Here's an interesting question posed to me recently by a freind that started getting over-sized electric bills. I actually witnessed the described symptoms myself, but couldn't come up with an answer for her off hand:
Situation: Pretty old housing tract, built in maybe late 50s or early 60s. Next door neighbor installs an AC unit in their house and suddenly the friends electric bills start to go up.
Symptom 1: When the neighbor's AC kicks on, friends lights dim.
Symptom 2: When the neighbor's AC kicks on, friends meter speeds up - visibly.
Now, the dimming lights is easily explained - undersized feeders, or perhaps feeders are degraded from the various effects of age (overheating, streching, oxidation, etc.).
However, how do we explain the meter speeding up? How could the extra current being drawn from the x-fer possibly affect a down-stream meter? And, inturn, how could the neighbors added load be causing the friends bill to climb?
Any enlightenment on this subject will be greatly appreciated. Thanks...
