Safety in Your Home

It is important to ALWAYS practice safety when working near electricity. The electrical current running through your home is strong enough to cause serious injury, or even death.

There are four main types of injuries that can be caused by electricity in your home: electrocution (fatal), electric shock, burns, and falls.

Follow these safety tips to prevent electricity accidents in your home:

  • Inspect tools, power cords, and electrical fittings for damage or wear before to each use.
  • Repair or replace damaged equipment immediately.
  • Use cords or equipment that are rated for the level of amperage or wattage that you are using.
  • Always use the correct size fuse. Replacing a fuse with a larger one can cause excessive currents in the wiring and possibly start a fire.
  • Watch for unusually warm or hot outlets. These may be a sign that wiring is unsafe .
  • Make sure that exposed receptacle boxes are made of non-conductive materials.
  • Do not use outlets or cords that have exposed wiring.
  • Do not use power tools with the guards removed.
  • Do not block access to circuit breakers or fuse boxes.
  • Turn small appliances OFF before plugging them in.
  • Turn lights off before changing the bulbs.
  • Eliminate Octopus Connections

Outside Your Home

  • Watch for overhead electrical wires, including even your own house service, and avoid contact with them.
  • Watch for overhead lines when trimming trees and vacuuming your pool.
  • Have service wires disconnected or covered if your outside work brings you within range of overhead wires.
  • Always call before you dig on or around your property

Outage Safety Tips

Click here to read some Outage Safety Tips from ENWIN

For more safety information, visit the Electrical Safety Authority.

It is important to ALWAYS practice safety when working near electricity. The electrical current running through your home is strong enough to cause serious injury, or even death.

Smart Meters and Radio Frequency

About Smart Meters and Radiofrequency:

Smart meters are wireless digital electricity meters that are able to measure how much electricity is used by a customer and when it is used. The data is then sent over to ENWIN using radiofrequency electromagnetic fields to be stored and used for billing.  The smart meters communicate using radio signals similarly to an FM radio, television, and cell phone.

Smart meters are required by the Ontario Energy Board. They allow you to track your hourly usage online every day and see how much electricity you are using and when. This enables customers to make informed decisions about shifting use of major electric appliances, like clothes driers or electric stoves, to off-peak hours to save money. 

ENWIN’s mission is to provide safe and reliable energy and water services in a cost effective, sustainable manner.  

Therefore, we take safety seriously.  We have reviewed the scientific research on wireless technology. After decades of studies, health authorities have confirmed that there are no demonstrable health effects from exposure to low-level radio frequency signals. The smart meters operate at levels far below those that health authorities say are safe. 

Facts about ENWIN’s Smart Meters:

ENWIN smart meters using FlexNet from Sensus operate at around 900 MHz. These meters are used for residential and small commercial customers. The link below shows the exposure limits set by Health Canada at different frequencies. 

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-risks-safety/limits-human-exposure-radiofrequency-electromagnetic-energy-range-3-300.html#s2.2.2

Sensus meters transmit radio signals for a very small amount of time during a day with the typical meters transmitting data less than one second per day and 99.999% of smart meters transmitting data for less than one minute per day. 

Radio signal strength decreases exponentially with distance. So, at twice the distance from a meter, the signal level is reduced to just a quarter of the original level. This means that if you're 40 cm from the meter, the radio signal exposure drops to much less than 0.5% of Canadian exposure limits.

Your metal meter socket directs our meter's signals away from your home, and solid materials like the meter socket and wood or stucco of your walls also weakens radio waves.

Additional resources:

For more information on the safety of wireless technology please refer to the following links:

Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI)

Health Canada

World Health Organization

Government of Canada

Sensus

For any questions related to ENWIN, please contact our Technical Services department by emailing tsd@enwin.com or calling us at 519-251-7303