Balancing the Breaker Box

Ï "RogerN" Ýãñáøå óôï ìÞíõìá news:qv2dnQG8RPOMPJXWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com... No. There's one way to get free electricity, and that's illegal;to hook a load before the meter. Balancing only helps you distribute electricity more efficiently. Here, in EU, we have single phase service, for residence, 1 X 40 A, and then three phase. We use special bus bars that connect one of every three breakers to onle leg, the second to the second, the third to the third... for all breakers, but that only to not overload one leg. One of the largest residential services I've seen is my sister's house, with 3 X 50 A, 3 X 25 mm^2 (# 6).

Of course the technology is their for the power company to bill for actual usage, but if they can get away with charging for the high leg amps X volts, they may choose to do so.
An electrician at work said he knows some people that balanced their breaker box and their electric bill went down. The power company sent their workers out to inspect 3 different times. The third time, they asked why the guys are inspecting their service for the third time. They said it was because the usage went down so much. The homeowner said that he had the breaker box load balanced. The power company worker said "Oh, you know about that.". The homeowner said Yeah. The power company was satisfied and didn't order any more inspections.
This was supposed to be a true story with actual people known by the person telling it. This didn't involve anyone selling any kind of product or service for "free electricity" or anything like that. The person I heard this from has a brother and cousin that I used to work with and now works at an Ameren power plant, along with many of the other techs that I used to work with.
So, I don't know, but it wouldn't cost me much time to ampprobe the lines and move a couple of breakers if needed to better balance the load, but maybe (hopefully) it's just BS anyway.
RogerN

Balancing it is a good idea because it makes the most of the incoming capacity, but it will have no effect on your electric bill, the meter reads both sides and records usage accordingly.

If I had a dollar for every time someone started spouting a story like that in order to look like some sort of "expert"...
It's complete BS, the power company does not charge based on Amps * Volts (apparent power), they charge by kilowatt-hours (true power), it's what it says on the bill, and if they were pulling some stunt to defraud customers there would be a massive lawsuit in no time flat. A kilowatt is a kilowatt whether it's drawn from one phase, the other, or both, period.
As someone else pointed out, the big loads are 240V anyway so they already use both legs of the panel and are inherently balanced. The smaller loads vary so much based on what's being used at the time that you won't be able to optimize it much beyond what was done when the house was wired.

They could take volts X amps X power factor, and the amps could be taken from the higher leg or they could average the current for each leg. From the power meter description link from another poster, they read volts from one leg and amps on the other, if that's the case then they would have to measure at both legs and average.
In my own situation, I have a 240V stove that is off the majority of the time, an electric dryer that is off the majority of the time, my constant 240V draw would be the water heater. My heat comes from propane and is supplemented by electric heaters (120V), my AC is 120V, fridge is 120V. So the big loads are 240V but they are not drawing most of the time. The 120V loads are present constantly. I know many have 240V heat and air, probably their major draw. I've never had a problem with any mains kicking out and if it doesn't save any money their would be no reason to balance unless I wanted to check when adding a circuit.
RogerN

My total propane bill for the entire last year was $380 and my electric for the past 2 months has been $100 per month, that is with electric hot water and their are 3 living here. I'm happy enough with my utility bill but if I could save a little by moving a breaker or two then it would be worth doing. If what I heard was true I don't think I'd save much. I figured if it were true the folks on here would have heard about it, apparently it's not, found out what I wanted to know.
I guess an easy experiment would be to run a 120V 1500W heater from each leg, turn other breakers off, the meter speed would change if either heater were turned off/on if the balance info was incorrect.
Thanks!
RogerN

How are you going to measure power factor directly (remember to include harmonics)?
"Ather poster" is wrong, too. Power meters measure power directly. Why mess around with computation?
Exactly. Somone is blowing smoke up your butt.

Short answer: No.
The kWh meters used in typical residential service in the US (i.e. the 'Edison connection') sense the current in *both* hot legs. As such, it effectively 'averages' the total current of all the loads to figure out the kWh used (along with the voltage and power-factor).
You can test this out yourself easily. Open all the load breakers except for one on each leg. Then turn on a 150 watt light on one leg that is still powered and watch the meter (count the disk rotations per minute). Go back inside and turn on a 75 watt light on the other leg that is still powered. If your 'person at work' was right, the meter should still be spinning at the same speed (the first leg is still the highest load). But they're wrong and you'll find the meter now spinning faster than before.
Westinghouse and his generation of engineers thought about this stuff long before your 'person at work' was even born. They didn't want to give electricity away for free.
daestrom

Not all meters are the same. In the UK they sense the current in one leg and that is enough because the current in the other leg must be equal to the first leg (they don't have a neutral over there, all of it is 240).
Meters used in some 3-phase service also only have one current sensing coil. To measure all three phases it takes at least two meters, sometimes three.
But the household meter used in the US has two current sensing coils, one in each hot leg. They don't sense neutral current because that is simply the difference between the two hot legs (not accounting for major ground faults)
The torque developed on the wheel is the product of average current in the two legs and the voltage sensing coil that measures the 240V between the two hot legs and the phase angle between them. (this is the old induction style meter, but the modern digital ones do effectively the same thing, only in firmware).
In single-leg meters, the current flows through two coils, one positioned on each side of the voltage sensing coil (one of the current coils is wound backwards from the other). These are positioned, one on each side of the potential coil. The interaction of the magnetic fields from the three coils is what turns the disk.
In a residential meter for the center-tapped 120/240 service, one leg of the 240 is fed through one current coil and the other leg of the 240 service is fed through the other current coil. The potential coil is fed from across the two hot legs. The neutral conductor passes straight through the meter box. So it 'senses' the average of both hot leg currents.
Despite all the stories out there about "...a friend of mine did such-and-such and saved" or "the power company knows this but doesn't want to tell anyone...", it just isn't true. The metering schemes have been reviewed by state commissions for every public utility in the country. No way are they all 'in on it'. The simple fact is that the inventors of the modern kWh meter are smarter than that and tested just about every conceivable combination of imbalance/balance.
I suppose there's a one-in-a-million chance that the power company installed the wrong type of meter and is only reading one current leg, but that isn't very likely. Or that some small mom-and-pop coop utility thought they would save money using the wrong type of meter, but that ain't likely either.
daestrom

Understanding electricity has absolutely nothing to do with it, understanding how the KWH meter works has everything to do with it. Power for an AC circuit is Volts X Amps X power factor, in that equation you could use amps from either leg or average the amps from each leg. Of course the correct way would be to use the current from each leg X the voltage from each leg X the power factor from each leg. Like I said, it has nothing to do with understanding electricity but everything to do with how the KWH meter measures it.
RogerN

Sure, they could, just like they could have a little hamster in there running on a wheel to turn the dials, but they don't. Power meters have coils on both legs that act on a metal disk causing it to rotate in response to true power passing through either or both leg. Some newer meters are electronic and do measure the voltage as well as the current and power factor, again in both legs. There are some good application notes on Austria Microsystem's website that describe how their offerings work. The electronic meters also contain various tamper detection circuitry that will alert the electric company if suspicious circumstances are detected.
Magical money saving methods to fool or otherwise alter the response of a residential power meter all fall into the same bucket as the mythical 100 mpg carburetors, fuel magnets and other pseudoscience bullshit. The short answer is they don't work, but that doesn't stop countless people from trying every one of them, and failing, while others swear to have witnessed fantastic results.

Which many in here also understand. I have a couple of old KWH meters sitting around, I've played with them, they're simple devices, and they just plain don't work the way you seem to believe they do. Being mechanical, they don't calculate anything, they simply respond to true power, regulated by the laws of physics. Both sides of the meter act on the same disk so the result is additive. Draw through either leg and the meter turns. Draw through both legs at once and it turns faster. The disk is directly coupled through a gear set to the dials on the face which do nothing more than count the number of rotations the disk makes. Trust me, you can't fool it by shifting loads around. About the only thing that happens to the accuracy is dried up lubricant and/or aged mechanical parts which normally results in slowing the meter in the customer's favor.

They could "take.. other" but they don't - There will be two current coils for 120/240V 3 wire and a voltage coil (240V). so that (I1+I2)V is measured. The torque produced is proportional to the real power. It doesn't matter if all the load is on one leg, split between legs or all line to line - the real power will be read correctly independently of the power factor. The energy is measured by counting disc rotations. Accuracy requirements are stringent.
Balancing the legs will not affect the meter except that there may be a marginal decrease in losses in the wiring and this gain will be lost as load balances change with activities.
James Sweet has it right.

First, I don't have any specific belief on how KWH meters work, I heard that they run based on the high leg but evidently that is not the case. However if that was the case it wouldn't have anything to do with fooling the meter, it would have to do only with using all the power you are paying for. Digital electronics is not the only way to calculate, it's just what we are used to in these times. You can also calculate with analog electronics, pneumatics, hydraulics, fluidics, and even mechanical. A KWH meter converts power to torque (or speed?) and counts the revolutions, the result is volts X amps X power factor X time, a mechanical calculator.
Thanks for explaining the operation of the meter, sounds like balancing the load would only help with the overall KWH capacity of the circuit.
RogerN

No, the meter measures *power*. As others have been trying to tell you, the torque (hence RPM) of the disk is proportional to the current times the voltage in the respective coils. No "calculating" at all and *certainly* there is no power factor calculated or measured.
...and reduces the neutral current, if that's important to anyone.

Big secret here, in a single phase AC circuit, Power= Volts X Amps X Power factor, multiply by the square root of 3 for a 3 phase circuit.
Yes, to my complete suprise there are many others here more ignorant about it than me. At least I can understand how the high leg current calculates to more KWH then the average current of the 2 legs, others have suggested things like magic bullets and free electricity :-)
Torque without friction or other limitations is infinite RPM so how do you get (hence RPM)?
Without power factor you are being charged for apparent power, not true power. Are you claiming that power meters measure apparent power, not true power?
I think Jim Sweet and others have it right, but I'm surprised how many others are willing to show their ignorance when it's is obvious they don't understand the subject. Perhaps a better explanation here: If you were using 10 KWH between L1 and neutral, and 5 KWH between L2 and neutral, you would be using a total of 15KWH. From what I heard another electrician saying, the power company would charge you based on the high leg, in other words you would be using 15KWH but the power company would charge you for 10KWH (the high leg) X 2 = 20KWH. If this were true, what balancing the breaker box would do is draw 7.5 KWH from each leg so that you would be using 15KWH and paying for 15KWH. Sorry for all you electrical engineer wannabees, but that is not a magic bullet, getting power you're not paying for, or anything like that. It would simply be using the power you're being charged for, there is nothing wrong with that.
Sorry, I'm not generally trying to be a smart a$$ but the golden rule is to treat others how you want to be treated. So for those that gave smart a$$ replies I reply back to you as you have replied to my post.
RogerN

Duh! Nobody was talking about magical money saving methods. Only using the power you are being charged for OR not being charged for power you are not using. Does that appear as magical to you?
RogerN

Good answer Don Kelly, I remember you from other posts, you seem to have a great foundation on these electrical things. At least you could give an informative answer that most others could not. James Sweet has the idea right but seems to think it is magical to use the power you are being charged for.
RogerN

If what the 'person at work' claimed was right, they wouldn't be giving electricity away but would be getting paid for a small amount of electricity they weren't providing. Could you not understand that from the original post? Your test sounds like a good idea though, I may try using 1500 Watt heaters instead of light bulbs though.
Seems more likely though that if what he said wasn't BS, then the household he was speaking of had a bad meter.
RogerN