What are smart meters?

Smart meters are a type of meter that can be used to measure your electric, gas or water usage.

The utility companies main argument for installing smart meters is that they save them money because they no longer have to employ people to go out and read your meter. The downside is your health is put at risk! They pose a risk to you and your family because they use wireless or another form of electromagnetic field technology to transmit your consumption data.  There is also an infringement of privacy issue.

Photo via Wikipeadia

Why Smart Meter’s Are Dangerous

Smart meters are a part of an overall system that includes, where wireless is the means of transmission, a series of wireless antennas at the neighborhood level. The system collects and transmits wireless information from all the smart meters in your area and sends it back to the utility company. They do so by using microwaves or radio frequency radiation, just like your cell phone or wireless router at home.

A smart meter produces microwave non-ionizing radiation that penetrates the walls of your home and into your home 24/7, 365 days. The utility companies argue that because the radiation being emitted is non-ionizing that it’s safe.

It’s not safe. Numerous studies point to the adverse biological effects associated with the non-ionizing radiation used by smart meters.

Is Smart Meter Radiation Worse Than Cell Phone Radiation?

Daniel Hirsch, a lecturer and expert in nuclear policy at University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), has written a report that reveals smart meters emit 160 times more cumulative whole body exposure than cell phones. He states that:

“the cumulative whole body exposure from a Smart Meter at 3 feet appears to be approximately two orders of magnitude higher than that of a cell phone, rather than two orders of magnitude lower.”

The big difference between smart meter radiation and cell phone radiation is that having a cell phone or not is a matter of personal choice, if you don’t want a cell phone you don’t buy one. Smart meters, on the other hand, are being forced on populations around the globe.

If you are suffering from insomnia, dizziness, headaches, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, memory loss, lack of energy, tinnitus (ringing in ears) and lack of concentration, it could be the direct result of the smart meter that’s installed in your home.

2 Minutes Exposure To Smart Meter Radiation Changes Your Blood

At a distance of 1 foot from the smart meter, with just 2 minutes exposure time, the difference in blood samples between people that have been exposed to smart meter radiation and those that haven’t been exposed is remarkable.

See this video:

Smart meters are not optional, and utilities are installing them even when occupants don’t want them.

What’s The Difference Between Smart Meters And Conventional Meters?

1. Typically  smart meters send information back to the utility company via a wireless signal. Instead of having a utility meter man (or woman) come to your home and manually do the monthly electric or water service reading, the reading is sent wirelessly. But it can also be sent via powerline networking which creates another form of EMF pollution as I will explain below.

2. Unlike the older analog meters that have a spinning dial smart meters usually have a digital display. I say ‘usually’ because appearances can be deceptive.

Warning Some Smart Meters Are Disguised As Analog Meters 

Some utility companies are now disguising smart meters to look like old style analog meters. I recently received this comment from one of my readers bringing this point to my attention:

“I wanted to tell you about my mother’s analog meter.  When you first look at it, you think it’s an analog because ……it has the old fashioned dials. But the electric co. put what’s called a “retrofit board” over the big disk and that’s what has the transmitter. “

So you need to have a means of determining whether your utility meter is a smart meter, which is what I’m going to explain, but first I want to talk about the wider context.

Why You Shouldn’t Rely On Information From Your Utility Company

You might think you have a smart meter installed but you are not sure. The logical thing to do is to give your utility company a call, right? This is not 100% reliable because:

• Your utility company can’t or won’t give you the information. They might refuse to give you the information or you might get simply get an employee who knows nothing about smart meters and EMFs.
• Increasingly the problem seems to be one the use of “plausible deniability.” If you ask the utility company kind of meter it is, they  reply ‘an analog’.  They will just not mention the fact that the analog meter has had a transmitting retrofit board attached to it.  They will also tell you (if they admit you have a smart meter) that it only transmits when the guy drives by in the truck and triggers the meter to read it.  What they don’t tell you about is all the other EMF that is generated 24/7.

Moral of the story: you can’t rely on the utility company for reliable information.

How To Know With 100% Certainty If Your Utility Meter Is A Smart Meter

There are 2 ways to know with 100% certainty whether your utility meter is a smart meter:

1. Call in an EMF consultant to take readings with an EMF meter.
2. Take readings yourself with an EMF meter.

Both approaches have their pros and cons. My preferred solution is to take my own EMF readings because it’s not difficult to do, the cost of buying an EMF meter will usually work out cheaper than getting in an EMF consultant and the advantage is you can use your meter over and over again, at work, with friends and family etc.

What You MUST Do Before Shielding

The starting point is to take readings with an EMF meter. Smart meters typically emit radio frequency radiation so you need to take readings with a type of EMF meter called a radio frequency (RF) meter. There are now several good, easy to use RF meters on the market suitable for measuring smart meter radiation. The Cornet ED88T is my recommendation for a good all round EMF meter, which allows you to also measure electric fields and magnetic fields. Read my review here.

You can easily check the amount of radiation your smart meter is emitting by using one of these radio frequency (RF) meters to measure the radiation levels. Document the reading with a video camcorder or take pictures as proof of the levels of RF radiation you’re being exposed to. This could help later in any dispute with your water, gas or power utility.

How To Shield Smart Meter Radiation

The golden rule with shielding is to have an RF meter on hand to take readings before and after shielding to ensure its effectiveness. DO NOT just blindly shield without taking readings not only could you be wasting your money you might make matters worse.

There are several ways you can shield with varying degrees of ease and effectiveness.

1. Install a smart meter guard to block the RF radiation emissions. This solution is fairly easy to apply, the guard just slips over your smart meter. The disadvantage is that it’s nearly impossible to shield 100% using this method. Smart meter guards fit on the top of the meter so inevitably there will be some leakage from the back.
2. Shield the wall behind the smart meter to prevent the smart meter radiation penetrating your home. There are several ways of doing this, shielding paint is one way. The disadvantage is that it requires quite a lot of decorating type work and it only shields the room the room where you have applied the shielding material. Also this solution can be combined with the installation of a smart meter guard.
3. Use a Faraday canopy to put a specially designed protective net over your bed to shield your sleeping area. The advantage here is that you can achieve near 100% shielding for where you sleep, which is the most important place to shield. The downside is the cost, Faraday canopies are not cheap.

One workaround to make the smart meter guard more effective is to have an electrician pull the meter off the wall, and then slide shielding foil behind it or cover with shielding paint behind the meter. This avoids doing major decoration work.

How Can I Shield My Smart Meter More Cheaply?

As the video above shows, aluminum foil shields well – but I’m sure if the RF meter is moved into different positions (taken out of the direct line trajectory) it will pick up radiation readings. Note: This video merely demonstrates the effectiveness of aluminum foil. This is NOT how to shield a building from the output of a smart meter, this set up would be more effective in shielding the street!

Another low cost shielding solution is to go down your local scrap yard and pick up an old Satellite TV dish (the bigger the better), this will give a nice parabolic shape on which you can stick your shielding material. Then cover with aluminum foil making sure you overlap and double fold the seams. Using an RF meter you can then move the dish into different positions (always positioning it between the smart meter and your home) checking your radiation readings inside your home to ascertain the position which offers optimum shielding.

This solution won’t be possible where your smart meter is installed on an outside wall of your living accommodation, in which case it will probably be necessary to shield the wall.

However you shield ALWAYS measure with an RF meter before and afterwards. If you don’t do this you’re running blind.

Your Smart Meter May Use Powerline Networking

So far we’ve focused on the radio frequency radiation issue because *typically smart meters send information back to the utility company via a wireless signal. But not all smart meters use wireless as a means of communication.

Some smart meters use ‘powerline networking’ or ‘broadband over power lines’ (BPL). That’s to say they use the electrical wiring to send back the data to the utility company.

Smart meters that function in this way do not emit a wireless signal but they introduce a form of electro-pollution on to your house wiring known as dirty electricity.

Smart Meters And Dirty Electricity

The other little know fact about smart meters is that typically they use switched mode power supply (SMPS). SMPS is supposed to offer better efficiency and reduced cost in conversion of electrical power. Unfortunately it is also responsible for creating ‘noise’ on house wiring, otherwise known as dirty electricity.

This is no small detail. So you may have a smart meter which is emitting radio frequency radiation and dirty electricity or it may just be emitting dirty electricity. For my recommendations on dealing with dirty electricity please click here.

What To Do If Your Utility Company Wants To Install A Smart Meter

If you don’t currently have a smart meter installed in your home but you find out your utility company is going to install one, there are several things you can do.  See this article for information on the steps you can take.

The World Health Organization has listed smart meter wireless radiation as a possible carcinogen. This means that your smart meter, that’s on all day and night-all throughout the year, can increase your risk of cancer and other diseases. It’s time to get informed and take appropriate measures to protect your loved ones. Take action now!

It is difficult to understand why are utility companies are so intent on installing wireless smart meters when smart meters could do just the same job but much more safely by being connected to a regular telephone line.