As you walk in our door and turn to your left to hang up your coat, you may notice something you don't see in American households:
You're not sure what it is, but you know it's unusual. You step closer.
Ok - circuit breaker, electricity meter, two other thingies. Electricity meter!? That's what we said. What's this doing inside? How does the energy company read the meter? We still don't know. And the other thingies? They must be important, since they have "official" seals on them. If anyone has any ideas, please let us know.
One thing we do know is that we get charged less for electricity between 11 PM and 6 AM (actually, 7 now that we're out of DST). We know this not only because someone told Louis when he first called EDF to set up our electricity billing. We also know because we are reminded every single night, when the electricity meter audibly switches from "daytime" to "nighttime" measurement:
Clearly Louis finds this fascinating. (He also clearly didn't realize that the reason for the loud click is that the arrow on the meter switches from HP (J) [Heures Pleines - Jour] to HC (N) [Heures Creuses - Nuit].) Ok, maybe it's a little fascinating.
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At some point a guy from EDF will come to your place to read the meter. What you usually pay is an estimation of future consumption, so make sure you compare what they estimated to what you actually consumed. If you end up consuming more than they estimated, don't worry, they'll estimate more for the next billing cycle.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what the other thingies are.