Power Consumption / Light Cost

GOVERNMENT RUN ELECTRIC COMPANIES WILL, REGARDLESS IF YOU PAY.. Here in Cali ppl get Mostly Edison so its ok, but IF YOU GET POWER FROM A GOV. OWNED SOURCE, They do look into suspicious limits.

brainwashed said:

Power companies are not going to turn you in for a power spike! Whoever thinks that does not know why companies exist.....TO MAKE MONEY! They will NOT turn in a client that is paying them $800 a month, that would be dumb! So do not worry about your power bill being to high, just make sure its paid!

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I get my power from a local govt owned company. Once my system gets going I'll be jumping from about 500KWH to 1100KWH. Should I be worried?

Here's a site to help calculate costs! Enjoy!

http://www.advancednutrients.com/conversion_tools/powercost_tool/powercost.html

Thank you for sharing it's awesome and really helpful for everyone. I like this kind of post because a lot of us can attest to the effectiveness of this calculation. That way, I couldn't ask for more.

LEDS are here! I have first hand experience. Dense and oily bud. No way shape or form an LED salesman but it does work and saves you money. But to each his own.
happy indoor season

love that conversion calculator , pretty accurate, close to what im payin..

I am seriously wondering if anyone else on here has ever had their ballast go bad or had a bulb burn out and then experienced a major power spike? My bill just jumped from $115 to $450 and I made no changes to my room whatsoever!!

I have been running a used 600 watt digital HPS for flowering my 4x5 room for about 6 months now with no significant increase in power.
Combined with my house lights and appliances I normally average approximately 600-700 Kwh per month ($115) and last month the meter shows I used over 1600 Kwh ($450)!!

Early last month I entered my room after about a week of not checking it to find my bulb was burned out and my ladies were drooping nearly to the floor.
I pulled out the spare bulb I had been given by the guy who sold me the used setup and was able to get it going again but now when I check my power meter at the pole I am using about 2 Kwh per hour with my 600 watt digital HPS, house lights, and appliances on. If I unplug the 600 watt digital it drops to less than 1 Kwh per hour so I am pretty certain it is the 600 watt HPS causing the spike.

I definitely cannot afford another huge bill. At this point I am wondering should I:
1) try to have the 600 watt HPS ballast that appears to be drawing far too much power repaired somewhere?
2) buy a new bulb and try that?
3) get a whole new setup? (ballast and bulb)

Does anyone know if running the HPS ballast with a burned out bulb for a week can damage the ballast?

For now I have my ladies under a single 100 watt CFL for now just to keep them alive while I figure out if the 600 watt HPS can be salvaged...
I appreciate any advice you guys have to offer!!

awesome post!!!!

Maybe i am retarded but when itry to download the zip file it keeps saying there is an error. Any thoughts?

you dont need the spread sheet to figure usage (watts x hours used /1000) x price per kilowatt
400watt x 18hrs a day x 30 days = 216000 / 1000 = 216 kw x price per kilowatt were i am it's .08 so 216 x .08 = $17 a month to run my 400 watt light 18hrs a day
it's not exact but it will get you real close to usage i get my power bill every two months and it went up $40 for two months running my light 18 hrs a day

Very cool but maybe a little too time consuming for most people. If you are just looking to find out what your grow will cost you in electrical you can use a simple Electricity Cost Calculator online. All the information you will need to know is the Watts used by each piece of equipment which you can find in the manuel or on the equipment itself and what your electric company charges you per kilowatt hour which you can find on your electric bill. This is the one I use:

http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/electric.cgi?submit=Entry

every 1 worrying about how much power is being used it would be easyer if it went like this
250w-hps=£.$ per hour
an so on for higher wattage lights like the 400w,650w.1000w
i used a 400w-hps an it was taking on average about £10.00 a week on an 18hr turn on an when it went in to 12/12 it was around £7.00-£8.00 a week,so when u add all that up over ur grow time from seed/clone to harvest it is a lot off money also the cost of the nutes some are more than others,so u need to work out how many plants 2 grow cause if r only growing 2 or 3 u may as well an go an get ur self a few oz cause it will cost u more in power than what u would get off the crop it self an if ur new 2 this game ur more than likely gonna get low quality weed till u get some experence on growing weed,ur main points are light the right p.h the right amount of nutes do not over warter an plenty of fresh air,an make sure the light is at the right height or ur just gonna get stretched plants that will give u about 3 grams of low quality weed.........happy growing

My 4X1000 watt lights on 18 hours a day cost me $200.00 a month extra

vitalious said:

Can anyone take a guess at how many KW/h per DAY you can get away with without sending alarms ringing?

Lets say we have 6 1000watt lights going at 16 per day, thats 96 kw/h in a day.
thats about 5-6 bucks a day = $150 month.

Do you guys reckon that you can get away with 12 1000 watters?

I am planning to make a flowering room out of an entire basement.
Probably an area of 16'x12'.

I'm looking to dedicate about $500 of electric bills a month to growing only.

Is that the kind of figure that would raise eyebrows?
I live in Canada, Ontario by the way.

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this may be old , but that kind of consumption will get you noticed for sure
especially now with smart meters.
Even in a commercial location ,I'd think ya would get caught

also from ontario

Wow...i wish... i spend that on only 1 -1000W...Damn Southern Cal Edison!

TexasWild said:

I ended up getting a dehumidifier on Craigs List for 10 bucks but now have gotten the humidity down with air flow and temps! Had to put heater in because it was getting down to like high 30's and low 40's. Problem doesn't exits anymore! I added some co2 (yeast and sugar). Temps around 75 - 85 day and 60 - 70 at night so far! humidity around 40 - 50% even when watering. Thinking about putting my dehumidifier in for the last week or so to keep in the 20 - 30 range and not water either. I am 10 days into flowering and was curious about adding 2 150w HPS as my areas is 3x6. So that they will be extra dense! Any thoughts?

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...add the two hps's...you will never look back.............

wysong said:

this may be old , but that kind of consumption will get you noticed for sure
especially now with smart meters.
Even in a commercial location ,I'd think ya would get caught

also from ontario

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...wow ...sat hi to Bubba 4 me...

brainwashed said:

Power companies are not going to turn you in for a power spike! Whoever thinks that does not know why companies exist.....TO MAKE MONEY! They will NOT turn in a client that is paying them $800 a month, that would be dumb! So do not worry about your power bill being to high, just make sure its paid!

Click to expand...

if u live in a region were meter readers come about...hmmm= second income to power reader meter finks....thats how i believe most smell reports get to crime stoppers...fukkin rats.