Imagine if someone swapped the hot and the neutral feed before the meter (say at the main fuses) and elsewhere in the house someone placed a load from the now hot neutral to a grounded water pipe, it wouldn't show on the meter? Normally connected loads would still show on the meter, so the power company would think the customer is using his usual amount of power... [Linked Image]

My grandma's house had a service that looked like this. No, she didn't cheat on the electric bill... She had 15 amp fuses for the main and 30 amp fuses on the branch circuits...

[This message has been edited by wa2ise (edited 07-26-2006).]