Lol. She must have been like..."huh, imaginary power"......she chose a great day to call you ;)

pretty much everything you guys are asking about is all 2nd year electrician apprenticeship. Residental meters measure power, not apparent or reactive power. the meters used on larger commercial and industrial buildings are called demand meters and only charge for true power used until the buildings peak apparent power goes beyond a cirtain point, then they are charged heavily for the extra demand. even if your pump has a pf of 0.5, and pulls 120 va or apparent power (120v*1a), its only using 60w of power, and your only charged for 60w of power. Power companies dont charge residential buildings for apparent power because most of the devices we use have power factor correction to 0.9.

Yeah, yeah. Where were you this morning? ;)

I was actually thinking that too! So many words, searches and (umm...) interrogations could have been saved!

sorry i just saw the thread tonight. just for credits sake, i am a 4th year electrician, so ive had 2 school terms of the trig calculations to back this up. last year was all 3 phase which is quite a bit harder =P

Three phase is "quite" a bit harder? :neutral: You must be a genius when it comes to power. Being an electrical major myself, I feel crap when it comes to stuffs regarding AC and three phase Y-Delta craps. I am more of a DC person and my undergrad is not from here so never knew about how the grid works over here.

Thanks for clearing the confusions up. Learned a lot today :)

Cheers to Steve for starting this thread in the first place and keeping it warm! I wish I saw your powerhead add before; I need a power head badly :P

Us Power Engineers know everything there is about power generation but when it comes to how a residential power meter works.. Me feel stupid haha:lol:

In my defense, I am from a 3rd world country where we have more blackouts than on the moon :lol: Our generation works in a totally different way ;)

Haha I can imagine it does!

3 phase is like single phase, which is what is at the wall outlet, only x3. the phases are each 120 degrees out of phase with each other. 3 phase motors are far more efficient, smoother and quieter than single phase motors. I cant wait until one of these manufacturers comes out with a 3 phase pump and variable frequency drive.

electrician isnt really that difficult. we only learn what pertains to our trade. I know almost nothing about power generation =)