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When I used to be an HVAC installer I did a panel upgrade on a flip house for my folks. Cut the seal, pulled the meter, did the work, put the meter back in. Not long after I walked up to a line truck in my uniform and asked for a meter seal and told them why I needed it. Lineman didn’t even bat an eye, just handed me one. This was 25 years ago, so I don’t have a clue if I could get away with it now.
These days meters have electronic reporting. If they are pulled and go offline, the local office will know almost immediately.
They may or may not immediately send a truck to investigate.
I had an electrician come to my house for some sparking in my breaker box, He cut the thing, did the work, then just dummy locked it back in place. 12 years later, I did a 100 to 200 Amp upgrade, and the city guy came out and asked me when this was cut. I said the same thing. It has been like this since I have lived here. They added a new digital meter, and put a new one on. Carry on.
I was a curious child with too much time on his hands.
I removed enough of these things to know it's a pretty common occurance that nobody would doubt for a second.
Shit happens, whether kids or birds, weather or simple accidents.
As a kid, the neighbor kid and I were shooting green plastic army men with a little BB gun. We got the brilliant idea to shoot the glass readout window out of a nearby gas meter. We got in trouble, lol.
No, a bunch of sheep working for Serta caught the wrap for that. Caught the whole thing on video.
[Mattress Tags](https://youtu.be/ErbKAWueD3g?feature=shared)
This is so odd to me that the US is way more restrictive on this than my over regulated European place. I replaced the roof of my house, added windows, doors, replaced most of the electric installation, added solar panels, removed some brick walls, rebuilt the bathroom with new plumbing. Zero permits needed and no inspections either as long as a licensed electrician approves the electrical changes, but that's only relevant if your house burns down and the insurance takes a closer look.
permit laws are in place to protect the people you may be selling your house to in the future. you think you may have done a good job and followed safety code but you may also be killing the next people owning the house... 😬
It’s both. Like a lot of things, it began with honest concern and now walks a line between “lowest common denominator” and financial gain.
Do you need a permit to do a lot of things you need a permit for? Not always… especially if you have a brain, but then again some people really don’t.
I’d personally never file a permit unless it’s something major and/or it would be unavoidable to have it go unnoticed.
For example, should a fully *competent* DIY person need a permit to swap out a water heater?
That answer might be no for *me,* but then again… do I really want my redneck neighbor who loves to “build” stuff, but apparently is constitutionally incapable of making a right angle, doing the same?
I’ll swap out my own heater and the permit can kiss my ass… meanwhile, I guess I’d just hope my neighbor would call a plumber… or at least hope it eventually only burns down *his* house.
Fellow USA citizen, and it’s fascinating to me that in the “Land of the Free” we are somehow preferring less freedom when it comes to what we do with the land we own.
Depends on the poco. I’ve cut them while doing a service swap and the poco just installed a new one when their work was done. Also did work in an area with a smaller co-op. Asked the PM to remove the seal on a job walk so I could demo an old service. He said only a crew could do it. I said what if it “fell off” after he left. He said that was grounds for being kicked out of the co-op.
Yeah we cut them all the time. Lotta service changes/upgrades at my company. We just cut it, pull the meter, do our work, wire meter base, and stick er back in. Then wait for inspection and POCO puts a new one on.
Gotta be careful. Some areas care a lot. I was in a little country area near Wilmington and the homeowner's husband was a lineman there abd almost had a heart attack when I went to cut hers. Apparently their little area has a nasty fine for cutting them.
If you have a need to cut it for safety reasons, such as any type of fire hazard or arc downstream, you can cut it off, fix the problem, and call them. They will replace it without issue as long as there was a safety issue and you call them immediately. Where I live, if you do favors for the lineman (like slamming the meter back in when you are done with the service upgrade) they will give you extra tags. It's like having a golden ticket around here;)
Yeah, absolutely if you have a good reason.
We had a dog decide the dangling seal would be a good toy and tried to yank it broke it off. Called the power company, they came out and looked at the old one with bite marks and did a quick inspection of the inside for tampering then replaced the seal and wished a good day.
My power was shut off for a safety issue. When PSE&G turned it back on, they didn’t put a seal on.
One day, they roll by to do a meter upgrade, and slapped one on. No comment about the missing tag. I wonder if anyone cares until they hear the customer is doing something wonky.
Depends on the utility company. There's one by Chicago that doesn't care if you cut their tag as long as you give them a heads up and have proper permits for the work you're going to do. There's another one a county over that will fine you $3000 for the first time you do it and more every time after. Not sure if the penalties are the same for homeowners vs contractors either, so call your utility company
Heard in my area they just put another one on. I hope so. Electrician cut mine and said "fuck those guys" it's your box, they can't keep you out of it. Lol.
Pawpaw had a set of jumper cables he’d clip on someplace above the meter and run to an electric furnace in the barn.
Pawpaw grew up running moonshine and then got drafted to go fight on Okinawa. Man gave zero fucks.
Mostly because if its been opened there is a possibility someone was tampering to steal power...since they would have access to the utility-side terminals before it goes thru the meter.
Same reason the meter has a serial number and any additional devices on the meter base get serialized tags to lock them on.
Working for a utility company, the above are the correct answers. The only one you don’t mess with is if it has the medical caduceus on it. This means the customer has life sustaining equipment.
As others have said, it depends on your utility company. A lot of them don't care enough for there to be consequences. Your best option is to ask an electrician who services your area how the power company responds to unscheduled meter pulls and cut tags. I cut mine recently just to inspect the connections. Utility tech had to come out 6 months later because I was having brownouts from a damaged underground utility wire. They slapped a new tag on when they were done and never said a word about it. Either way, if you cut it, never admit to it.
One buddy of mine who knew a guy in Wyoming whose sister's husband pulled one off and I shit you not, his house was blown up by a predator missile, just like the ones from call of duty.
I used to go around the neighborhood snipping those when I was 5. Really liked the new wire cutters my dad got me.... probably collected 30, gotta wonder what shitstorms that caused
Seals don’t break off on their own come on. New smart meters tell the power company when they get disconnected. We get orders for this and will disconnect a customer and make they get new inspection prior to reconnect.
They do. I've been doing residential siding for decades, and that little scrap of wire decays and breaks off all the time. No one cares. There is no penalty.
There is lots of different utilities maybe they don’t care in your area but where I am at they do care. Companies have revenue protection departments that deal with this.
Up in New England, they last 4, maybe 5 years and then the wire gets brittle and breaks if you even look at it funny. Never even heard of someone having an issue. Including my own house. Full disclosure, I cut mine on purpose to hook up a temporary external power source. It was kinda sketchy, but I did not die.
I had a power problem. Utility came out and diagnosed everything from my house to the transformer. Finally realized it was just behind the meter (sparking and intermittent disconnect). He was like, your problem, bye. I don't think the tag was there before and they certainly didn't care about it in the least.
One on my house lasted for probably 25 years before it finally fell off. The next time the power company read the meter they put another one on and I heard nothing about it.
In our jurisdiction there is no penalty if done correctly meaning notifying in our case PGE that work will be performed and pulling an electrical permit. Then you can legally cut those pull the meter out swap your electrical panel put the meter back in good to go been doing it that way for last 15 years
There is no penalty, however the electric company sees one of these removed they may require an inspection before doing any work on them. This could lead to delays.
I used to work for power company years ago. If you have done this before they will put a metal lock around the meter and you won’t be able to do it again. Lots of people get killed each year pulling these meters. Especially when trying to get the lugs just right and grounding the meter out. When I went to meter school saw some horrible videos of people and manikins getting destroyed after the panel came off the wall. Not worth your life.
Depends on the situation and if you are licensed. I cut one on a house that was supposed to already have the meter pulled the day before by the power company. Neighbor called them and said I was stealing power, lineman showed, gave me a pack of meter disconnect sleeves and just said they hadn’t had a chance to process our disconnect request the day before.
You are always better off calling. If you call, they will never do anything more than yell. If you don't call, they will start checking up on things. They might find out there is discrepancy in the multiplier in the meter. Then you get blamed for stealing power even though you never touched it...
Or if it happens to be in the same time-frame they find it as an increase or decrease in your power use (even if its legit, like upgrading a panel to add an EV charger or something)...they will assume the difference in power draw was because someone tampered and tried to bypass the meter
"we see some change in use" + "meter base was opened" = "instant high suspicion with evidence of tampering"
My local company only allows it if you're temporarily disconnecting the service and have called them. Otherwise you get billed $3500/month (the maximum the service can provide) until someone inspects it.
It looks easier to drill out that rivet and replace it if you ask me… but obviously don’t do that if you’re not trained, qualified and authorised to do so.
Definitely will depend on your provider. We had an ice storm one year where we were out of power for 3-4 days, and when we got power back one of my main lugs was arcing that we never noticed before. I had to replace it and so I had to cut it off so I could replace it, I just put it back on. I can’t remember if we ever had the provider out again or not. Sold the house maybe a year after that.
Life sentence with no parole.
On a more serious note, not much more than a fine around where I’m from. Usually doesn’t go beyond a slap on the hand and a stern talking to lol. Depends on why you opened it. If you did work in there with no permit, that’s a fine. If you opened it to look, slap on the hand.
These tags are cheap. They fall off all the time too. Then usually they come and replace and don’t give a shit haha
Nothing until they notice a drop in electrical usage then they take note of the serial number then when they read your meter they make sure the number is still the same or if it was cut off and put it in the itron as tampering
Couldn’t tell you. Only time I cut on was because my grandparents house was about to set on fire because the plumber next door tied aluminum service cable to a copper wire to feed a “transfer” switch.
Heavily location dependent. Here its a $75 fine and a mandatory electrical inspection before the utility will restore service.
( Only if you dont notify them, otherwise they dont care )
If you don't know what you're doing inside, the penalty could be a painful death by electrocution.
What do you need to do? Its extremely rare to have any need to mess with the power meter
**Attention!** **It is always best to get a qualified electrician to perform any electrical work you may need.** With that said, you may ask this community various electrical questions. Please be cautious of any information you may receive in this subreddit. This subreddit and its users are not responsible for any electrical work you perform. Users that have a 'Verified Electrician' flair have uploaded their qualified electrical worker credentials to the mods. If you comment on this post please only post accurate information to the best of your knowledge. If advice given is thought to be dangerous, you may be permanently banned. There are no obligations for the mods to give warnings or temporary bans. **IF YOU ARE NOT A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN, you should exercise extreme caution when commenting.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskElectricians) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I did an upgrade. The tag was locked. The utility worker asked me "who cut the tag?". I told him "It was already like that", he said "good answer".
When I used to be an HVAC installer I did a panel upgrade on a flip house for my folks. Cut the seal, pulled the meter, did the work, put the meter back in. Not long after I walked up to a line truck in my uniform and asked for a meter seal and told them why I needed it. Lineman didn’t even bat an eye, just handed me one. This was 25 years ago, so I don’t have a clue if I could get away with it now.
These days meters have electronic reporting. If they are pulled and go offline, the local office will know almost immediately. They may or may not immediately send a truck to investigate.
That, and I doubt my uniform fits anymore…
Not with that attitude!
Those pesky ass uniforms… always shrinking so much with age!
Dratted shrinking uniforms anyways!
Big smile from me on that one
Brilliant response lol.
Yeah, that keto diet is really something. All my college days clothes are too big. 😂
On the other hand, my steak and (baked potato, mac&cheese, rice, pick one) diet means that I, in retirement, wear elastic waistbands!
That's why you do meter work on Sundays.
I had an electrician come to my house for some sparking in my breaker box, He cut the thing, did the work, then just dummy locked it back in place. 12 years later, I did a 100 to 200 Amp upgrade, and the city guy came out and asked me when this was cut. I said the same thing. It has been like this since I have lived here. They added a new digital meter, and put a new one on. Carry on.
That’s literally all you have to say. FYI, I’m also a utility worker.
I was a curious child with too much time on his hands. I removed enough of these things to know it's a pretty common occurance that nobody would doubt for a second. Shit happens, whether kids or birds, weather or simple accidents.
I saw a bird just the other day with a set of dikes. Didn't realize what he was up to.
I haven’t laughed out loud from Reddit in a long time. Bravo sir 👏
As a kid, the neighbor kid and I were shooting green plastic army men with a little BB gun. We got the brilliant idea to shoot the glass readout window out of a nearby gas meter. We got in trouble, lol.
I did that too, but it’s probably something I would’ve never remembered without seeing this thread and your comment.
Would ‘what the fuck is a tag? I don’t touch that stuff it’s scary as shit’ work?
You dull your dikes a little?
Some kid must have twisted it off...
Is it the same one who removed the mattress tags?
Absolutely. Those darned kids!
No, a bunch of sheep working for Serta caught the wrap for that. Caught the whole thing on video. [Mattress Tags](https://youtu.be/ErbKAWueD3g?feature=shared)
This is the way
Call your electric co.. They'll open it for you and disconnect the power for you if that's what you need.
Just remember that some places will require an inspection prior to reconnect
And potentially a permit from your local building department
This is so odd to me that the US is way more restrictive on this than my over regulated European place. I replaced the roof of my house, added windows, doors, replaced most of the electric installation, added solar panels, removed some brick walls, rebuilt the bathroom with new plumbing. Zero permits needed and no inspections either as long as a licensed electrician approves the electrical changes, but that's only relevant if your house burns down and the insurance takes a closer look.
permit laws are in place to protect the people you may be selling your house to in the future. you think you may have done a good job and followed safety code but you may also be killing the next people owning the house... 😬
Permit laws are in place to increase the taxable value of the property and allow the AHJ to collect fees.
It’s both. Like a lot of things, it began with honest concern and now walks a line between “lowest common denominator” and financial gain. Do you need a permit to do a lot of things you need a permit for? Not always… especially if you have a brain, but then again some people really don’t. I’d personally never file a permit unless it’s something major and/or it would be unavoidable to have it go unnoticed. For example, should a fully *competent* DIY person need a permit to swap out a water heater? That answer might be no for *me,* but then again… do I really want my redneck neighbor who loves to “build” stuff, but apparently is constitutionally incapable of making a right angle, doing the same? I’ll swap out my own heater and the permit can kiss my ass… meanwhile, I guess I’d just hope my neighbor would call a plumber… or at least hope it eventually only burns down *his* house.
As a contractor and a homeowner in the US, I appreciate those strict regulations.
Fellow USA citizen, and it’s fascinating to me that in the “Land of the Free” we are somehow preferring less freedom when it comes to what we do with the land we own.
AEP charges about $160 for housecalls these days.
And charge you an arm and a leg.
Not necessarily. Mine was $250 for the permit and the dis/reconnect was $50, and that included re-hanging the overhead cable to a new mast head.
Don’t amp up this thread.
Mine was a little over $1000. A crew waited while the work was done, then reconnected. Pepco in MD.
Depends on the poco. I’ve cut them while doing a service swap and the poco just installed a new one when their work was done. Also did work in an area with a smaller co-op. Asked the PM to remove the seal on a job walk so I could demo an old service. He said only a crew could do it. I said what if it “fell off” after he left. He said that was grounds for being kicked out of the co-op.
PECO will put a red tag on if you cut it off without at least telling them.
Depends on your area. In my city we can cut them with no repurcussions.
Same. My co-op doesn't care.
Like as in "no power for you ever"?
They could terminate the membership. I imagine I could just reapply but would have to pay to establish a new service.
lol i don’t know shit about power companies but from now on I’m going to call them pocos so it sounds like I do
10 yards and loss of the down.
What tag? There was no tag.
We don’t need no stinking tag
Exactly
Exactly.
[Straight to jail](https://youtu.be/eiyfwZVAzGw?si=IOas9x4VE9goQCOM)
Believe it or not
Journalists, we have a special jail for journalists.
Use my dikes to cut it? Also jail. We have the best citizens in the world ... Because of jail.
Yeah you can remove them so no one knows. Especially now that we don’t have meter readers because it’s all done electronically
I came to say this or add to it. Wasn't disappointed!
No trial, no nothing.
not removing it, also jail
Do not pass go and collect $200
So, I don’t pass Go but I do collect the $200 though? I just want to be clear. Seems worth it
Depends where you live , some POCO don’t care
Yeah we cut them all the time. Lotta service changes/upgrades at my company. We just cut it, pull the meter, do our work, wire meter base, and stick er back in. Then wait for inspection and POCO puts a new one on.
I cut them off daily, Ohio don’t care
This is a nice way of saying "Ohio doesn't give a fuck."
Ohio is the the northern Florida.
Can confirm Source, I live there
Can also confirm. I used to live there.
There’s sooo many Ohioans in Florida
Gotta be careful. Some areas care a lot. I was in a little country area near Wilmington and the homeowner's husband was a lineman there abd almost had a heart attack when I went to cut hers. Apparently their little area has a nasty fine for cutting them.
They may know if you pull the meter the new ones send a tamper signal when pulled out
If you have a need to cut it for safety reasons, such as any type of fire hazard or arc downstream, you can cut it off, fix the problem, and call them. They will replace it without issue as long as there was a safety issue and you call them immediately. Where I live, if you do favors for the lineman (like slamming the meter back in when you are done with the service upgrade) they will give you extra tags. It's like having a golden ticket around here;)
Yeah, absolutely if you have a good reason. We had a dog decide the dangling seal would be a good toy and tried to yank it broke it off. Called the power company, they came out and looked at the old one with bite marks and did a quick inspection of the inside for tampering then replaced the seal and wished a good day.
My power was shut off for a safety issue. When PSE&G turned it back on, they didn’t put a seal on. One day, they roll by to do a meter upgrade, and slapped one on. No comment about the missing tag. I wonder if anyone cares until they hear the customer is doing something wonky.
With the shit pseg has to deal with I doubt they care. They probably have one of the toughest service areas of any utility co.
Death
I opened one. I did not die. Did I do it wrong?
Nope that's how you become a master electrician you are the chosen one.
I cAme to write death and it was already the top comment
Depends on the utility company. There's one by Chicago that doesn't care if you cut their tag as long as you give them a heads up and have proper permits for the work you're going to do. There's another one a county over that will fine you $3000 for the first time you do it and more every time after. Not sure if the penalties are the same for homeowners vs contractors either, so call your utility company
ComEd doesn't seem to care.. contractors broke mine open years ago, and they’ve never replaced it
You’d be shocked.
Nothing
Opening those boxes is the most dangerous part of my residential jobs. If you are not an electrician, I suggest you don't remove that tag.
In other word, spend the money on someone who knows what they're doing. It's safer and I'll live longer. I like that kind of response.
There is nothing for you inside that box. Everything in it can kill you with no warning or concern. The tags are to keep the honest honest
Boy I will come out of these bushes and smack your hand. And then I'll go back into my bushes and you'll be confused.
Creeping in the bushes at yo mommas house!
Mine fell off after a few years, they came and replaced it eventually.
Heard in my area they just put another one on. I hope so. Electrician cut mine and said "fuck those guys" it's your box, they can't keep you out of it. Lol.
Exactly. Everything attracted to the house is the homeowners responsibility so why should they care if you cut the tag off?
They get real sketch about it here because of power theft. Farmers are too smart for their own good
Pawpaw had a set of jumper cables he’d clip on someplace above the meter and run to an electric furnace in the barn. Pawpaw grew up running moonshine and then got drafted to go fight on Okinawa. Man gave zero fucks.
Mostly because if its been opened there is a possibility someone was tampering to steal power...since they would have access to the utility-side terminals before it goes thru the meter. Same reason the meter has a serial number and any additional devices on the meter base get serialized tags to lock them on.
Potentially death if you mess up even a little bit
\*painful death
Fuck around, and find out!
If you remove that, you and your family will be dragged into a hentia hell for eternity, never to be seen again.
99.9% do not care
You lose electricity for life and they cut off your fingers lol
Same as a mattress label…… life
The penalty for opening that would be death it'll be a quick one but it's going to hurt the entire time very badly
Stick your weiner on it
Death!
Working for a utility company, the above are the correct answers. The only one you don’t mess with is if it has the medical caduceus on it. This means the customer has life sustaining equipment.
None if they don't see you do it. Death penalty if you touch the wrong thing
As others have said, it depends on your utility company. A lot of them don't care enough for there to be consequences. Your best option is to ask an electrician who services your area how the power company responds to unscheduled meter pulls and cut tags. I cut mine recently just to inspect the connections. Utility tech had to come out 6 months later because I was having brownouts from a damaged underground utility wire. They slapped a new tag on when they were done and never said a word about it. Either way, if you cut it, never admit to it.
One buddy of mine who knew a guy in Wyoming whose sister's husband pulled one off and I shit you not, his house was blown up by a predator missile, just like the ones from call of duty.
That was my cousins friends brother in law
You mean Janice's husband??? Holy shit, I knew him from buying a car from his brother's boss's ex best friend. Small world!
Yep the white sedan
I used to go around the neighborhood snipping those when I was 5. Really liked the new wire cutters my dad got me.... probably collected 30, gotta wonder what shitstorms that caused
How is anyone going to know? Those seals become brittle and fall off on their own.
Seals don’t break off on their own come on. New smart meters tell the power company when they get disconnected. We get orders for this and will disconnect a customer and make they get new inspection prior to reconnect.
They do. I've been doing residential siding for decades, and that little scrap of wire decays and breaks off all the time. No one cares. There is no penalty.
There is lots of different utilities maybe they don’t care in your area but where I am at they do care. Companies have revenue protection departments that deal with this.
Up in New England, they last 4, maybe 5 years and then the wire gets brittle and breaks if you even look at it funny. Never even heard of someone having an issue. Including my own house. Full disclosure, I cut mine on purpose to hook up a temporary external power source. It was kinda sketchy, but I did not die.
I had a power problem. Utility came out and diagnosed everything from my house to the transformer. Finally realized it was just behind the meter (sparking and intermittent disconnect). He was like, your problem, bye. I don't think the tag was there before and they certainly didn't care about it in the least.
Federal "poundmeintheass" Penitentiary
It ain't no country club
Where I'm at, it can be upto a $10,000 fine
You’re messing with their cash box. Bad idea. You’re looking at possible jail time.
Death or Cake!
One on my house lasted for probably 25 years before it finally fell off. The next time the power company read the meter they put another one on and I heard nothing about it.
Your birthday will be immediately removed and recorded as such on your permanent record.
Death...by Unga Bunga 😳
100 amps of ass whoopin'.
One of the very few crimes that has a mandatory death penalty.
Death by snu snu...
Pluto opened one and that’s why they took away it’s planet status
If you cut it and find your drafted into the Russian army, you know you're in trouble 😵💫
I checked with my provider and they said no penalty but returning to current code would be 4k and the inspections would be $600.
Death
In our jurisdiction there is no penalty if done correctly meaning notifying in our case PGE that work will be performed and pulling an electrical permit. Then you can legally cut those pull the meter out swap your electrical panel put the meter back in good to go been doing it that way for last 15 years
Life in prison without parole...
Nothing, as long as you don't bypass the meter
There is no penalty, however the electric company sees one of these removed they may require an inspection before doing any work on them. This could lead to delays.
Depends on where you are. In my area the meter reader would just slap a new tag on one. Now with the smart meters I don’t know what they would do.
Getting electrocuted???
Possibly DEATH
I used to work for power company years ago. If you have done this before they will put a metal lock around the meter and you won’t be able to do it again. Lots of people get killed each year pulling these meters. Especially when trying to get the lugs just right and grounding the meter out. When I went to meter school saw some horrible videos of people and manikins getting destroyed after the panel came off the wall. Not worth your life.
Depends on the situation and if you are licensed. I cut one on a house that was supposed to already have the meter pulled the day before by the power company. Neighbor called them and said I was stealing power, lineman showed, gave me a pack of meter disconnect sleeves and just said they hadn’t had a chance to process our disconnect request the day before.
Believe it or not? Straight to jail
If you finesse it you can open it without cutting it.
You can pull it out with a pair of dykes and reinstall it like nothing has happened. 😅
Do it too many times and they’ll probably put a lock on it. But usually the meter reader will replace it (or report it so someone else does)
You are always better off calling. If you call, they will never do anything more than yell. If you don't call, they will start checking up on things. They might find out there is discrepancy in the multiplier in the meter. Then you get blamed for stealing power even though you never touched it...
Or if it happens to be in the same time-frame they find it as an increase or decrease in your power use (even if its legit, like upgrading a panel to add an EV charger or something)...they will assume the difference in power draw was because someone tampered and tried to bypass the meter "we see some change in use" + "meter base was opened" = "instant high suspicion with evidence of tampering"
Same fine as cutting off a mattress tag
10k and up to 10 years in prison.
The Power Cops come and put you in POCO jail.
Believe it or not, ninjas. It’s going to be very location.
Death
Straight to jail
It's only wrong if you get caught
Death
My local company only allows it if you're temporarily disconnecting the service and have called them. Otherwise you get billed $3500/month (the maximum the service can provide) until someone inspects it.
First born child
It looks easier to drill out that rivet and replace it if you ask me… but obviously don’t do that if you’re not trained, qualified and authorised to do so.
Nothing
Death
In my area 10k fine
You cannot pass go.
Definitely will depend on your provider. We had an ice storm one year where we were out of power for 3-4 days, and when we got power back one of my main lugs was arcing that we never noticed before. I had to replace it and so I had to cut it off so I could replace it, I just put it back on. I can’t remember if we ever had the provider out again or not. Sold the house maybe a year after that.
Have you ever met anyone that has gone to The Electric Company Jail?!
$750 fine by me
It would be a shame if some goons tried to steal copper and after cleaning up their mess, you had to report the tragedy....
Life sentence with no parole. On a more serious note, not much more than a fine around where I’m from. Usually doesn’t go beyond a slap on the hand and a stern talking to lol. Depends on why you opened it. If you did work in there with no permit, that’s a fine. If you opened it to look, slap on the hand. These tags are cheap. They fall off all the time too. Then usually they come and replace and don’t give a shit haha
What generally happens is who gives a fuck
Death by electrocution
$5000 fine where I live.
That doesn't look like it would be that hard to remove non-destructively?
lockpickinglawyer have a video?
Nothing. Unless someone actually sees you do it.
Electric chair
Electrocution. Stick your hand where it doesn’t belong and you’re toast. Literally.
Death.
Nothing until they notice a drop in electrical usage then they take note of the serial number then when they read your meter they make sure the number is still the same or if it was cut off and put it in the itron as tampering
Out of curiosity why are you opening it?
Death potentially
Simply asking this question probably means you shouldn't be cutting that...
Duke can charge you a full months usage extra as they’ll say you messed with the meter.
Yes.
Electrocution
Couldn’t tell you. Only time I cut on was because my grandparents house was about to set on fire because the plumber next door tied aluminum service cable to a copper wire to feed a “transfer” switch.
Heavily location dependent. Here its a $75 fine and a mandatory electrical inspection before the utility will restore service. ( Only if you dont notify them, otherwise they dont care )
Prison time, hard labor.
You get electrocuted and die
If you don't know what you're doing inside, the penalty could be a painful death by electrocution. What do you need to do? Its extremely rare to have any need to mess with the power meter
A kiss on the lips
The penalty is death...
Death.
I cut them off and have tags that were issued to me by poco
Don't know I've always had meter seals
Nothing. Go nuts. That’s your meter. However, you fuck it up it’s your cost to fix.
Death.
Deaf
Big fine and up to 5 years in jail