Unidyne wrote:
> electric...@electrician2.com wrote:
> > I know an electrician that saved on his power bill by jumping around
> > the meter with a couple of No. 12 wires. He got by for about 10 years.
> > Then the power company started monitoring meters and caught him. He
> > had to sell his house to pay the power bill.
> The printing plant I work for bought the house next door for future
> expansion. During the demolition, it was discovered that the previous
> owner had hacked into one of the junction boxes in the back lot of the
> plant, and buried the wires (modified auto jumper cables) so well that
> they went under the wall that seperated the lots, and we never knew he
> was there (He apparently did this when the plant was closed for
> Christmas holidays some years back).
> We called the local utility company, and they sent a crew to take photos
> and read our records to estimate how much he was sponging off of us. The
> last I heard the previous owner was being criminally charged with Theft
> of Services and was liable for back payment to the utility...with
> interest! It may cost him more than our company paid for his property.
Some friends of mine when I was in Junior high school family moved
into what had been the offices and maintenance buildings so their dad
could expand his motor rewinding business. He let us have one small
room for our own workshop, and there was a lot of chopped off wiring
where machine tools had been removed, so we shut off the power to the
building and started ripping it out. We noticed the man next door
watching us out his window, till we turned the main breaker back on.
Then we realized the meter was running with nothing in the building
turned on. We checked all the circuits, till we found a pair marked,
"Gasoline pumps". There was a concrete pad where the two pumps had been
removed, and he had buried wires to his house. We unhooked the wires
from the breakers and pulled the wires out of the conduit while he was
screaming at us. My friends dad showed up about then, and after the
police were called we found that the guy had worked for the construction
company for a couple years, and had run most of his house on the two 20
amp circuits, after the pumps were removed.
--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.
Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
