I was wondering how much electricity hps bulbs and flouresents use ill prob wanna grow like a couple of mothers clones and then flower about 6 or 8 plants at a time. i was wondering how much the electricity i am going to use and if the cops/ electric company are going to pick up on it and think im growing bud.

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Marijuana: Nature's Way Of Saying High

well thats probably the easiest way to answer thank you

I really doubt that your power increase will be noticed by anybody. Your power bill is going to go up, but it's about the same as if you bought a new tv for an extra room and a big freezer for the garage.

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------------------------------------------------------ Growing since 2006.
http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...ed=1#post28734

always pay the bill on time i run 4 400 watters and 6 flos fans, etc and never been questioned and some on here run double what i do

i run 2 1000 hps/mh lights
and 3 400 w hps this is a lot of juice but during winter its only 225.00 a month. i have a huge home so be smart. no 700 foot house is going to use 2000 KwH a month.

so i shouldnt worry bout the 5.0 cause yeah the house that im in right now is like pretty big so it should be ok

Try to offset by reducing elsewhere. Line dry laundry, wash in cold water, turn off all lights when not in the room, turn off all applicances or unplug better yet (they carry what is called a phamton load - they are on even when turned off), wash only full dishwash loads, lower your thermostat by 2 degrees (that saves big on your bill), install a gray box (timer on the water heater - that saves us about $10 a month).

Even if it's strange to have a small house consuming a ton of energy, I don't think that would cause investigation. Lots of people are energy hogs.

And Mogie is right too. Doesn't hurt to offset your bill by doing a little green work. If you've got any money and you own your house, you could insulate the place better and add newer windows and a programmable thermostat.

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------------------------------------------------------ Growing since 2006.
http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...ed=1#post28734

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.