POD 6/27/2022

[kd12]

I noticed the Whirlpool ad had the "Live Better Electrically" medallion at the bottom of the page. These bronze or brass medallions used to be placed in the front of all-electric houses in the 60s, usually attached to the front somewhere or embedded in the concrete porch. I have actually seen one of these, embedded in the front porch of a 1967 house. Does anybody have one of theses in their own homes?

 

[DADoES]

 
The house the parents built in 1963 had a medallion on the doorbell escutcheon, or has if the medallion is still there.

 

[steved]

We do

Our 1962 home was part of the Live Better Electrically program. Considering we are about 12 miles from the main plant of General Electric, using lots of electricity was our civic duty! The Medallion program had 2 levels - Gold, for all electric living (mostly in the South and West) and Bronze, for us folks in colder areas that make electric heat a bit pricy. Our house is a Bronze, requiring a certain number of electric appliances, and wiring features. Our house has a zillion outlets in every room (Master has 8) and we have a LV lighting system. We have the medallion on the entry door and the "Full Housepower - Adequate Wiring Certified" logo on our house number, which is lit, of course! Somewhere I have a booklet that explains the requirements.

 

[jamiel]

We had the same thing growing up--house built in 1960 in suburban St. Louis. It was a program funded primarily by the local electric utility (Union Electric)...it was an Edison Electric effort (Reddy Kilowatt/investor-owned electric utilities rather than that nasssty socialistic public power). If the builder put in enough electric outlets/circuits then they got a promotional kickback from the local utility. Same thing happened with gas--Blue Flame Homes and/or Balanced Power homes. There are some faintly ridiculous ads out on Youtube talking about this.

 

[maytag85]

GE may have touted their Live Better Electrically homes, but there’s no mention what you would do if the power were to be out for a few days or how high the cost of electricity would be. It was NOT fun having any power 2 days last thanksgiving, was without power from Thursday to Saturday, wasn’t able to have any thanksgiving dinner or to heat up food so I ended up having to have takeout food instead. I was able to shower since I have a dependable Bradfordwhite gas water heater, but wasn’t able to heat up any food since I only have a electric cooktop and not a gas cooktop. If I had a gas cooktop, I at least would have been able to make some thanksgiving dinner even if it meant no turkey. All electric homes are nice when there are no power outages but when the power goes out, you can’t do anything which is a ROYAL pain especially if it’s thanksgiving time.

 

[DADoES]

 
There were no GE appliances in the 1963 house.