Thanks, kimkitchy. Hopefully our grounds will be a little bit more attractive next year; our house was a rental for 10+ years and then a poorly done flip, and was completely overgrown with neglected shrubbery that we tried to neaten up and eventually just had to tear out especially once the honeysuckle invasion began and it started eating the porch! All along the right side of the porch were lilacs (eastern NH is practically Lilac Central and I adore them) which we do want to replace but with dwarf varieties so they don't take over the porch like we removed. Wow, Lauren, that bathroom's really sharp. Well done! Have you forgiven me yet for bullying you into stripping the trim in the dining room? LOL Karma is paying me back by giving me acres of leprous-looking trim that needs to be stripped - PO painted right over about a zillion coats of chipping, peeling paint with FLAT paint (urgh, it's filthy already and completely uncleanable) without scraping or sanding anything, plus he dripped and slopped and painted right over the original porcelain interior knobs and *wail* Eastlake exterior knob and twist doorbell. It's awful. We know the trim in the living and dining rooms and front hallway were originally something stained dark from a couple of spots that chipped all the way through, but even if we were to repaint it rather than restoring the dark finish it still needs to be completely stripped down. The baseboards in the LR and DR have a beautiful fluted detail that's completely gunked up with paint, which I think is going to mean a lot of time with dental picks. :-/ Upstairs we have spots chipped down to original paint that was mint green! *shudder* I don't really have much for interior pics because we're still in "complete dump" mode inside due to cashflow and lack of DIY-ability (time, energy and skills).

OK USE-2 is one of the service entry cables. You don't need to enclose it in conduit except where it needs to be protected. If it goes somewhere where it needs to be protected from damage, then conduit (or similar) is required. As near as I can tell (going through wood joists in your post) conduit isn't required. HOWEVER, you can not run the ground as a separate wire. You're either going to have to get cable with the appropriate number of conductors or run conduit and individual conductors.

He is 100% INCORRECT. NO grounding electrode and NO water bond! A 4-wire feeder is all that is required or wanted. A 3-wire feeder in a complete metallic conduit system works as well, but the fittings must be made up tight and the bonding on both ends must be correct.

The feeders and panels in the individual units need to be sized for the connected load. You do NOT size the service then divide by the number of units, less house load, to determine the feeder and panel size in the units. A good review of the examples in Annex D should show you how this is done. When figuring the service size you are allowed to use 17KW for 4 ranges (not over 12KW each). This does NOT translate to only allowing 4.25 KW in each unit for a range, nor does it allow that since the 8KW has been used to calculate the unit feeder size that you can now use the 220.55 table column A and B to figure the service size if the range is over 8 3/4 KW. As to the meter cans, main breakers, and service disconnect/OCPD, virtually any combination can be ordered. With rare exceptions you won't walk in to a distributer and buy exactly what you want off the shelf. Get a few service equipment catalogs and browse a bit. Be sure your furnace includes the blower as this is often separate with electric heat, and water heaters come in a variety of sizes.