News flash!

We have electricity at our new house!

I'm not sure if I shared all of the details with this, but because the house had been vacant for so long (with the power off) the city required an inspection before the electric company could turn the power on. I had to call the electric company and get some numbers, go downtown and pay for the inspection, and then we had to pray there weren't any major problems which would prevent them from allowing the power to be turned on.

The complication ('cause there has to be one, right?) is that we have two electric meters. Apparently at some point in time the house was used as a two-family house, so there is a meter for the first floor and a separate one for the second floor. The electric company said we had the option of converting them to one meter; otherwise we could just receive two bills each month, one for each floor. We were fine with that--our electric bill would be a little higher since there is a base charge for each meter, but it wasn't enough to justify paying to convert the two meters to one.

Monday I went and paid for the inspection--excuse me, inspections--one for each meter. Tuesday the city inspector came out. Apparently, we are not allowed to have two meters for a one-family house. So that justification for converting the two meters into one? We were given it, in the form of...you can have two meters but we're only turning one on so you'll only have power on one floor of your house. That's pretty good justification. ;)

Thursday, our electrician came out. We had two options: the really fancy, expensive fix to the two-meter problem, or the 1/3 as much, still-legal and perfectly acceptable fix to the two-meter problem. Which do you think we chose?

While normally we are all about fix-it-right (completely!) the first time because it's cheaper in the long run, with the pending adoption we just can't justify the expense. Shortly after the electrician was out yesterday, Mark heard some banging on the side of the house. Lo and behold, the electric company was out turning the (one!) meter on. We now have power to the first floor and basement of our house!

Today the electrician will be out to convert the two meters into one. By the end of the day today, we should have power to the whole house. Of course, we still don't have heat, but at least now we can plug space heaters in!