Electricity

This is going to be your biggest expense after your light investment. It takes a lot of electricity to run a grow room. You have lights, vents, charcoal canisters, air conditioners and a few other things like pumps and fans. My bill has raised about $350-$500 with my system. Its fairly large so yours probably wont get this high. I have 4 1000 lights, a big 240 a/c and a few fans and canister.

Don't steal electricity. Whatever the bill is just pay it. If the elec. company reads their grid meter and things don't add up they will start investigating. That will probably get you busted. Some power companies can see what your meter is doing every day. They can see the power jump up at 8pm and drop back down at 8am every day. But don't worry because everything is pretty much automated. A real person doesn't get involved unless there is a problem. The cops can use this to bust you, but they wont check unless they have reason to believe you are doing something wrong. If thats the case you are already busted. They just use that to help get a warrant.

One major important thing is not to overload your circuits. 1000watt Hps and mh lights pull 9 amps. So if you are going to have a multi light system you may need to run some more cables to your breaker box. I always build a 240v power/timer box. I already know I will blow all the breakers in the room with ease. They sell these boxes for $200-300. I make mine for about $60-$80. I put about 8 120v plugs and around 4-6 240v plugs in it. I also use a 240v hot water heater timer. Works great up to 50 amps.


Here is a pic of the 220/110v timer box I make.


The ballast for my hps lights.