Balcony solar panels. Sounds like a great idea. Shhhh!

[hunter]

10. The first house my wife and I bought had a 20 amp electric service.

We got along fine with this limited service so long as we remembered that we could only use one large appliance at a time. Using the microwave oven and the washing machine at the same time, for example, would blow the old glass Edison style fuse which meant a trip to the basement to replace it. One learns fast.

The old house had first been wired with knob-and-tube but that had been replaced with BX 12/2, maybe in the 'fifties.

I would have felt safe plugging a kilowatt of solar into that system except that that the meters were "dumb" in those days and would have run backwards at times, giving us an unjustified free ride on the electric grid, like jumping the turnstiles on the subway.

Our current house has a smart meter. If you push electricity back onto the grid without a formal solar contract and approved solar power system your meter will not run backwards and you'll get a nasty letter from the electric company.