Lower Electric Bills With a Whole House Meter
Whole house meters have been available for a few years, but not many consumers know that much about them. A whole house meter is an ingenious device that tracks your energy usage, allowing you to have a better idea of how much electricity you are wasting or conserving. Installation is pretty straightforward--here is what to do. Does this Spark an idea?
Instructions
1. Remove the panel cover. If you have a large electrical panel, you should have someone available to help you remove the cover, as they can be quite heavy.
2. Locate the two feed lines coming into the panel. These will be connected to your main breaker and will be much larger than all of the other wires in the electric panel. Now, there are many different types of whole house meters, but the two most common either get plugged into an existing outlet or wired to a spare circuit breaker.
3. If you have a whole house meter that gets plugged into the wall receptacle, there should be one in close proximity to the electric panel. For this installation, clamp one of the supplied wired clamps over one of the feed legs, then secure the other clamp over the other feed wire. Now just plug the unit into the electrical outlet.
For a wired installation, follow the same instructions for connecting the clamps to the feed lines, then connect the black wire to a spare breaker (make sure it is OFF when connecting) and the white wire to the neutral bar.
4. Both units feature a remote monitor that you can keep anywhere in your home. It gets plugged into a regular receptacle and will keep track of your electric use. Some models will even calculate your electric bill in real time, so you'll know what your bill will be long before you get it in the mail.
Tags: plugged into, Bills With, Bills With Whole, Electric Bills, Electric Bills With, electric panel, feed lines