AetvsDominvs
Active Member
I posted a longer version of this in the thread with the power calc spreadsheet, but that thread I think has gone stagnant; I know double-posting is frowned upon so I pared this down a little bit: (I will remove my post in the other thread if asked)
I know there are some very knowledgeable and vastly more experienced folks than me on this board; could you please take a moment to give me your opinion whether I am being totally reckless?!?
I live in a college town in the US, small town, just the kind of place the police keep their eyes open for chances to pop college kids for growing and because of my proximity to the university I feel I need to be extra careful. To complicate matters more, the city government is also the power and water utility provider here, so it's no stretch of the imagination to feel that the power company and the police force keep tabs on anything suspicious happening on the 'grid'. I live in a small townhouse with spacious basement, excellent place for a setup and I haven’t seen my landlord in 8 months (slum lord doesn’t know I exist as long as I pay rent on time).
After reading the rate schedules on the city .gov page, and pulling all of my utility bills for the last year, it appears that my BASELINE is about 1200kwh / month.
My light setup will be 12 HO Fl's at 54 watts/ea (t: 648w) and two 600w HPS for a total of 1848w, and with a combined average daily on-time of 16hrs (20hrs for the T-5s and 12hrs for the HPS's) - adds up to 887kwh additional usage a month, round it up to 900 after the fans and pumps are in.
That’s a large increase: from 1200kwh / month to 2100 kwh / month. But my girlfriend moved out recently, and the utilities were in her name, so I recently changed service into my name, so this may be an ok time to ramp up an increase; as far as the power co is concerned, one resident moved out and a different resident moved in.
I also have a LOT of computer equipment (5 gaming PCs with 400w-550w power supplies and 19” monitors for the BF2 clan – what a great game!) that all run all the time, I haven’t measured the PCs power usage but I'm sure I could reduce my 'Baseline' to like 800kwh if I just turn stuff off...
If that's true, I would really only be increasing my overall usage from 1200 to 1700kwh. Does that make sense? Is that an ‘investigable’ increase?
How would one know exactly WHAT constitutes a red flag for the power company?
Also, I won’t be using the HPS lights for at least a month, until the first tomatoes are ready to bear fruit, so it would be a gradual ramp-up. I have a digital meter that transmits usage so there isn’t any meter-man checking up on me.
One other thing, there are 2 residential programs: "Energy Rate" and "Demand Rate" - the city's website says if you are using more than 1400kwh / mo you should use the “Demand Rate” program, the base charge is higher but there isn’t as much of a charge for higher demand - but I live in an apartment; I would hate to raise a red flag by asking for Demand Rate for my 2 bedroom apartment, or should I? I’m sure none of my neighbors use it, but besides asking my neighbors for a look at their power bills, is there any way I can know what their usage is?
So those are my quandaries. Any input would be great - sometimes I live in fantasy land in my head and need someone to say 'Dude, WTF are you doing!?!?' - Or 'You better flee for the border, bro'
Thanks in advance
I know there are some very knowledgeable and vastly more experienced folks than me on this board; could you please take a moment to give me your opinion whether I am being totally reckless?!?
I live in a college town in the US, small town, just the kind of place the police keep their eyes open for chances to pop college kids for growing and because of my proximity to the university I feel I need to be extra careful. To complicate matters more, the city government is also the power and water utility provider here, so it's no stretch of the imagination to feel that the power company and the police force keep tabs on anything suspicious happening on the 'grid'. I live in a small townhouse with spacious basement, excellent place for a setup and I haven’t seen my landlord in 8 months (slum lord doesn’t know I exist as long as I pay rent on time).
After reading the rate schedules on the city .gov page, and pulling all of my utility bills for the last year, it appears that my BASELINE is about 1200kwh / month.
My light setup will be 12 HO Fl's at 54 watts/ea (t: 648w) and two 600w HPS for a total of 1848w, and with a combined average daily on-time of 16hrs (20hrs for the T-5s and 12hrs for the HPS's) - adds up to 887kwh additional usage a month, round it up to 900 after the fans and pumps are in.
That’s a large increase: from 1200kwh / month to 2100 kwh / month. But my girlfriend moved out recently, and the utilities were in her name, so I recently changed service into my name, so this may be an ok time to ramp up an increase; as far as the power co is concerned, one resident moved out and a different resident moved in.
I also have a LOT of computer equipment (5 gaming PCs with 400w-550w power supplies and 19” monitors for the BF2 clan – what a great game!) that all run all the time, I haven’t measured the PCs power usage but I'm sure I could reduce my 'Baseline' to like 800kwh if I just turn stuff off...
If that's true, I would really only be increasing my overall usage from 1200 to 1700kwh. Does that make sense? Is that an ‘investigable’ increase?
How would one know exactly WHAT constitutes a red flag for the power company?
Also, I won’t be using the HPS lights for at least a month, until the first tomatoes are ready to bear fruit, so it would be a gradual ramp-up. I have a digital meter that transmits usage so there isn’t any meter-man checking up on me.
One other thing, there are 2 residential programs: "Energy Rate" and "Demand Rate" - the city's website says if you are using more than 1400kwh / mo you should use the “Demand Rate” program, the base charge is higher but there isn’t as much of a charge for higher demand - but I live in an apartment; I would hate to raise a red flag by asking for Demand Rate for my 2 bedroom apartment, or should I? I’m sure none of my neighbors use it, but besides asking my neighbors for a look at their power bills, is there any way I can know what their usage is?
So those are my quandaries. Any input would be great - sometimes I live in fantasy land in my head and need someone to say 'Dude, WTF are you doing!?!?' - Or 'You better flee for the border, bro'
Thanks in advance
