line back to a computer in their offices.
If a meter does not read it raises a flag and they will call you to see if you have power.
Much better service from the power company than the phone company.

Contrary to belief the no meters are read through the power lines. Long-short, there is no way for the signal to get past the transformers.

Most US meters are read by a truck driving along and reading the meter through radio communications.

 

[Anonymous-0]

(quoted from post at 21:03:36 02/19/08) get rid of the useless horses and save the 1000!!!! and why heat water for them in the first place ????

There's nothing like intelligent feedback....
And that was nothing like intelligent feedback....

 

[MN Scott]

Well our local coop is switching over to the new auto reader meters and they DO read over the power lines. I can show you the brocure they sent use explaining the process. We no longer have to report power outages because the computer in the home office senses when it loses contact with our meter. Also rural cable tv service is avaiable thru the electric power lines and they are considering high speed internet.

 

[ChrisB]

(quoted from post at 10:25:14 02/20/08) Well our local coop is switching over to the new auto reader meters and they DO read over the power lines. I can show you the brocure they sent use explaining the process. We no longer have to report power outages because the computer in the home office senses when it loses contact with our meter. Also rural cable tv service is avaiable thru the electric power lines and they are considering high speed internet.

Scott,

That is indeed new technology, but is done at that last mile (usually under 7200 volts) and collected in a central location (substation usually) not all the way back to the electrical company. Not many installs as of yet and is rare. Done in remote locations now for obvious reasons (fuel) but might be more common.

They use couplers at the transformers for the signal to transverse them. Transformers in simple forms are two coils with an air gap between them that no low voltage (meter reading or internet) can get across. Thus the need for couplers.

The idea of internet and TV across power lines have been around before internet and cable were common. Challenge is the largest power cable on a grid cannot carry the bandwidth that coaxial cable provides in any efficient manner. Cheaper to string a new coaxial cable (and now glass) then mess with power lines.

Cabletron (inventor of broadband over cable) look at both solutions but too many hurdles using the power grid and not enough bandwidth.

 

[Nancy Howell]

I would LOVE to have a $60 electric bill. We are s. of Dallas and have gas heat, but the electric bill still runs around $200 in the winter and over $300 in the summer. Our farm is in n.e. Tx and we have coop power there. House/farm is all electric. We took some vacation time over Christmas and were there about 3 weeks. Electric bill for the farm was $275 and we were there only 3 weeks. We set the thermostat at 68. Den has a fireplace, so we close the doors and crank up the fireplace to keep that room & kitchen warm and comfy. Use an electric blanket on the bed. Hate to think what it would be if we were there full time.

 

[Anonymous-0]

How dumb was that of them? Every meter has it's own number and would have thought they would check that for sure before pulling it? That IS their job! Dumb mistake on their part or dispatch and computer messed up giving them wrong meter number to pull and wrong location. No one wants to admit who messed up for fear of being FIRED !

 

[Anonymous-0]

MAN! Our electric bills are right at $75 year round! COuldn't imagine paying what some of you are saying you pay.

 

[Eric SEI]

Likewise, SEIREMC is almost done switching to reading meters over the power lines. They looked at offering internet but decided against it. At least 2 phone companies are now offering DSL in parts of their territory.

 

[dave guest]

It's a lotta work, but write a letter or at least an email. Something about the power of the pen. I just got 2 months free phone service by complaining. Its harder to lose a letter or email than spoken word. Around Detroit people would go to flea market and buy another meter. Then plead ignorance. City is so messed up, I used to rent apartments to people, and I would turn on or get their power turned on and gas and phones. One time tenant didn't pay gas bill, Michcon dug up line in street without notifying me. I had to pay $600 to get gas back on. Lawyer said anywhere but Detroit he could help.