Steven, Thanks for the post. I had no idea about this. Now, I'll be looking outside as well as in for the real scoop on the electric.

I never knew you could tell a meters rating just by looking. Now I will have to go and look at mine to see if it is 200 amps or not. Thank you for the info.

Glad to be of help. The other thing people need to know is that the electric utilities or power companies can pretty much do as they wish with their lines and meters. They are not regulated by the code inspectors. So if they determined that a smaller meter was adequate to service a larger panel, they could put in a lesser meter, although the guidelines here are pretty standard.

Another great post...always so informative.  Here in the East Bay we still have so many old homes....some close to 100 years old...that even still have the old round fuses.  I suppose those provide about 10 amps ; )~

Mary,

They are probably 60 amps. You bring up an interesting point. In some of these older homes the knob and tube was actually an update. Prior to that they might have had gas lights. I was around a bunch of inspectors arguing that one time. So I was doing an inspection at a home for an older woman who was familiar with here house going back to the turn of the century. She said that they had  the gaslights first and then they got the knob and tube that was still there.