My New House & Workshop

[Jim Oaks]

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The power to the shop has been off since spring. I started rewiring it but haven't finished it. I was cutting my grass and noticed my meter is gone. Why would the power company take me meter??

 

[Uncle Gump]

They seen zero usage?

separate bill from the home address that didn't get paid?

Someone stole it?

 

[Jim Oaks]

They put a clear cover on and a security tag.

 

[Bgunner]

A separate meter usually means a separate billing.

Maybe they like you and your shop power is free now?

 

[Curious Hound]

A separate meter usually means a separate billing.

Maybe they like you and your shop power is free now?

He's not getting power without the meter. It is in series in the circuit.

Jim, as others have said, each meter is a separate service and billed separately. When a service is discontinued, they often pull the meter as a means of disconnecting it. When you have your wiring ready, you will have to arrange for reconnection and billing. In many places, that requires passing an inspection. Not sure in your case since I believe you said there are no inspections there.

 

[sgtsandman]

Mighty neighborly of them to not contact you first to let you know they were pulling the meter....

 

[2drxploder]

They do it to make it more difficult to get power to said building without paying for it. Same goes for most municipalities and other utilities. Around here they recently started pulling water meters on empty houses because of theft. Gas usually gets a lock. A flared peice of 3/8 soft copper makes a nice tool to assist the gas company with a speedy removal of your lock. Water meters can easily be "jumped" with a small peice of pipe carefully cut and some rubber washers. We often have to do that to fill our drainage/vent systems for required testing on new buildings. I dont have any tips for electric meters.

 

[Curious Hound]

I dont have any tips for electric meters.

I do. But I'm not about to promote theft of electricity here.

 

[2drxploder]

Internet full of info. We pay a yearly fee to county on estimated water usage, water is relatively inexpensive and even if we tested 1000 buildings in a year, that would less than the minimum payed out. Gas ppl r just really slow here. If you get caught stealing, thats on you. Certainly not promoting it. Just sharing some info

 

[RustyShackleford94]

Sounds like a question for the power company. Also f**k that snake, i dont mind them if we can agree to stay away from each other but a snake in/on my door is going to be a dead snake.

 

[Jim Oaks]

I've done a lot of work inside my house. Unfortunately one of the problems I keep having is with my microwave. It's a new microwave and it will occasionally trip the breaker when I turn it on. It's a new microwave by itself on a new GFCI outlet on a new breaker box with a 20 amp breaker. I have no idea why it occasionally trips the breaker.

 

[Eddo Rogue]

Might be a hard start or something. I noticed CGFI's can be fickle when I plugged a full spectrum florescent aquarium light into one. Tripped it every time, but a regular outlet handled it no problem. Also new stuff is junk. I've had not much over 15amps trip a 20 amp breaker. Gotta leave more cushion these days. Which is tricky due to modern microwaves sucking major wattage...I usually nuke at 80% power setting or less...

 

[scotts90ranger]

I haven't heard of many love stories about GFI outlets or breakers... and with new electrical in my shop once it's there I'm sure I'll end up with a few...

 

[Roert42]

What are the specs on the microwave? What are you doing with it when it trips the breaker?

tripping the breaker is over current problem not a gfci problem.

Most breakers have to be drawing so many amps for so many seconds before they actually trip. So the higher the amps over the rating the quicker they trip. This is supposed to stop nuisance tripping on startup of power hungry equipment.

Like eddo said, try running it at a lower power and see what happens.

 

[franklin2]

I've done a lot of work inside my house. Unfortunately one of the problems I keep having is with my microwave. It's a new microwave and it will occasionally trip the breaker when I turn it on. It's a new microwave by itself on a new GFCI outlet on a new breaker box with a 20 amp breaker. I have no idea why it occasionally trips the breaker.

Is the breaker new? Sometimes they get weak when they get old. You could turn the main off and swap it out with another one and see if the problem goes away.