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pidster53 · Joined: 04 Oct 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Canada

Hi, I just moved into a new (new to me) house built in the late 1950's. The main electrical feed into the house appears to be original equipment, done with a main fuse panel for the lights and outlets and smaller fuse boxes for the oven, dryer etc. However there is a second, smaller set of wires coming into the house that is not switched by the main panel, which appears to feed the water heater only, and these wires pass through a box labeled "GE carrier current controller, frequency 720 CPS" and goes on to specify "non-inductive load 15 amps" and "incandescent lamp load 5/10 amps".

This stuff is all getting replaced with a modern breaker panel anyway, but curiousity is killing me here, I have never seen this before and am dying to know what it does and how it does it. I have turned up nothing searching the internet so far.

Any of you guys know?

b · Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 4:22 pm Post subject:

Does it have a separate meter? In Michigan there is a separate meter available at a lower rate for loads on the hot water heater and air conditioner that they can switch off for 20minutes of every hour in high load conditions.
B

pidster53 · Joined: 04 Oct 2007 Posts: 2 Location: Canada

Thanks, yep thats pretty much what it was, no separate meter but it is designed to cut off the power during high load/brownout conditions. I had no idea they used stuff like that back in those days.

I found out for sure what it was when it crapped out a couple days ago leaving us with no hot water Mad

The service guy disconnected it and all is now well.