[Toybox] deobfuscation of electricity meters

[David Seikel]

On 2024-02-27 20:29:31, Rob Landley wrote:
> On 2/27/24 19:45, David Seikel wrote:
> > On 2024-02-27 19:37:39, Rob Landley wrote:
> >> "We put all the switches together in a common fusebox, it's down in the
> >> basement. If you want to control any lights in the house, go down there and read
> >> the labels, it's so much tidier that way."
> > 
> > Wait, your switches in the basement have labels?
> 
> Texas doesn't have a lot of basements. (Up near dallas that's because the clay
> expands and contracts significantly each time it rains, so the concrete slab is
> designed to kind of float on top of that. When I lived in the Austin hill
> country it's because we were on granite and you'd need drilling and dynamite.
> Downtown we _already_ flood regularly just on the surface, and for all I know we
> might have it all: ten feet of soil expansion on top of impenetrable bedrock,
> with a high water table.)
> 
> My house's circuit breakers are on an outside wall behind a large aggressive
> rosebush.

The basic problem is that the house has four addresses, on two streets,
in two suburbs, and that changes depending on which map you look at. 
There is only one actual building with the six units in it.

According to what I have found out the local city council assigns these
addresses, and while I was writing this sentence they called me back to
discuss this.  Seems I have uncovered a deeper problem that they have to
sort out now.

> > I wish the nine
> > electricity meters in my new home had labels.
> 
> I labeled them. When I moved in. It's a thing you can do yourself. (Helps to
> have two people working on it yelling stuff through a window.)

Doesn't help that there's six units here, and the occupants of two of
them don't speak English.

> > The electricity
> > distributor refused to tell me which is MY OWN meter for "privacy
> > reasons", and none of the electricity retailers know which is which.
> 
> Turn everything you can off, collect candidates, start your dryer and stove,
> collect candidates...

I came up with that idea, and so did one of the electricity companies. 
It didn't help.

Stove is gas, though my asthma would prefer electricity.  Laundry room is
shared, so the dryers and washers are on a different meter.

The meters are old style dumb meters, so the electricity companies
couldn't just look at their readings on their local computers.  Which
means you watch the big disk spin, see how fast it spins.  Some of the
meters are badly placed, can't see if the disk is spinning or not.

I wasted several days going over and over this with the electricity
companies and others.  This is why I've been trying to get to the source
of truth, since no one else knows.  Now, after speaking with the local
city council, the source of truth, even they don't know.  lol

-- 
A big old stinking pile of genius that no one wants
coz there are too many silver coated monkeys in the world.