I will have a friend who is an inspector come by and check it out too. Thank you.

I think that about covers it! I do have a question for you though. Why is it that when I flip all the breakers off on one side of the box, the meter spins a lot faster than when I have all of them on?

You're right. This is what I love about slashdot. I see that electronics technicians are sometimes too cocky and think they know everything. However, I always thought the two hot legs from a center tapped transformer were 180 degrees apart and therefore two separate "phases".
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_2/chpt_10/1.html near the bottom of the page.

Double breakers are two single breakers designed to trip in an "and/or" logic. They are tied to the same phase.

Ok, I live in America so things might be different for you. My power comes from a step-down transformer. This transformer has a center-tap which is the neutral and two 110 volt lines that are 180 degrees out of phase with each other - I know this because I can compare the two phases with an oscilliscope and create lissajous figures, (which show phase differences). Anyway, you can not take two wires from the same phase and get additional voltage, you only get increased current carrying capacity. Many appliances claim to be 220 volt, but if you look inside you see that one wire powers one device and the other powers another.

I never mentioned three phase. Your house is supplied with two lines that are 180 degrees out of phase with each other and a neutral line that come from a center-tapped step down transformer- this is called two phase power. If you are only getting a single phase at your house, you probably live in a remote part of the world where power distribution lines are only a few miles long.

I'm glad you asked for clarification and I am happy to respond. While most of the loads in your house are only single phase loads, they are attached to one of two phases coming from the stepdown transformer on the power pole, or the green metal box if you live in an apartment complex. Open your breaker box and you will see that you have two 110 power buses and a neutral bus. By the way, your air conditioner draws from one phase. It is supplied by a double breaker on the same leg, so in actuality it has two 110 volt lines coming to it. One of the hot wires supplies the air conditioners compressor and the other supplies the motor which turns the fan. Anyway, if you were to pull your meter, (which I do not suggest doing - go to an electrical supply house instead), you will see that the socket for your meter doesn't tie at all into the neutral line. On either side of the neutral line are two, (four total), slots for your meter to attach to. It is not attached to the neutral leg at all - it is not reading how much power you are actually using. Therefore, the meter is only reading the two phases, comparing them - subtracting one from the other. I talked about amps to simplify things. The ac voltage arriving at your house is pretty much a regulated constant with the exception of occasional surges, blackouts and brownouts. Every part of your household electrical system is designed to function at the voltage supplied to your house. Look inside your breaker panel, every breaker is rated in amps. The wiring in your house is rated in amps. Therefore the only thing that is a variable is how much current is drawn through the system. I assumed people would see this was obvious.

Nope, your oven is only tied to one phase. Open your breaker box and you will see that it is being supplied by a double breaker tied to only one phase. Therefore it only draws from a single phase.

I talked about amps to simplify things. The ac voltage arriving at your house is pretty much a regulated constant with the exception of occasional surges, blackouts and brownouts. Every part of your household electrical system is designed to function at the voltage supplied to your house. Look inside your breaker panel, every breaker is rated in amps. The wiring in your house is rated in amps. Therefore the only thing that is a variable is how much current is drawn through the system. I assumed people would see this was obvious. Anyway, if you don't believe me, turn on everything in your house and then go outside and notice the rate at which your meter is spinning. Go back inside and flip all the breakers off in one row, leaving the other side on. Go back out to the meter and you will notice that it is spinning a lot faster.

Look inside your power panel. You will see that your dryer circuit is actually connected by a double breaker which is on one phase. It is not 220 volts, it is two 110 volt legs drawn from a single phase. These voltages are never added to make 220 volts. If you don't believe me, unplug the dryer and follow the wiring inside.

It's funny that this has little to do with your power bill since you only oay for the unbalanced load between phases. You can draw 40 amps from phase 1 and 50 amps from phase 2, but only get charged for 10 amps. I don't need google to tell me how to save money on my power bill!

Wow - I never thought about getting sabre toothed crotch crickets that way!

All I can think is that he wanted to get caught.

Despite several warnings people often don't believe that s#!t stinks until they step in it.

It's a start! But I wonder how many of that 61% also choose to install additional browsers. I get konqueror and firefox right out of the box when I install fedora. When I have to use windows because of AutoCad, I only used IE in order to get firefox. IE is still there, but I never use it. I think the article needs more data!