Public utilities provide electric, gas, water or telephone service to customers in a specified area. Utilities have a duty to provide safe and adequate service on reasonable terms to anyone who lives within the service area on without discriminating between customers. Because most utilities operate in near monopolistic conditions, they can be heavily regulated by local, state, and federal authorities. Generally, the local and state agencies are called Public Service Commissions (PSC) or Public Utility Commissions (PUC). Municipal Utilities and Rural Electric Cooperatives may be unregulated though.
Heaters is a small unincorporated community in Braxton County, West Virginia, United States. Heaters is situated about three miles north of Flatwoods on U.S. Route 19, which is a paved two-lane road. Access to I-79 is at Flatwoods. Heater's United States Postal Service ZIP Code is 26627. Heaters has no stoplight, no gas station, nor a general store, although it does have a post office. It used to have two bars, "The Boardwalk" and "Nancy's. " Both are now closed. The Boardwalk has become a restaurant, and Nancy's closed outright. Its most significant business is a Weyerhaeuser plant that manufactures oriented strand board building material.