Electric Meter

The meter will be read from the office computers. No meter readers needed.

Electric fans. That would be more irony.

They'll shut off the AC all right if you have one of those things, and turn down your heat maybe if you have that, but they're not going to shut off the electricity at the meter to save AC for someone else.

My nephew wanted to be a meter reader when he grew up. This is going to hit him hard.

Even if we returned to your 1950s Utopia that never really existed, there are lots and lots of single people out there, of both genders.

No. My father made sure we lived without electricity until I was conceived.

(Actually, even in 1939 and 1946, my mother needed a her tubes blown open with compressed air before she could get pregnant. It's still a somewhat dangerous treatment, so I wonder how dangerous it was then.)

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul, But though we had plenty of money, there was nothing money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said "If you don't work, you die."

Do you really expect people to go outside to put a quarter in the meter?

Democrat, Republican, or Federalist. Democracy, Socialist, Communist, feudal. That is what government does. -- Doug

I don't have a photo, but the house I grew up in outside Detroit had the gas meter inside ca. 1960. My dad's house in the same area did up until we sold it a couple of years ago. They added a remote outside gauge on it 10 or 15 years ago. -- Doug

Around here, Dallas, Texas, we get to pay $2.19 a month for 11 years to pay for those meters. Aren't we blessed. -- Doug

I'm not surrendering control of my A/C or any appliance to some quasi government body (but I hope others do) but the code is here that there has to be an outside electrical disconnect for the A/C. The radio unit/thermostat gets installed in this box.

Apparently in Ontario they can't override your settings by more than 2 C which is 5 F and it can only be done during weekday "working" hours. Never at evening nights or weeknights. I still wouldn't sign up but the owners before did and I had the ultity remove the switch when they did a wire search for me.

Sometimes you can luck out when it's convenient for the utility to make a mutually beneficial infrastructure upgrade.

This sounds like a standard arrangement for houses without basements using K&T wiring. Service upgrades calling for a new meter often have it placed outside for purposes of reading (made obsolete by smart meters) and emergency service disconnect.

Quebec won't sell us cheap power. They prefer to sell to New York City and Boston at 7 times the price. Which is good. It means we subsidise that province less. Selling overpriced electricity is about the only thing Quebec does right.

Problem is when you buy cheap coal power from Ohio, you have to take the smog with it.

I've since moved away from that house so I cannot take a picture, but my last house had the gas meter inside. I suggest you travel to Philadelphia where you will see thousands of homes built that way. The gas meter reader used to come every month knocking on the back door. Natural gas was very common in Philly. My meter was located in the basement at the front of the house. Gas main is in the street. Some newer (1970's) houses were built with a glass block in the foundation and the meter behind it. That way the meter reader did not have to go inside, he could just look through the window.

If you need an address, I can tell you thousands of them. Entire streets full of row houses, all with meters inside. Some were build in the 1910 era, my house was built in 1948. Many others from many other years.

As for electric meters, I don't know of any in a house, but I do know of some inside industrial buildings. I can send you photos of that come Monday when I go back to work. I read them on the 25th of every month for our purposes, the electric company reads them at some other time.

I'll be darned. Learn something new every day.

Photo not needed there, Ed. I've seen indoor electric meters in commercial/industrial installations myself. Never in a house, though.

(rates are/will be tiered

Yeah, that was the pitch given by the politicians, it sounded pie in the sky, and in this area has proven to be so. Yes, rates are tiered, and some times they are cheaper than other times, but never cheaper than they were under the old flat rate. Possibly the midnight to 6:00 am may get close to the old all day rate, but watch out for the supper hour rate, you may be tempted to shut all power off at that time.

When my parents moved house in 1965, we lived there till 1975. I think both meters were indoors. The "new house", also in a Rochester NY suburb, has gas and electric meters indoors. Both in the cellar. Many of the houses near me have meters in the cellar.

Baltimore County, I have, I think there has to be an outsdie disconnect, but they wired the switch into the compressor wiring. I guess that enables them to switch off only the low voltage control circuit.

Apparently here they almost never use the things, or so they say, but they are planning for occasions when they will. And when they do, they're supposed to just do a rolling turn off of AC, a half hour?? and then on again; and on to some other people. I don't know if they correlate that with a numeric temperature change or not.