Your New Smart Water Meter Grounding

Here is the Manual for the recent Boynton Beach Smart Meter Replacements:

Let us discuss the caution that is on Page 12 of the Users Guide.

Crystal Key Homeowners can find out more about how to access their building plans on this websites page https://thecrystalkey.info/building-plans/

Here is a red-lined markup of the Electrical Riser which is common for all three model homes.

You can find the pictures of the excavation of the original rod of my grounding system on this websites page https://thecrystalkey.info/house-on-fire/ . The attachment to the cold water plumbing could not be verified as the grounding wire in question went under the slab.

So how do you put a grounding strap on a plastic water meter body? Although we recommend a licensed electrician and plumber for this, let us see what the AI says:

Uh-oh! Who put that PVC line between the outlet of the water meter and the metal riser at the Point of Entry to these homes? Gee, did they not know that tap water is conductive? That is going to need a long jumper.

The conductivity of tap water is intermediate between PVC and metal plumbing.

Now also consider the Sensus i-PERL meter is magnetic and has an inductive coupling to the Smart Point that has a 9 volt lithium battery and a 2 watt antenna and we are going to need some expert advise on this. Do you think your water bill could be effected? Yea.

The plumbing and grounding is sufficiently complex so that direct measures of voltage differentials should be done to see what is needed to assure safety. With inductive currents involved you will need an analog voltmeter to compare to any digital voltmeter you may use. Too bad the i-PERL cannot monitor voltage differentials.

While an analog or mechanical opt-out meter will not solve all these problems, we must point out that both the i-PERL and the Smart Point have batteries, are inductively coupled and the Smart Point has an antenna that all increase the hazard unnecessarily.

We will be going to the City about these hazards and looking for a better opt-out deal.