"Lost-In-Translation"
wrote in message
ink.net...
"Dan Hartung" wrote in message
...
Lost-In-Translation wrote:
Don't discount the power company either. We found, in
our area, that we
were experiencing "meter jumping" which was power
surges that made the
meters spin like a whirling dervish for a few
seconds!! Sure, it made
for
some higher power bills too.

Come to find out, the power company will "surge" the
lines as those
quick
surges will help burn off small branches that may be
laying across
wires.
It's a dirty trick, but they do it.

Sounds like an urban legend to me. Power surges will
stress the line
itself; at the right level it will heat up and stretch.
A stretched
power line is more dangerous.

I really wish it were, but in South Florida, where FPL has
a monopolistic
choke hold on millions of customers - it's exactly what
they do and they
admitted it on a local news story as a "necessary
maintenance proceedure"
and that the "average" customer would only experience
"pennies" added to
their power bills to accomplish this. They just didn't
say how many
"pennies" over time, 5? 10? 100? 1,000,000,000? Who
knows.

I've actually seen branches laying across utility lines in
my neighborhood
area, many lay they for a very long time then, for some
reason, they start
to burn and break off.


I challenge you to back that up with anything credible,
concerning the "surging" to burn stuff off the lines.

Second, you're purely guessing, IFF you really saw it, about
the reason/s for branches starting to burn. Personally, I
doubt you have seen that. Sorry. You'd eventually flash
into flame too with that much amperage available to you.
Pop