Electricity Bill

Hi guys,

I designed my grow room and I have 3 250Watt for vegetative (18 hours light) and 4 250Watt for flower(12 hours light). I will have a harvest every 2 week.
This will require alot of electricity so do you know a way that would not consume from house electricity.
Can it be by like by a solar panel or a generator with a battery.

Did school let out early?

Solar is a pretty high initial setup cost but is the cleanest and most efficient way to go off the grid. You'll make that money back in 5 years if you plan on growing that long.

Diesel or gas generators are less efficient but also have much lower setup costs. You would probably only need a small generator to take the majority of that load off the grid.

turn off your refrigerator and live off salted meats like they did in the 1800's. shit with the lights off. cook your food using a BBQ pit out back instead of the microwave.

generators are pretty loud and consume a lot of fuel...it will be expensive and not very stealthy...solar panel are better, but not very efficient or reliable...your setup is going to need a lot of juice, and that will be expensive, one way or another. Hope you are prepared for huge electricity bills...

Gr0wGreen said:

turn off your refrigerator and live off salted meats like they did in the 1800's. shit with the lights off. cook your food using a BBQ pit out back instead of the microwave.

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lol i already do that, and I STILL can't afford to run my lamp at full capacity...or even at half power for the necessary 12 hours...

ddimebag said:

Hope you are prepared for huge electricity bills...

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he has less than 2000 watts! what huge electric bill? that bump will be smaller than upgrading my internet connection

ddimebag said:

lol i already do that, and I STILL can't afford to run my lamp at full capacity...or even at half power for the necessary 12 hours...

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brother you're in the wrong game then

If you can't afford to run 3 - 250w 18hrs a day and 4 250w 12 hrs a day, maybe you opught to think about getting a job.

phillipchristian said:

Solar is a pretty high initial setup cost but is the cleanest and most efficient way to go off the grid. You'll make that money back in 5 years if you plan on growing that long.

Diesel or gas generators are less efficient but also have much lower setup costs. You would probably only need a small generator to take the majority of that load off the grid.

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That is if you live in a area that can support a solar set up to build that much power.

Generators are also a giant pain in the ass!! Between fueling it (all the time) and maintaining it they are hard to justify until you get into large diesel units and a draw and area for it.
You are talking a total of 765 kwh of light per month, that really is not that much. We will say .15 a kwh for cost, mine is close to .11, others are higher so this should be close. So 114.75 a month in extra electricity, a hot tub alone could pull that. Or a salt water fish set up. Or a tanning bed. I could keep going, and going.
I ? the reason for 3 250s in veg and only 4 in flower, but regardless, i run 400 watts veg and 2000 flower, still not enough to raise eyebrows.

Forget Solar/ Generator...it is way to expensive for what you want to do.
Three 250 Watts are not going to kill you. I assume we are talking CFL's...you save on the front end by not having to constantly running the AC to keep things cool.

ddimebag said:

generators are pretty loud and consume a lot of fuel...it will be expensive and not very stealthy...solar panel are better, but not very efficient or reliable...your setup is going to need a lot of juice, and that will be expensive, one way or another. Hope you are prepared for huge electricity bills...

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Natural gas or propane generators to run that small of a load are not loud at all. He only has 2000w of lighting he needs to run. We're not talking about some huge powerplant here. And the propane/NG generators hardly use any fuel at all to run that type of load.

ddimebag said:

lol i already do that, and I STILL can't afford to run my lamp at full capacity...or even at half power for the necessary 12 hours...

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I really can't understand how you can't afford to run a SINGLE lamp. I mean a 1000w lamp costs $100 a month to run 24/0 based on the national average kWh charge. Don't you save more then that growing your own?

SOME PPL PAY UPWARDS OF 45 CENT A K/W.................were u from i wonder?

richinweed said:

SOME PPL PAY UPWARDS OF 45 CENT A K/W.................were u from i wonder?

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I would move!!!

TruenoAE86coupe said:

Generators are also a giant pain in the ass!! Between fueling it (all the time) and maintaining it they are hard to justify until you get into large diesel units and a draw and area for it.
You are talking a total of 765 kwh of light per month, that really is not that much. We will say .15 a kwh for cost, mine is close to .11, others are higher so this should be close. So 114.75 a month in extra electricity, a hot tub alone could pull that. Or a salt water fish set up. Or a tanning bed. I could keep going, and going.
I ? the reason for 3 250s in veg and only 4 in flower, but regardless, i run 400 watts veg and 2000 flower, still not enough to raise eyebrows.

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the propane/NG generators don't need to be fueled all the time and run pretty quietly.

richinweed said:

SOME PPL PAY UPWARDS OF 45 CENT A K/W.................were u from i wonder?

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Yea, but those are people on a tiered system and they are paying that much because they are using a ton of electricity. And they only pay that amount on the usage over the set thresholds.

he can't afford $45 a month for the lights! $45 wouldn't even buy you a solar powered cell phone charger!

phillipchristian said:

the propane/NG generators don't need to be fueled all the time and run pretty quietly.

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Fair enough, but pretty hard to justify instead of paying the electric company paying the gas company and having to maintain it. Not to mention the cost of any kind of reliable propane/ng generators, becomes pretty ridiculous if you are already on the grid. Off the grid i could see it, but then just get a diesel and you can bring in your own fuel.

TruenoAE86coupe said:

Fair enough, but pretty hard to justify instead of paying the electric company paying the gas company and having to maintain it. Not to mention the cost of any kind of reliable propane/ng generators, becomes pretty ridiculous if you are already on the grid. Off the grid i could see it, but then just get a diesel and you can bring in your own fuel.

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I see what you are saying but the problem with diesel generators sometimes is getting the fuel. Smaller generators have smaller fuel tanks and you'r going to the station to fill up cans all the time. You can get a 75 gallon propane tank and run a 5kW propane generator for almost 2 weeks on that thing. Plus it is a lot quieter.

You never know why someone might need to be off the grid. Some people live in other countries where they do monitor power and some people just don't have the power left on their board. The OP asked about ways to go off the grid so I am giving them to him. If he puts more info up and we see that he doesn't need to be off the grid then we can go from there.