Twenty five yrs ago I had updated from 60 amp to 100 amp (small house) service. Even at 60 amp, I still had enough juice for a 1.5 ton central air/heat 30a fuse and three more fuses for the rest of the humble abode. Remodel required some moving and adding of outlets, so a rewire was in order to remove all the old cloth covered stuff and adding a bigger load center, more circuits with breakers.
Electrician pulled the permit, notified the utility for upgrading service, suspending service and ordering a new meter. Since the incoming wires off the telephone pole are different for 60 amp (three separate wires) from 100 amp (braided line) the utility linemen came out in a day and spliced into my service pipe. This requires the old 60 amp meter to be pulled out due to larger gauge incoming service.
Once the work was done, probably over 3 days, the electricians spliced the incoming service line at the top of the service drop, and jumped wires inside the meter box essentially bypassing for the absence of the meter…which is permitted while waiting for the utility to install the new meter. City inspector reviewed the work and signed off, even with no meter in the socket.
The utility company took their sweet, sweet time coming to replace the meter, I think it was 6 or 8 months until I was paying an electric bill again.
Ah the good old days when it was a steady 5¢ kWh.
