about the electric bill?

so I'm sorry guys, but I've searched, and seen mixed results....

what's the deal with electric bills? if i run a 400w hps what's the likelihood that i will be sending off any red flags. also, the elec company is edison (don't know if it makes a difference) lets say I lived in a studio. should I be worried? or should I be fine. once again, sorry because I'm sure this is a repost, but a nice piece of mind is always good.

i've read that a lot of computers use around that much electricity. is this true?

Think of it like this a reptile cage uses about the same energy, do the police raid a house every time a new person gets a lizard? I wouldn't be concerned with it at all, if you are replace you light bulbs with compact floresent bulbs that should cut down on your total wattage. And pay your bill, I don't think the electric company gives a hoot how much energy you use as long as you pay for it.

i love reading responses like this. it just sucks because every so often, I will read a not so positive post. but that's reality unfortunately.


i figure with my fan/inline/exhaust running, I will probably be somewhere around 600w just for the grow.


i am def. going to be following the "turn off the lights as you leave the room" rule.

my buddy is running 4000w HPS 24 hrs a day for veg and 12/12 for flower and he has never been questioned. i think it all depends on where you are...

if your in the neighborhood of 6KW an hour your gonna be checked out... not even looked at with 3, your not even at 1.. NO WORRIES!!! aside from that, your electric bill is not enough for a search warrant.

its the people who cant keep their mouths shut are the ones to worry about your more likely to get busted by a grass more than a power company so long as you pay the bill

andrewj31 said:

so I'm sorry guys, but I've searched, and seen mixed results....

what's the deal with electric bills? if i run a 400w hps what's the likelihood that i will be sending off any red flags. also, the elec company is edison (don't know if it makes a difference) lets say I lived in a studio. should I be worried? or should I be fine. once again, sorry because I'm sure this is a repost, but a nice piece of mind is always good.

i've read that a lot of computers use around that much electricity. is this true?

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I have 4 100 watt bulbs in my kitchen does that answer it for you! No chance of alerting anybody unless:
1. you dont pay your bill
2.you shout your mouth off about your grow.
3. you dont pay your bill (lol)
4.you upgrade to 6x1000hps and dont pay your bill.....

got it! Anybody tells you any different, dont listen!

just to give you an example my system uses about 3000w for the grow, i cook at home basically every meal with an electric stove, i have a huge plasma tv with surround sound and xbox and im constantly bangin music.... and im in an apartment....chillax bro

thanks guys. i love you all.

andrewj31 said:

so I'm sorry guys, but I've searched, and seen mixed results....

what's the deal with electric bills? if i run a 400w hps what's the likelihood that i will be sending off any red flags. also, the elec company is edison (don't know if it makes a difference) lets say I lived in a studio. should I be worried? or should I be fine. once again, sorry because I'm sure this is a repost, but a nice piece of mind is always good.

i've read that a lot of computers use around that much electricity. is this true?

Click to expand...

You're safe with a 400... I have a modded ATX tower with an 800W power supply. I even have a car-cigarette lighter and a cup warmer attached as bay options.

Every 100W = 1 Amp
Have you ever popped a circuit breaker? The average breaker is 20 Amps. This means that you were running well over 1500 Watts when it popped - This is because although the breaker is rated for 20 it's still unsafe to run it to capacity unless you have cable runs to hold the actual load x2.

In a nut shell you'll be fine and this is coming from an edison customer running a kW lamp...

How much did your bill increase when u added the 400w HpS ?

I'm not growing but I am 'green minded' both about money and mother earth. I just replaced 30 light bulbs in my house. (They had a sale at Lowes.)

If I ran them 24 hours a day (which I don't) the old bulbs averaged to 36K a day or roughly 3 k/h

I replaced ALL of them with CFL's. Now if I ran 24 hours a day with every light in the house on I'd be using 6.4K per day or .27 k/h on lights.

Given that I don't run lights that way and always practice 'turn off the light when you leave the room.' I don't know what kind of savings in electricity or money I'm going to realize but I'll know next month.

I'm sure that with the savings I could run a nice CFL Veg / 1000w HPS flower grow and my electricity wouldn't notice a blip since in theory I just saved 91% on my lighting bill. Note I also run 6 computers, a flat panel LCD TV, and a 6000 Watt stereo system so I'm still buring some electricity.

-RT76

Get some cfl's. There very cool and efficient and with the right bulbs they'll produce more lumens than a HPS at a fraction of the wattage.

Shoot my power company does nothing to your house if you miss a payment. They just walk to the side of the house and turn your shit off completely. Thats even if you are like half a day late on payments real assholes.

I pay my bill every 3-4 months, and they never shut me off. Ive even let it go 6 months without them doing anything but sending a couple disconnection notices.

The Scooby Master said:

I pay my bill every 3-4 months, and they never shut me off. Ive even let it go 6 months without them doing anything but sending a couple disconnection notices.

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That shit will fuck up your credit.