# When did electrical service first arrive?



## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

*http://americanhistory.si.edu/powering/past/h1main.htm
*

*Emergence of Electrical Utilities in America*

*Edison & the First Power Station*
The modern electric utility industry in the United States can be traced to the invention of the practical light bulb in 1879 by Thomas Alva Edison. Always looking toward the marketplace, Edison realized that his light bulb would mean nothing unless he developed an entire electric power system that generated and distributed electricity.
By 1882, he had developed such a system, and he installed the world's first central generating plant on Pearl Street in New York City's financial district. Reciprocating steam engines provided the motive power to generators, which produced direct-current (DC) electricity to shop owners and other businesses that used electric lighting as a novelty to attract customers. 
But soon after introduction of central station power, Edison and others introduced appliances that made electricity more versatile and valuable. Electric motors found use in fans and as replacements for bigger, more expensive, and more difficult-to-maintain steam engines in factories; electric irons quickly became a best seller for home-use, substituting for the heavy and cumbersome irons that needed frequent reheating on coal or wood stoves. Cities such as New York quickly introduced electrically operated street cars, which could be controlled more easily and operated more cheaply than their horse-drawn counterparts.

*Early Competition*
Electricity won popular praise as a new technology that would revolutionize home and industrial life. As entrepreneurs saw a large market for electricity consumption, they sought franchises from municipal governments to build power stations that would dot city landscapes. In many cities, numerous companies produced power for customers, because the power plants of the time were limited by the technological constraint inherent in direct current transmission. Produced and distributed at relatively low voltages--around 110 volts--direct current electricity weakened substantially as it traversed the copper distribution lines. In practice, customers needed to be within one mile of a generating plant to receive power. As a result, the emerging paradigm of electric power production appeared to consist of cities being populated by numerous power plants, each selling to customers within a small radius. Typically, the large investment required for the plant prohibited one company from owning all of them. But the firms often tried to win lucrative customers in the others' turfs.

*Samuel Insull and Chicago Edison*
When Samuel Insull arrived in Chicago in 1892, the town hosted more than twenty companies producing electricity. The British-born secretary of Thomas Edison, Insull assumed the presidency of the small Chicago Edison company, one of many Edison franchises around the country. Because of his work in Chicago, Insull is remembered for his many managerial and technological innovations that transformed the utility system into its modern structure. 
Quickly learning at his new job, Insull realized that his company could make more money by increasing what became known as the "load factor"--the ratio of average daily or annual power use to the maximum load sustained during the same period. Since Insull needed to purchase equipment to meet the peak load of use during a day--typically in the evening when customers used electric lights--he was stuck with power generating technology that sat idle most of the rest of the day. But Insull understood that if he could find customers who would use electricity during off-peak times, he could increase his company's income while avoiding new capital purchases (though he would still incur marginal expenses related to increased fuel use). Those customers existed, though many generated power for themselves. By enticing customers such as street railway companies, ice houses, and other businesses with low rates for off-peak power usage, Insull increased his load factor dramatically. He also found that lower-cost power stimulated demand, while still earning healthy profits for his company.

*Samuel Insull and Economies of Scale with Steam Turbines*
Insull also realized how to exploit new technologies. For example, during the late 1880s and 1890s, a few power companies in Europe began using a steam turbine to power generators instead of reciprocating steam engines. Large, bulky, noisy, and hard to maintain, the reciprocating engines of the day converted up-and-down motion to rotary motion for use by electric generators through the use of a large flywheel. But by the end of the 19th century, these behemoths were reaching limits to their productive capacity. The new steam turbines, invented by Englishman Charles Parsons in 1884, on the other hand, produced rotary motion directly, as steam passed through vanes on a long shaft. Much smaller in size, simpler mechanically, and more quiet than reciprocating engines, steam turbines produced a great amount of power from a small package. More importantly, the turbines could be scaled up to produce even more power with proportionally less investment in material. In other words, the steam turbine exhibited great "economies of scale" such that larger units produced electricity at lower unit cost.
Taking a great risk at the time, Insull ordered a turbine-generator set from the General Electric company in 1903 that produced 5,000 kilowatts (kW) of power (5 megawatts [MW]). Pleased with the unit's performance, he ordered other turbines that generated 12 MW in 1911. Power costs plummeted, allowing the company to sell more electricity at still lower rates.
Using steam turbines would not have been a successful strategy had it not been for Insull's use of an associated new technology--alternating current (AC) transformers. Developed in the 1880s, AC transformers overcame the technical limitation of transmitting low-voltage direct-current to distances beyond one mile. When power produced with already existing AC generators was transformed up to high voltages, current could flow for many miles without significant degradation. In 1896, for example, Edison competitor Westinghouse Electric built a system of water-turbine generators at Niagara Falls that produced power for transmission to Buffalo, 20 miles away. The AC power illuminated lights, just like direct current, and it powered the new AC motors that recently came to market. Since it could do everything direct current could do--with the important plus that it could be transmitted long distances--AC quickly won the day, leading to the demise of Edison's direct current systems.

*Consolidation*
Insull quickly realized that competition in the electric power supply business would never allow him to exploit the scalable turbine-generators and AC transmission systems. After all, if many companies divided the market for electricity, none would have the demand for power that could be met by the bigger turbine-generators. To remedy the problem, Insull sought to consolidate his company with others. After buying the firms, he often turned their generating stations into substations, relegating the generating equipment to back-up spares, and he used large, efficient steam-turbines to produce power for all customers. He also sought new customers, even some rural customers outside the city limits, to help him diversify the company's usage patterns and increase the load factor. Successful in his efforts, Insull acquired 20 other utility companies by 1907 and renamed the firm "Commonwealth Edison." By that time, the company had already become known as one of the most progressive--and lowest cost--utilities in the world. As a result, Insull's strategies became emulated by utility entrepreneurs in other cities throughout the United States.


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## Southeast Power (Jan 18, 2009)

http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rd/70th/rea-history.pdf


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## backstay (Feb 3, 2011)

http://www.aeci.org/SG_REAHistory.aspx


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## HARRY304E (Sep 15, 2010)

If you look on page ix in the front of the 2011 NEC Handbook it has a good write up on the history of the NEC It's roots go back to 1881.


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## fdew (Mar 26, 2009)

It varies from the late 1800s to not yet. Many of the early ones were private. They were run by batteries and / or "Light plants" (Generators.)

A interesting note. A vacation hotel (Capacity 500 people) in northern NY state that was only accessible by boat was the first hotel in the US to have an electric light in every room. 1882 
http://www.sthubertsisle.com/page177.html

I have a Kohler Light plant that I take to antique engine shows. It is fully automatic. Turn on a light anywhere on the farm and it senses the load and starts and regulates it self. turn off the light and it shuts itself off. 
Kohler made this model from 1928 to 1948
http://www.oldengine.org/members/frank/kohler1.htm

BTW Early house wiring had no outlets. Only light sockets. There was always a porch light (7 to 10 watts) so your neighbors would know you had electricity.

Frank


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## ponyboy (Nov 18, 2012)

so much for discussion. "here's a link go have fun"

not that i care, just thought its funny:thumbsup:


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## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

oldest contractor around here is 1913, fisk electric (IBEW) , followed by Margiotta electric (they claim to have pulled the first permit)
edit
some research and fisk is not from here they got here in 1969 hmm Margiotta claims 1910 start date


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## RICK BOYD (Mar 10, 2008)

*my house wired in 1914*

please look at the price


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## BBQ (Nov 16, 2010)

That is less than a gallon of paint costs. 

More on point, how many brass switch plates could I buy today for $26?


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## jza (Oct 31, 2009)

RICK BOYD said:


> please look at the price


Holy **** hahaha


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

BBQ said:


> That is less than a gallon of paint costs.
> 
> More on point, how many brass switch plates could I buy today for $26?


It was just for switches and lights, too. No place to plug in the good ol' Victrola! :no:

What a bunch of hacks. They probably came back the next month and installed receps for $3 each.


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## TTW (Sep 14, 2012)

Thanks for the info posted so far. I have read all the links and have found them very interesting.


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## retiredsparktech (Mar 8, 2011)

480sparky said:


> It was just for switches and lights, too. No place to plug in the good ol' Victrola! :no:
> 
> What a bunch of hacks. They probably came back the next month and installed receps for $3 each.


All Victrolas were wind-up spring motors back then. :001_huh:


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

I was apprenticed to a few older gents who had worked the REP.......~CS~


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## eejack (Jul 14, 2012)

I recently worked for EJ electric...established in 1899.
http://www.ej1899.com/past_history.htm

However, considering the first electric plants started up in the 1880s and the first real power plant (AC) in 1891 ( same year as the beginning of the IBEW ) some homes had power during that time.

It really took the public works programs of the 30s to bring widespread distribution of electricity.


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## RePhase277 (Feb 5, 2008)

RICK BOYD said:


> please look at the price


They hit them with a change order when City of St. Joseph required AFCI fuses:laughing:


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

The REP here is actually still on the dept of Ag books. 

The whole drive was to bring power to farms back then, from the 20's on through to even the early 50's electrical power was being sold door to door by what were the first electrical co-ops in the area

~CS~


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## drsparky (Nov 13, 2008)

I thought Tool "480sparky" would have chimed in on his personal experiance with the start of electrical power, he was around when it happened but maybe just a apprentice then.


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

drsparky said:


> I thought Tool "480sparky" would have chimed in on his personal experiance with the start of electrical power, he was around when it happened but maybe just a apprentice then.



When God said, "Let there be light!," He turned on a switch I wired for Him.


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## fdew (Mar 26, 2009)

It is interesting that even the living room had just one light.
No outlets just lights.
There are porch lights. 

I have a book from that period that shows typical home wiring. This is quite typical except that most work was first time installs in existing homes.

Frank


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## retiredsparktech (Mar 8, 2011)

fdew said:


> It is interesting that even the living room had just one light.
> No outlets just lights.
> There are porch lights.
> 
> ...


I lived in three different old homes, that were wired long after original construction. They were all wired with BX.
IIRC, they were wired in the mid to later 1920's, Subsidized by the electric co. Two were very minimal installations. Wall switches, only in the large rooms, one recepticle in the kitchen and living room.
One 15 amp circuit per floor and a 30 amp, 120 volt, two wire service.
Cost to home owner: around $50.00 . :001_huh:


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## RePhase277 (Feb 5, 2008)

retiredsparktech said:


> I lived in three different old homes, that were wired long after original construction. They were all wired with BX.
> IIRC, they were wired in the mid to later 1920's, Subsidized by the electric co. Two were very minimal installations. Wall switches, only in the large rooms, one recepticle in the kitchen and living room.
> One 15 amp circuit per floor and a 30 amp, 120 volt, two wire service.
> Cost to home owner: around $50.00 . :001_huh:


$50 sounds :001_huh: but when you made 10 cents an hour, it was no laughing matter.


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## retiredsparktech (Mar 8, 2011)

InPhase277 said:


> $50 sounds :001_huh: but when you made 10 cents an hour, it was no laughing matter.


I heard that you paid it off on your electric bill. After all. they were the only game in town. 
They also subsidized service upgrades, several years ago, as long as you bought a large power consuming appliance, such as a water heater, range or central air.


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## nolabama (Oct 3, 2007)

retiredsparktech said:


> I heard that you paid it off on your electric bill. After all. they were the only game in town.
> They also subsidized service upgrades, several years ago, as long as you bought a large power consuming appliance, such as a water heater, range or central air.


That sounds like a racket I woulda liked to have been in on.


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## s.kelly (Mar 20, 2009)

RICK BOYD said:


> please look at the price


Got an old house myself and like the history. That is one cool record you have!

Best I have is a crappy pic from WPA in the 40's. (So far)


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## JRaef (Mar 23, 2009)

I worked for a contractor family that had started in business right after the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. A lot of the fire problems were because of gas lighting being in the houses everywhere so after the earthquake, there was a major push to get rid of gas lighting.

But I too think that the major push in the US didn't happen until the REA starting in in 1932. People had electricity in cities, but at that time there was almost no electricity in farms, and farms were trying to feed a growing population. So the Rural Electrification Act was done to address this and help make farmers more productive. I seem to recall reading a statistic somewhere that in 1932 less than 10% of farms had electricity and by 1952 it was over 97%. To this day, roughly 60% of ALL electricity used in the US is used on pumping of some sort or another.


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## 37523 (Dec 30, 2012)

> _in rural Maine ... homes with no electricity_
_> I have become curious about when electricity first was installed around here_

Depends. 

Electric goes back before 1880 in NYC and some show-off places. 

My rural Maine road was dark until 1979. There was probably juice on the road to the point before that, but it musta been pretty crude because most of the street-lines now date to 1970s. 

There's a book about this area and electric is not mentioned until well after trucks and cars became common. These changed the community beyond recognition as more crop and lobster could be moved out to market _and_ as men found better work off the farm. My farm road was apparently abandoned in the 1930s, then re-found, paved, wired in the late 1970s as low-price mini-estates for working folk and retirees. 

Back in Jersey, my 1834 house had wires from 1910 (and 1930 and 1950 and 1970) but in the woods across there was a house built in 1930s that had not been electrified in 2004 when the long-time owners died. (Clearly by choice: by 1980 there was juice in developments 300 feet either way.) 

> _neighbor across the street is 87_

Ask him. Depending how far out you are, he may recall when the lights came. 

Electricity always came to downtown first. Before cars (or streetcars!), downtown was a small place (not like Portland today). In Maine: find the docks, the mills (at the falls), and the railroad depot. That triangle would be prime territory. 

With railroads, the old mills could out-grow their water-wheels. They were good customers for electric motors and power, being single large steady loads. Businesses and their workers clustered at the docks, then the railroad, and the route between, another good load. Many electric companies grew-from, or partnered with, streetcar companies. With streetcars people could live further from downtown and still get to work. These new neighborhoods got wired. 

Electric service economics is a lot about economy of scale and diversity of load. Bigger is better, as long as it is not too spread-out. So electric companies would run ads and hire salesmen to solicit new customers. Often a package deal, whole job for $12. 

Receptacles were NOT standard before 1918. Loads were hard-wired lamps, or irons that adapted into the hanging lamp in the kitchen. There were several plug/socket products but NEC/UL/etc declined to favor one over the other (patent rights were an issue) thinking the best products would win-out. Well, as patents expired the market did converge, though how "best" it is may be debated. 

OUTside town, and before REA, there was no power. It was "known" that small loads on long wires was unprofitable. In the 1920s some tests showed that maybe it wasn't that bad (also HV systems improved distribution economics). Still line-extension was slow until Depression era politics (there were still enough farmers to shift an election) opened funding for large slow-paying infrastructure. While REA met its goals and was dismantled, there's still Federal hands in the pot. 

In the 1930s: _A standard REA installation in a house consisted of:_
_A 60 amp, 230 volt fuse panel, with:_
_1.A 60 amp range circuit_
_2.A 20 amp kitchen circuit_
_3.Two or three 15 amp lighting circuits_
_A ceiling-mounted light fixture was installed in each room, usually controlled by a single switch mounted near a door. At most, one outlet was installed per room, since plug-connected appliances were expensive and uncommon. Wiring was performed using type NM nonmetallic sheathed cable, insulated with asbestos-reinforced rubber covered with jute and tar._

If you find similar technology in your house, it is probably of this era, though not always REA work. A house I had which was built in 1949 was that same fusebox, but more outlets and everything BX. 

The K&T across the street strongly suggests earlier wiring practices. However Maine has sometimes lagged behind the crest of the fashion. Freds Hardware might have had a ton of unsold K&T supplies when BX and Romex came in, so a penny-pincher might have gone K&T even though newer stuff was on the market. (Not a bad thing: some of the early BX and NM rotted in a few decades, K&T is forever or until blown-in fuzz.) 

Major REA activity was in the midwest, far west, and in TVA area. Maine, as always, got dregs. 

In Portland, there should be records. I'd look in the newspapers. Electric expansion was often in the news, first in the permitting, then in the actual build-out; also ads to get new customers. Google has an astonishing mishmosh of old newsrag scans.


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## Paul353 (Nov 18, 2012)

retiredsparktech said:


> I heard that you paid it off on your electric bill. After all. they were the only game in town.
> They also subsidized service upgrades, several years ago, as long as you bought a large power consuming appliance, such as a water heater, range or central air.


Not entirely true. They competed with both gas lamps (urban) and coal oil lamps (rural). http://inventors.about.com/od/lstartinventions/a/lighting.htm Electrical lighting must have offered significant cost saving advantages over the alternatives in order to take hold in the market as it did.


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## Switched (Dec 23, 2012)

JRaef said:


> I worked for a contractor family that had started in business right after the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. A lot of the fire problems were because of gas lighting being in the houses everywhere so after the earthquake, there was a major push to get rid of gas lighting.
> 
> But I too think that the major push in the US didn't happen until the REA starting in in 1932. People had electricity in cities, but at that time there was almost no electricity in farms, and farms were trying to feed a growing population. So the Rural Electrification Act was done to address this and help make farmers more productive. I seem to recall reading a statistic somewhere that in 1932 less than 10% of farms had electricity and by 1952 it was over 97%. To this day, roughly 60% of ALL electricity used in the US is used on pumping of some sort or another.


Just in the process of finishing a rewire in SF. It had the gas piping and electric at all the light locations. The property has been in the family since before 1900. It was originally a larger mansion home, but after the quake and fire they built several multi family homes. I was able to salvage one of the old fixtures before the family, "people waiting for their inheritance", threw everything out. I'm saving it for a future restoration project. The old guy who grew up in the place said his dad wanted gas and electric at the lights, he wasn't convinced the electrical fad would last!


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