3 April 2026
Standing in front of a three-phase board: what we write down
Serial number, clock, registers, and whether the cover is sealed. Everything else is a story we refuse to guess from the corridor.
A three-phase meter face is not a personality test. We copy the serial, the time showing (if it shows one), the import registers, and any export register that a solar installer left behind. We photograph the nameplate. We note whether the viewing window is cloudy, whether the seal is intact, and whether the cabinet smells of warm dust or of a recent cable change.
People ask us to “see if it looks high.” Looking is not a current clamp we are not licensed to swing on a live bus. A spot reading at 10:14 is a spot reading at 10:14. If the meter offers a pulse or an interval register, we stay long enough to take more than one point. If it does not, the chart later will be honest about being thin.
The dangerous sentence is “it is probably the tenant on the second floor.” Probably is how accountants invent kilowatt-hours. We write “not shown” when a door stays shut. You can be angry at a tenant with a closed door; you cannot bill a guess from our page.