Powerbill Shock! I Almost Fell Over When I Saw It

The utilities were evaluated for consumption for the year. Its pro-rated so its the same each month. I put a 1000 watt light up along with a 400 watt T5 and associated fans and airconditioners dehumidifiers...ect ect ect.... $900 more power used from july last year till now. My power bill went from 197 each month to 318 each month. I dont sell the pot I mostly use it. What can I do to lower the cost? Are the magnetic ballasts power hungary compared to a digital ballast?

WTF.....bummed

From what I understand indoor growing is expensive on the power. I gotta find out if they pro rate my area. Sucks I know. I am hoping mine does not do this if i start. Hopefully someone else can chime in on this.

more insulation.

Tis a bitch ain't it? I have pretty much the same setup. If you were a heavy smoker and spent a lot of money on weed (me and the woman), then it is EASILY justifiable. I personally was spending WAY more money on buying weed than the difference in my bill. If you don't smoke very much and were doing this just for fun, it might not be worth it. I guess you just have to do the math and see what works for you.....You could always downsize, but the electrical costs are pretty substantial.

First Grasshopper: understand your usage, the 1k uses one kilowatt per hour on per day, multiply that times the days of the month for total wattage used times your current rate. Example a 1k on 12 hours per day 30 days is 360 kilowatts for the month, multiply times rate for instance 13 cents per kilowatt equals 46.80 per month. Add A/C, fans the T5's and you have a higher amount of usage. As mentioned adding insulation, air cooled hoods, adjusting veg to 4on 4off 4on 4off 4 on 4 off will cut the veg use in half, and it won't do anything to the plants other than slow the growth. Before anyone jumps the gun that this will do this and that it won't, lol. Picture a cloud coming over then Sunlight breaks back through similar. Now you could cut oout a on cycle as long as the total dark time isn't over 10 hours and it will remain in veg. Also check your rooms temps at canopy height so you aren't "over-cooling" without CO2 78F at plant tops is good. Recycle floor air and it will help too. Peace Bad...PS: if you can use Sunlight thats a big plus too!

Yea...I have a tendancy to keep too tight a control over temps. How cool is to cool in the dark period? I have my 600 watt heater set to come on at 70 when it gets cool to 67 in there is all at night without heat. I dunno what takes more power my ac or dehumidifier but I think there should be a unit that takes care of both. See the humidity gets over 55% and the unit kicks on...which puts off heat...which warms the room...which turns on the ac....which spins the kilowatts hours faster which raises my power bill...which makes me want to go back to buying my own meds...

Sheees.....what a racket

GH

id suspect the air conditioners and dehumidifiers.
check the back label for wattage, might be a shock.
heat is a bitch.

what i do is not run house ac and change all lights in house to cfl and turn them off when not in room also turn off computer when not using

<Grasshopper> said:

Yea...I have a tendancy to keep too tight a control over temps. How cool is to cool in the dark period? I have my 600 watt heater set to come on at 70 when it gets cool to 67 in there is all at night without heat. I dunno what takes more power my ac or dehumidifier but I think there should be a unit that takes care of both. See the humidity gets over 55% and the unit kicks on...which puts off heat...which warms the room...which turns on the ac....which spins the kilowatts hours faster which raises my power bill...which makes me want to go back to buying my own meds...

Sheees.....what a racket

GH

Click to expand...

get rid of the heater. you can go down to 62 with no worries. how high of temp and RH you get during lights on?

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about the night temps so much...mine used to go down to 55 at night and it was just fine. What I do now (with co2) is run my ac during lights on (82 degrees) and rum my dehumidifier at night. Day time humidity gets to 65% at times and night humidity is set to 60%. I run six 600 watt lights, two 8'' can fans, a 6'' can fan for the scrubber, an ac, a dehumidifier, two 4 foot 8 bulb t5's, co2, and the rest of my house and my bill is just over $320 a month...also my ac and dehumidifier are energy star approved which helps.

Pics from earlier this week

View attachment 1604352View attachment 1604359View attachment 1604363View attachment 1604367View attachment 1604368View attachment 1604373View attachment 1604384View attachment 1604386View attachment 1604390View attachment 1604392View attachment 1604396View attachment 1604398

Hey, that's a nice-looking setup there, medhead

LOL What the hell are you complaining about LOOK AT ALL THAT WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED