Strange readings from energy meter

Breaker boxes are indoors in some reasonably convenient location such as a basement or garage.

Except in some States, they're outdoors. Our Arizona house had the breaker box outside. A place we lived in New Mexico had the main breaker outdoors, but all the individual circuit breakers indoors. It's a big world where you're likely to encounter just about anything you can imagine... and some things you can't.
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daestrom wrote:

Cydrome Leader wrote: daestrom wrote: somebody@somewhere.com wrote: On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 23:39:21 -0000, "rda" rda@thehoosewithnospam.net> wrote:
"Winston" wrote in message rda wrote: HI there, I just bought a Wattson electricity meter to keep an eye on my household usage. (www.diykyoto.com)
The strange thing is that with *everything* in the house turned off the unit still shows a draw of around 200W.
I removed each fuse in turn from the fuse box but this made no difference, however when throwing the master switch off the unit shows 0W.
Do I understand correctly that with all fuses removed, you still read 200W?
Yep, thats right. All fuses out and everything turned off methodically and still a 200W drain. Switch the board off and the meter shows 0W.
So not only is it looking like something is up with the wiring, it looks like there is something unknown to me thats draining the 200W.
Fire alarm and/or smoke detector circuit? Typically these are unfused and wired so that they CANNOT be powered off.
Not so. They are typically on separate circuits, so that a fault on a branch circuit won't interrupt them, but all circuits coming from the main must have over-current protection.
daestrom
I've seen in Chicago (some of the best electrical codes in the US) older buildings that actually have a tap installed where the utility feed enters the building that runs a separate meter and breaker panel for the emergency/exit lighting. Shutting off the main disconnect for the building has no effect on these, unless you shut them off as well.
Okay, I had an uncle in that area, wiring his house was always a bit extra work (armored cable, etc...).
So what you're saying is the emergency/exit lighting (and smoke detectors?) have to be on a separate circuit from any tenent's? This makes sense in an building with more than one tenent, no single tenent failing to pay their electric (or just moving out) will cause the emergency circuits to be shutoff along with the deadbeat's apt.

this was in larger multi-unit buildings, not a house or anything like that.

But I note that you mention it still has a breaker panel, so they still have over-current protection and are not 'unfused' as 'somebody' said.

there are disconnects and breakers after that. There's possibly giant fuses in the disconnect boxes.

Neon John wrote:

On Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:37:41 -0500, "daestrom" daestrom@NO_SPAM_HEREtwcny.rr.com> wrote:
So what you're saying is the emergency/exit lighting (and smoke detectors?) have to be on a separate circuit from any tenent's? This makes sense in an building with more than one tenent, no single tenent failing to pay their electric (or just moving out) will cause the emergency circuits to be shutoff along with the deadbeat's apt.
But I note that you mention it still has a breaker panel, so they still have over-current protection and are not 'unfused' as 'somebody' said.
That certainly seems like a silly way to do it. If one is to do the 99% of the work necessary for central monitoring - running separate conduit to each smoke detector and emergency light - then why not go other 1% and install a central monitoring panel, complete with battery backup and, depending on the occupancy, a standby generator?

old apartment buildings with coal hatches in the walls don't have central alarm systems or generators. There are actually places with some history where every building isn't new.
It's quite common for conduit to really be gas lines from lighting in older buildings.