On Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:40:03 -0400, "Tomsic" wrote:

I'm trying to imagine the legitmate reasons to cut the seal
on the meter before calling the electric company..... I
saw it done once. The house was on fire and the fire company
did it

Because the times I've called the power company it involved making an
appointment, waiting several days for them to come, filling out
paperwork, and then paying a fee them to come. When I worked for rental
companies that needed to get these buildings ready for tenants, they
wanted the work done today, not next week. Not to mention that they did
not want to pay me for numerous trips to the property, and honestly I
did not want to lose money by not being able to complete a simple task
like tapping into the mains for a sub-panel, and having to leave the
job, spending the rest of the day without pay, and then having to drive
a considerable distance to come back, for a half hour of work.

Then too, I had to disconnect my own meter once when lightning fried a
connection to an old main cartridge fuse disconnect box. I had
flickering lights, saw sparks in the box. I was not going to wait for
the company to come, possibly causing a fire, or other damage. I pulled
the meter, took a photo of the burnt connection in the old box, and
removed that box. I had a good used breaker disconnect box. I
installed it and put the meter back, then called the company. I told
them I had a photo of the burned connection, they said not to worry
about it, they would put a new tag on the meter. I was several months
later before they did it.

I'll tell you right now that electricians pull meters all the time.
They are on a schedule, they dont have time to **** around waiting for
the power company. Actually I think in most cases they power companies
dont want to be getting calls all the time for meter removals. They
have more important things to do.