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Comment by ekns | Hacker News Reader

When I was living in Edinburgh, I encountered the corner case of the upper levels of an apartment building having a different postcode from the lower levels. Everything online used the same address database so I wondered why I could never find my address under my (presumed) postcode.

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When I worked at Scottish Gas, dealing with tenement flats in Edinburgh was always a nightmare because TGB (the old billing system) used the old 1F/2F/3F system but the electricity system used the numbered system - so customers would get mail for both but it would be mixed up all the time.

If you have to deal with a pre-pay meter going in, or just a change in meter they usually screwed up the MPR number with the address and end up replacing the wrong one.

And I lived in Edinburgh for 13 years, mostly in tenement flats - so it was always a hassle.

Edinburgh is awesome, in particular, for the way that flats can be numbered within buildings.

I used to live in flat on the top floor which received mail as either "TFL" (for top-floor, flat on the left", or "Flat 6". Different companies used different formats for the address.

I'd lived in GFL "ground-floor, flat left" and "GFR" for "Ground-floor, flat-right" as well. But never in a middle floor. I assume they would be MFL and MFR respectively. But who knows?

when i lived in edinburgh in the 70s, we would just stick a card on the flat door with the surnames of the inhabitants on it - the flats themselves did not have numbers.

That is pretty much how it works in Germany - flats are identified by resident surname, and numbers, if they exist, are not known or little used.

Norwegian apartments are all identified by a single letter and four numbers. For example, H0203 means 2nd floor, 3rd apartment from the left as seen when ascending the stairs. The H means "main floors" (as opposed to the loft or cellar). Very useful when visiting other apartments.

They use 1FL/1FR for first floor, 2FL/2FR for second floor, etc.

Flats on floors in between usually have the floor number as the first part: "3FL" for third floor on the left or "2F3" for second floor, third flat. Or at least that's how it was when I lived in Edinburgh in the 90s.

Here's a recent reddit thread on the problems of post and delivery services, and the address format for tenements. It discusses 'royal mail' vs 'council format' and the PAF

https://www.reddit.com/r/Edinburgh/comments/16rpbsc/differen...

I've seen this done (in England) for blocks of flats where each floor has it's own postcode that matches the floor, eg ZZ1 Z1A through to ZZ1 Z1G (A-G for floor 1 to 7).

My flat in Edinburgh has two official post codes, depending on who is communicating with me.

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