HOUSTON -- After KHOU 11 News aired the story of a man who said a smart meter installation ruined his AC, many people have come forward to share similar stories.
It's been a long couple of weeks for a Sugar Land man who only wants to be identified as Mike.
This is basically the first thing I noticed. Just trouble, he said.
He said first it was the alarm, but things just keep going wrong, next was the thermostat.
Just all screwed up. Scrambled up, Mike said.
It was like a laundry list of home appliance disaster. He said his modem and computer were also malfunctioning. There was one thing in common with all of it.
It's just been one appliance after another, and it has all been since the smart meter has been here, Mike said.
Mike is not alone, Zach Foster said that a smart meter installation caused his AC unit to fail -- specifically the start capacitor.
Mike said he has an AC problem too.
Four or five years old, should not have been bad, had to replace both the starters on the compressor and the fan, he said.
One commenter on KHOU.com could sympathize:
I have had to replace the circuit boards on three appliances and a printer all less than three years old. This has cost over $1,500 so far.
Another Centerpoint customer complained online, saying, I cannot even turn on my air conditioner since the power flow is not reliable.
Centerpoint says that there have been about 500 complaints about smart meter installations here -- that's with 1.3 million installations so far.
There have been complaints about smart meters and appliance outages in North Carolina, California, Illinois, Florida, Virginia, Maine, and Texas.
In several of those locations smart meters are also being blamed for small fires and losses to some customers are in the tens of thousands of dollars.
One county in California recently passed a moratorium on the installation of smart meters because of the concerns.
