This morning at 9:00 AM when we were digging in the flowerbeds, a contractor crew was there looking for an issue. The neighborhood association has an electric meter that runs the sprinkler system. That is all it does, and the bill is always the minimum charge for delivery. The meter is typical 240 meter with two 120 volt legs. One leg went bad, but the sprinkler worked fine so we don't care. The problem is if the smart meter does not see both legs as active, it phones home and a trouble ticket is issued. They can't find the bad spot. So the first two guys were sitting there waiting on a real power company employee to show up and authorize a next step. His solution was to just change it to a 120 volt meter, and be done. But yet another guy had to show up to make the final determination. So I had three orange trucks in front of my house (no big deal) and 4 people on the payroll for the power company to make the decision and get it fixed up.
The association treasurer was there, and he is retired from the same company, so I figured they needed more supervision and joined in the group. I asked if I needed a shovel to lean on and they said it was unnecessary.
They think the issue is likely under part of my back yard, but no reason to mess with it. Of course I have my sprinkler system with pipes, french drains and 220 volts running to the water well. It looks like no digging will be needed.
