The wire coming out of the water meter is a cable to feed the "remote reader" (i.e the remote dials). This allows the utility company can get a reading from outside.
~your electric installation OMG it is factory-sized! Is this typical for an American home?
It's hard to say. In my area a house built in 1850 is old; 1950 is "new". In other parts of this country 1950 is "ancient". So I am accustomed to very old (read: inadequate) systems. I would have to say that this is becoming more typical in newer homes. Remember, suing 20a @ 120v the max. we can get through a cable is 2,400w. The dishwasher, the refrigerator, the heating, the cooling the laundry, an outdoor circuit for garden machines all tend to be separate lines, so the number of circuits does add up quickly. In homes that are all-electric with resistance heating there would also be two circuit brekers for each of the room heaters! I have some duplications in my house such as two stoves/cookers, through-the-wall air-conditioning, then central air-condtitioning was added. I added electric heat to the basement when I had an old, unreliable boiler, so I would have to say many homes have fewer circuits.
Here is a picture of back-up/ emergency electric heat. As we all know, resistance electric heat is not generally as eco-friendly as oil or gas, (Unless your electric is hydro-electric, etc.) so I use the oil-burning heat generally.
So in summary, I really have a hard time saying mine is bigger or better than most.
