There was a big surge in electricity account estimations for a number of yrs with claims there were not enough meter readers.
A friend had a farm property out in the Victorian hills and for something like 3 yrs, they estimated his electricity use. When they finally did do a meter reading, he had a backlog bill for a number of thousand $$ because their estimates were under what he was using ..... so he took them to court refusing to pay. The magistrate backed my friend saying it was the result of the power company not reading the meter and not the property owner ....... they quickly shifted to a max of 2 guestimate bills before an actual reading.
At our place in Mannum SA, they changed the meters and put in ones that billed at a time of day rate and sent the readings to the satellite so they didn't have to come and read the meter.
Not that long after that, the place burnt to the ground taking out my garage with all my new tools and equipment in it and our new to us motorhome and that set the house on fire when the full tank of diesel caught fire.
It was clearly evident, the fire started in the meterbox, the direction of the wind would not have allowed the fire to start where they initially claimed, the LFP batteries in the motorhome.
The investigating fire inspector tried to argue with me about LFP batteries not catching fire. I asked him if he had slept through training program on lithium battery fires and he got very uppity, then I went on to tell him I was the authority that trained the SA fire forensic training officer, so I'm saying I'm right and you are wrong and you are just trying to avoid taking on SA Power because it is clear that is where the fire started .... refused to listen any more, got in his vehicle and drove off, leaving the Police fire inspector scratching his head asking what was going to be the reported cause of the fire.
I showed him the evidence, showed him in a Google search that I knew what I was talking about regarding LFP batteries, he agreed that all the signs pointed to the fire starting in the meter box ..... the fire report came back as "Cause unknown"
The insurance forensic investigator came out, tried a load of nonsense about where the meter box was located and the fire couldn't have started there. When I asked him to explain what lead him to believe that was the position of the meter box, he came out with a dot matrix blown up copy from a news report
I kid you not
When I showed him the silhouette or where the meter box actually was, that there was no sign of any meters, wiring or fuse or switches in the box, that was how hot it got, yet the wind was near gale-force as it came across river and the next door neighbours video showed that, the position of the fuel tank on the house side of the motorhome, the batteries right in front of the timber wall that separated the two, yet the 3mm aluminium plates that were used to strap the batteries was still in tacked, yet nothing was left inside the meter box .... his findings, cause unknown ......
The electricity mobs have so much political power, no one in the legal investigation side of things are willing to take them on ........ So what is the alternative, besides going off grid and supplying your own energy needs ...... Doable over here, but I doubt its doable over there ....
T1 Terry
