Have you ever received a nasty shock when your electric bill arrived? Maybe the amount you owed skyrocketed when you turned on the air conditioning for the summer, or the refrigerator started breaking down and consumed an excess of electricity. No matter what the cause of your sky-high electric bill, once you use the electricity, you have to pay for it. One way you can get a heads-up on any unusually high consumption is to keep an eye on your electric meter. Read on to learn how to read the meter so you are prepared when the bill shows up at your door.

Is Your Meter Digital or Dialed?

If you're lucky, you have a newer electric meter with a digital display, making it a cinch to see how much current is coming in. Simply compare your consumption from one month to another and you'll quickly be able to figure out if you're using up more energy than normal.

Traditional electric meters are a bit trickier to read, but you don't have to be an electrician to decipher them. These older meters have dials instead of a digital display, and they don't all spin in the same direction. With a little practice, however, you can figure out how much power you are using and get a ballpark idea about what the bill will be.

Spinning Clockwise, Spinning Counterclockwise

On a traditional electric meter, there are five dials that go between 0 and 9. To read the meter, follow these steps:

There's one more twist -- if the dial is pointing exactly to a number, and the next dial to the right points to a nine, you should subtract one from the dial that points to the exact number.

Now you've got your reading, and you can simply track how much it changes from month to month to get a handle on your energy use.

Getting Smart About Your Meter

If your utility has already implemented smart electric meters, it's even easier to follow your consumption. Not only is the display in easy-to-read digital form, but the meter can provide updates on how much you're using as often as every fifteen minutes. That way, you can get an alert in real-time if your usage spikes so you can track down the culprit before you have to shell out a fortune in bills.

In addition to monitoring your own consumption, it's a good idea to watch the meter so you will know if the utility company accidentally overcharges you. If you need any help figuring out how to read your meter, contact a trusted electrician today.

The majority of contractors and building owners are creating networks that interconnect all the components. These provide a single point of monitoring and control the different types of devices, sensors, and equipment.

While wiring the building during the construction phase is the ideal situation, modifying or upgrading existing systems can be challenging.

As the building gets bigger and more complex, so does its automation, making it a real task to interconnect all components. It may require hybrid systems consisting of the UTP, RS-232/RS-485, wired and wireless networks, and a variety of protocols. However, there is still a need to unify all these. It’s best to have a single point of managing and controlling the devices regardless of the style, location, function, and type of network.

As building automation evolves, there are now industry standard network protocols that allow people to interconnect components from different manufacturers. The three most commonly used interoperable protocols in use today include:

Building automation enables efficient control of the various systems and conditions in the building. This allows the occupants and owners to save costs, while improving comfort and living conditions. It adds the ability to automatically monitor and adjust the lighting, air conditioning, heating, ventilation, security and other parameters. Specific benefits include:

Building automation offers several benefits to the owners and occupants of the facilities. It allows the savings of resources such as energy and water while improving the conditions and comfort of the space.

As building automation networking evolves, equipment and applications from different manufacturers are able to work together via standard interfaces and protocols. This allows consumers to benefit from the latest technology and decreases our ecological footprint.

In April 1999, Wayne Gretzky played his final game in the National Hockey League. Gretzky had played 20 seasons and was considered by many to be the greatest the sport had ever seen.

2) OMG, Myspace Is, Like, Totally Awesome!

Excitement spread like wildfire through American culture as the cable modem brought the promise of a faster future. In April 1999, we still had the strange robot music of the 56k dial-up modem ringing in our ears. This page would have taken a lot longer to load back then.

4) Do You Believe In Fame after Fame?

Cher’s April reign only lasted three days before TLC reached the apex of popularity, stealing the number one spot on the Billboard Hot 100 list.

6) Goth Culture Gets a Careful Examination

For intentionally lying in court during a sexual harassment civil lawsuit, President Bill Clinton was cited with contempt of court. This was not a proud moment for anyone. By comparison, it has been a tame 15 years of presidential history!

8) Mind-Controlled Technology Hath Arrived…

On April 23rd, the BBC reported that newly discovered skull and tooth fragments may belong to a “human-like species” that lived 2.5 million years ago. There was a lot of controversy initially, but there has since been a general consensus that the Australopithecus garhi, as the species was named, is the most immediate ancestor to the human genus, Homo.

10) Eminem: Straight Blowin Up

The Hours by Michael Cunningham won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in April, 1999. The book would later be made into an Oscar-winning movie starring Meryl Streep.

12) Pulitzer Prize for Drama

In April, we got yet another indication that American culture was infatuated with the genre of romantic comedy as Never Been Kissed, starring Drew Barrymore and David Arquette, hit the box offices.

14) Billy Joel Retires…Psych!

Surely, tears were flowing on the faces of day-time TV enthusiasts when NBC announced the cancellation of the long-running, iconic soap opera Another World. Only a few months later, the final episode would air, and, instead of watching Another World, fans would have to watch something else. Maybe the actual world?