Lighting & electric bill/cops

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badja

Active Member
sounds like a big problem in the U.S and so forth, so glad i live in the U.K, virtually no scrutinization atall, got to be more worried about people breaking into your home and stealing it than the police/electricity company giving you headaches.
 
B

blowintreevs

Active Member
abudsmoker said:
you should think about this statement carefully, if you consume a high volume or "Demand" they will foce you here to use a commercial meter, if you consume say 4200 kwh a month summer an winter and you have say 1100 ft house this is a RED flag, they keep old data so they can easily adverage out what was the normal usage.

almost every indoorgarden busted here in texas was from a tip from meter reader or electric company.

here in texas there is afair amount of indoor growing occuring. they have passed rulings preventing law inforcement from using heat sencing devices to
look inside your home business or dwelling. they need probable cause before they can secure a warrant. if the local electric company checked residental demand they could see a spike from your hid lights. they limit this to commercial meters here. so if you started 3 1000w lights on 120 you pulling about 29 amps. big deal, but all at once pulls alot of power from your local grid. but on a demand meter they measure not just how much you use but also your power spikes. so i personally use over 2100 kwh a month for my garden. this is the adverage consumption of a 1900-2500 foot house or family of 5. i cycle my lights to lower demand(allow 15 minutes before powering another ballast) this pulls less power at once making no noticable drop in amps available from the transformer.

this makes it important to seperate my garden from my residence. here in my town 70% of meters are digital and transmit readings directly to our provider so in april of last year when i bought the place the adverage monthly usage for 5 years was 900 kwh per month. so when i puchased the first thing i did was pull a permit to upgrade my 100 amp service to 200 amp and change meter loop wire and all. so after the upgrade and new meter we adveraged 2700 kwh per month. so by limiting my demand cycling the lights, upgrading service and meter i a good to go so to speak. when the summer hits the lights go off because i am tapped out. i dont dare go over 3000 kwh a month.
i have replaced electric dryer and water heater to gas this reduced about 500 kwh a month alone.

understand power consumption on a grow is the most impotant factor. couple of 1k lights no worries, 2000 or more watts a hour gets risky, and the first place they will always look is you bills.....

here is our town you can call the power company give any address and ask what the adverage monthly usage is there, say like i am thinking of buying this house and want to know.

so my street there are 6 houses my size the adverage summer usage in my area for 2600 foot is 1900 kwh .....

places like canada i hear they balance usage on the grid to help lower theft
so your usage is even more scruntized. if you want to garden you need to do some serious thinking and understand what is normal. a few 400 watt lights no big deal. but if you want to get serious then you need to understand what they look for.
Click to expand...



how should i go about lighting an power usage, when my bill is only about 60 bucks a month?
 
joker152

joker152

Well-Known Member
if you pay your bill, the power company will not care. i know quite a few people who work for our local power company and they have all confirmed this. a high power bill alone is nowhere near enough to warrant someone coming in your house. if you think about it, it would be truly infringing on a lot of our rights if they were to do so. there are a lot of things that take up more power than grow lights. my brother has one main server at his house and several smaller server pc's, and the main server alone has a 1000w power supply, and they are all on 24-7. home businesses, home servers, and energy wasteful people have become so common that a high power bill alone is not enough to make anyone think you are growing pot.
 
M

mauritius

Member
badja said:
sounds like a big problem in the U.S and so forth, so glad i live in the U.K, virtually no scrutinization atall, got to be more worried about people breaking into your home and stealing it than the police/electricity company giving you headaches.
Click to expand...
im also in the UK... what would you call a reasonable home set up... is 3 x 1000 watt hps lights too much ?
 
doobnVA

doobnVA

Well-Known Member
I live in a house that's less than 1000 sq. ft and in the coldest winter months we actually do use 2000 kwh per month, but our furnace is broken and we use space heaters which really drives up the power consumption. In February we actually used about 2300 kwh, but for the months since we've gone down to less than 700 kwh.

Anyway, I know this is a really old thread... I just wanted to say that it is possible for a small house to consume 2000 kwh or more legitimately. Nobody ever came knocking at my door asking me why we were using so much juice, either.
 
FrankRuzzo

FrankRuzzo

Active Member
im glad i read this threat before goin and posting about it again lol. Im a new grower starting my 1st flowering period as of this past sunday and i veged with cfls but i got a 400w hps to flower and i hadent hooked it up because i was worried about this since i live in a 800sq ft aptmnt. but wen i get home i think im gonna start it up and prolly put 4 150w= cfls for sight lightining. im only growing 5 plants total, 2 in soil witch are about a foot and half tall and 2 smaller plants and a clone in an AG so i think ill take the hood of the AG off and use it as side lightin for it.
Off topic question: how far away should i keep that hps from my tops? sorry if i piss anybody off with this lol
 
L

lemmyslovechild

Member
wat you cud do if you live in a secluded house and your lecky is coming underground is dig a hole and joint the cable bringing a new supply into house and putting your sockets and water heater on a new fuse board fed from new supply, leaving you still paying a bill for cooking and household lighting , however free electric to put as many grow lamps on as you like, and also leaving you never ever having to buy oil again, ever! new supply going through a contactor switched from a lighting circuit or anywhere handy from the paid supply so that if for any reason your main fuse is pulled then everything goes out . i call it economy 8, simples lol
 
Y

yaddaking

Member
u guys ask funny questions. i run 2 1000 watts and 2 600 hps and u guys are worried about a cfl,400watter, and 600 watters. im bout to add 2 more 1000 watter. i no people who have done more watts that me. dont tell no one and pay the bill.
 
H

HAZEOHOLIC

Well-Known Member
hello everyone one question I live in a duplex apartment 2 levels i,m running 2 1000 hps and 1 250 hps 2 air conditions one 105 watt cfl for clones plus pumps ect.. what is needed for a op do i have to worry, I live in a big city NY my bills during this summer peaked at $850 after reading this i'm starting to get worried anybody especialy from ny can shime in thanks guys/gals
 
H

Hd2429

Member
abudsmoker said:
you should think about this statement carefully, if you consume a high volume or "Demand" they will foce you here to use a commercial meter, if you consume say 4200 kwh a month summer an winter and you have say 1100 ft house this is a RED flag, they keep old data so they can easily adverage out what was the normal usage.

almost every indoorgarden busted here in texas was from a tip from meter reader or electric company.

here in texas there is afair amount of indoor growing occuring. they have passed rulings preventing law inforcement from using heat sencing devices to
look inside your home business or dwelling. they need probable cause before they can secure a warrant. if the local electric company checked residental demand they could see a spike from your hid lights. they limit this to commercial meters here. so if you started 3 1000w lights on 120 you pulling about 29 amps. big deal, but all at once pulls alot of power from your local grid. but on a demand meter they measure not just how much you use but also your power spikes. so i personally use over 2100 kwh a month for my garden. this is the adverage consumption of a 1900-2500 foot house or family of 5. i cycle my lights to lower demand(allow 15 minutes before powering another ballast) this pulls less power at once making no noticable drop in amps available from the transformer.

this makes it important to seperate my garden from my residence. here in my town 70% of meters are digital and transmit readings directly to our provider so in april of last year when i bought the place the adverage monthly usage for 5 years was 900 kwh per month. so when i puchased the first thing i did was pull a permit to upgrade my 100 amp service to 200 amp and change meter loop wire and all. so after the upgrade and new meter we adveraged 2700 kwh per month. so by limiting my demand cycling the lights, upgrading service and meter i a good to go so to speak. when the summer hits the lights go off because i am tapped out. i dont dare go over 3000 kwh a month.
i have replaced electric dryer and water heater to gas this reduced about 500 kwh a month alone.

understand power consumption on a grow is the most impotant factor. couple of 1k lights no worries, 2000 or more watts a hour gets risky, and the first place they will always look is you bills.....

here is our town you can call the power company give any address and ask what the adverage monthly usage is there, say like i am thinking of buying this house and want to know.

so my street there are 6 houses my size the adverage summer usage in my area for 2600 foot is 1900 kwh .....

places like canada i hear they balance usage on the grid to help lower theft
so your usage is even more scruntized. if you want to garden you need to do some serious thinking and understand what is normal. a few 400 watt lights no big deal. but if you want to get serious then you need to understand what they look for.
Click to expand...
Wen u say 4000kwh are you referring to 4 1000w lights..I'm planning on running 2 1000w in an 800-1200sq duplex wud that be an issue
 
H

Hd2429

Member
yaddaking said:
u guys ask funny questions. i run 2 1000 watts and 2 600 hps and u guys are worried about a cfl,400watter, and 600 watters. im bout to add 2 more 1000 watter. i no people who have done more watts that me. dont tell no one and pay the bill.
Click to expand...
R u living in a state where its legal I'm not im planning on running 2 1000w should I b worried
 
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