Re: A REAL Reason to Avoid a Smart Meter
Originally Posted by
AnnieS
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I thought there was a junction box in the pavement that has all the wiring going to each property. I assumed that the power company would open that box to switch off an individual property's electricity. Some properties have boxes outside mounted on their property afaik. Then others have those overhead wires. So if they cut you off how would they do it? A magic button with your house number in the local power station?
Annie - if you are in the UK you will have a supply coming into your house that goes into a terminating block called a cutout (or sometimes a "service head"). This will be located close to your meter so either inside your house or outside in one of those white boxes mounted on or in a wall that you mention. Within the cutout is a main fuse and it should be sealed with a security wire and a crimped seal. If you are "cut off" then they would remove the main fuse and insert a blank and re-seal the cutout. What this means is IF they can access that cutout they can cut you off BUT this is normally preceded by significant paperwork.
Nominally there is NO remote switching arrangement for an individual house supply - the electricity meter measures the consumption and that's all. It would be too expensive to add suitable switching to facilitate any form of remote cut off.
A further point - the "junction box" you refer to is a container buried at least 2ft underground. When the connection is originally made the join is done with live terminals. They are sealed and placed within the container and then a sand resin mixture is poured in which foams up and seals and waterproofs the connection. They then backfill and it's forgotten about!