So as indoor growers there are several snags we must watch out for.

My question is, what setup would draw a curious eye to your grow?

Clearly a large operation of with multiple light rooms and separate rooms and all that would cause a second look but what size is something one should be worried about.

Clearly a rubbermaid box wont cause too much draw but is a hydro setup with 2 small pumps a 400wHID and an exhasut cause a major difference in usage between normal use of your dwelling? or in comparisons with your neighbors?

Is it 2 1000wHIDs and 2 fans and more pumps?

I guess a more succinct question would be, ROUGHLY whats the maximum sized indoor setup that one can comfortably operate without drawing too much attention?

[I ask because my first grow was a 400wMH with 200wCFL side lighting, and i just added a 400wHPS(no CFLs currently) and a secend exhaust to continue through a winter grow since i can keep temps lower.]

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First Grow: Bag Seed
http://www.greenpassion.org/f15/buying-vs-trying-13054/

"Such holidays in the sun don't come without sacrifices"

Here in New England..as a rule of thumb I use this.. a 1000 watt set up ( fans, pumps,ect.) per unused room in the house, or total in one space.. if you stay near there you and pay your electric bill on time ..you should stay under the radar...

There's no set place where suspicion is drawn, IMO. MANY factors play into this.

Legal? Not legal? That's probably the first one.

Do you PAY YOUR BILLS....or are you a slacker that is always tring to hold off payment? NOT paying your bill will cause more suspicion than a large grow with a paid bill will, IMO.

What does your street look like? Are you in a row of "spec' homes that were alll built using the same plans and are the same size, (like, is it hard to find yer house if yer all wasted? LOL) or are the houses on your street all different in size/style/# of bedrooms/etc?

From the many threads I've read over the years on this topic...it seems that most (non-legal) growers feel that you can safely run 1000 watts for every bedroom in the dwelling without drawing suspicion. This may all go out the window though if you happen to be on one of those streets where EVERY house looks the same. (or a bank of apartments that are all the same/etc.)

Good "cover" to openly show you COULD BE using power for "normal' reasons....

in hot climates...find broken window A/C units for free and slap em in a bunch windows of yer house.

Cool climates....set a space heater in plain sight where the meterman can see it when he checks the meter

haul in an old hot tub for the deck. craigslist is usually full of em for free.... dem suckas use alot of power!

As for med folks? There are NO LAWS saying how much power you can/cannot use. I personally have over 5000 watts going here with $400+ bills every month/year round but i have NO WORRY because I'm legal. In fact, I'm probably gonna have a second electrical panel installed soon so i can EXPAND. Why not ROCK IT HARD?

In the end...I say PAY YOUR BILL on time....DON'T steal power....run odor control if you aren't legal and are SPINNING THE DIAL >>QUICKLY<< on yer meter.

oh yeah...did I say PAY YOUR BILL?

be safe.

ww

where I live is very near to an very urban area where power bills go unpaid for months at a time... so as long as people pay the bill on time there is no issue. Also, the power bill alone is not enough to get you noticed and investigated for growing, but may give some bored leo some cause to go through your garbage or walk a dog down your street. Like the other guy said... pay your bill, don't be dumb about garbage and things like that, and don't tell anyone what you are doing. You should be fine.

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When true patriots become labeled as enemies than you can bury my corpse right beside lady liberty's.

Every time I have read about electricity usage as a reason for obtaining a warrant it has been phrased in this manner, "resident at 1234 st. has a power consumption level twice that of surrounding homes.", or something to that effect. It doesn't seem to matter so much how much power you are using, but rather how much power you are using relative to your neighbors.


But I have also never heard of power usage alone being used to obtain a warrant. It is always one of many, so if you covered your ass in every other way, I bet you could run 10K and get away with it all year long.


A good rule of thumb is 1K per bedroom in the house if you employ energy saving techniques to lower your baseline bill. You have to remember that there are a lot of things out there that can use crazy power, they can't use that power usage alone for obtaining warrants, you could have an indoor hot tub, do photo shoots (HID lighting) all day long, have a bunch of servers and other computers running...etc...I've had $500-600 a month power bills when NOT growing at times in my life when I had a lot of equipment related to businesses (that were legal) which used a lot of electricity running out of my house.

Some people have electric heat, they could turn off their house heat and run crazy HID lighting with no change in power bill. Hell, a 1K is basically an electric heater haha.

Just keep in mind that supplemental electric heat, those little space heater fans, can draw between 1000 and 1500 watts. Plugging one of those babies in will spike your power usage more than adding (2) 400 w hps, or even a 1000w light. The only caveat is the power usage "signature" would be different for an electric heater (purely resistive load) and HID lighting (reactive load signature). Plainly, though, if they are checking your power usage you are already under suspicion and they'd just be shoring up their case for a search warrant. It's my understanding that suspicion rarely originates (if ever) from electric power usage. Just make sure to pay all of your bills on time, and you should have nothing to worry about from this angle. Especially from the load you've described.

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"A word to the wise is infuriating."
"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master."
"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
"Buy the ticket, take the ride."
- The Immortal Hunter S. Thompson

Precisely.

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"A word to the wise is infuriating."
"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master."
"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."
"Buy the ticket, take the ride."
- The Immortal Hunter S. Thompson

Thanks for asking this question. My bill is outrageus. Its pretty common for me to see a 1,500 dollar bill. I think it sucks. I end up paying almost 4x the amount of baseline. Piss's me off!!

Things you can do to reduce your bill
1 ) Replace all regular house bulbs (Incandescents) with a comparable CFL bulb - 9-23w CFLs should cover all of your homes' 25-60w Incandescents. CFLs put out the same amount of Lumens (visible light) for less power used (money).

2 ) Unplug all electronics not being used, instead of turning them off or putting them on standby. All electronics pull power even when off, just as electronics drain batteries even when the device isn't on! (shitty huh?) So remember, unplug those PS3s, 360s, microwaves, toasters, lamps, stereos, and anything else that you don't mind plugging in before you use it. Also - Power strips with on/off switches interrupt the connection of power - so flipping the switch to "off" is the same as unplugging all electronics plugged into the strip.

3 ) Check all of your electronics/appliances for "Energy Saver" modes. Many things in your home may actually have this feature, and you didn't even know about it! Here at my place, my Fridge, A/C, and computer monitor currently have it enabled.

4 ) To save more power - Put your hot water heater (if it's electric, and not gas) on a timer to turn on a bout 30 minutes before you usually get a shower/do the dishes - Then have it turn off at whatever time you think you will no longer need hot water. The water in the reservoir will stay hot for hours after it has been turned off. If you can't put it on a timer - just flip the breaker for your hot water heater off, and remember to flip it on 30 minutes before you need it.

5 ) Clean the copper tubing on your Fridge and A/C frequently to make them run more efficiently.

6 ) Always turn off the lights in rooms that you are not in - and use the correct amount of light for whatever you are doing. If you are sitting in your chair watching television, but don't want all the lights off - maybe the small desk lamp with a 9w CFL will do the job, rather than the 23w CFL on your ceiling. Also - Dimmers can help. Some CFL manufacturers are making Dimmable CFLs, they don't dim near as well as Incandescents until they are a bit warmed up though.

7 ) Find out when peak hours are in your area for your electric provider - Peak hours means more money for electricity - then, do what you can to consume electricity more often when you are being charged less, as opposed to the peak hours.

8 ) A full fridge is a more energy efficient fridge! The more food you have in there being kept cold actually helps keep everything else cold, make sense? Plus there is less air, so the fridge has less air to circulate.... so what to do if you have an empty fridge?? Put some jugs of water in there, it helps! After that, you can even adjust your fridge's temp settings for even more energy efficiency - don't forget to check for an Energy Saver mode!

9 ) There are also some capacitors out there that claim to save energy... you plug it into the wall, then plug your electronics into that... Some work, some don't... do your homework before you pick any to buy. It's basically like a battery that stores up wasted energy - then it uses it... thus, allowing you to ultimately use less power. But, like I said... some work... and some just have blinking lights to make you think they work.

10 ) Replace them old appliances/electronics. Appliances 10 years old, although still working, may use up to 100% more power than a newer model. Got a 20 year old appliance?? Energy efficiency is a main focus in the world's eyes these day, almost even a "fad", but 5-10 years ago, it really wasn't a big deal to the mainstream, and 10-20 ago it was even less... and this goes for the manufacturers of appliances and electronics as well.

11 ) a solar generator might be an option. 1600 bucks for an 1800 watt panel, battery generator setup.


Heres a fact about electric bills

First, divide watts by 1000 to get kilowatts:

watts / 1000 = kW

Then multiply kilowatts by the hours of usage to get kilowatt-hours

kW * hours = kWh

Finally, multiply kilowatt-hours by the cost per:

kWh * (cost per kWh) = cost to operate

In the USA the cost per kWh is from 6 cents in Wyoming to 20 cents in Hawaii

http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/115.htm

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Out here in California Im getting charged .44.

I thought it was 15 cent a kWt there

http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/115.htm

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that's good old CA for you... getting charged triple for the same stuff everyone else is using. Go Green, lol... I don't know about this whole eco friendly garbage going around with free range chicken and everything else. I personally don't care if my chicken was happy while alive, its dead now and i'm eating it... and the ones that get growth hormone are bigger, and I'm big, so I want that one. I drive a mid 90's pickup with the biggest gas guzzling engine you can get in that beast... it eats gas and has tons of power. My carbon footprint is huge, and i plan on stomping a mud hole in the ozone because the "global warming" thing is a big fat stinking lie... just ask the EPA. Anyone else notice how they changed the term "global warming" to "climate change" after everyone found out the EPA released a study this year disproving global warming...? Most of my opinion is based on carbon emissions and how bad people say they are for the earth, but those same people are making legislation for "green" jobs, and they also own companies that will benefit hugely from expansion of "green" jobs. Just look at GE (general electric) if you don't believe me, they helped draft the cap and trade bill. I do believe however that the preservation of the soil in the earth is important... much of those pollutants take a very long time to dissipate to safe levels if ever and are very expensive and cost prohibitive to clean up manually.

I realize I may have just contradicted myself, but I'm not sure at the moment... been studying like a retard for a test I have tomorrow and am a little short on free brain cells at the moment.

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When true patriots become labeled as enemies than you can bury my corpse right beside lady liberty's.

We have a tier system.

Baseline= .11531
101%-130% of Baseline= .13109
131%-200 = .25974
201%-300%=.37866
Over 300% = .44098

I end up getting billed in every tier with a large amount in the last tier.

This tier system that they came up with. Is there answer to the power crisis we had back sometime ago. They decieded to pass the extra cost on the high customers.

I think its stupid!! In my book the customer buying in bulk should be getting a discount. That is a pretty universal thought process I would think.

That's for me to, when I hit the next % jump it dose that too.
I believe the time you use your power has no circumstance in most US state but true for Canada.
My base is 7.54 and goes to about 10, where California was in 2005

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Yep, just trying to get blackjack money.

What is that supposed to mean?

we have various "plans" and in some cases they use a tier system (usually when you go for the fixed cost or low usage plans) but most of them work out the same. i'm on nz 20 cents per KWH peak usage, nz.13 cents per KWH offpeak which from reading around on the net, is about standard for a nz household. i realise this is the consequences of relying on hydro power, a coal plant or 2 and 3-4 wind farms but the biggest cost for us is privatised AND oversea's ownership of our power companies.
oh man, if we were charged 6 cents per KWH i'd be chucking in a couple of 600 watt lights, as it is i find a 400 watt a good compromise between light intensity/growth and cost ($30 per month on 12/12)

thanks everyone for the tips...and the power grid lecture ;-)

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First Grow: Bag Seed
http://www.greenpassion.org/showthread.php?t=13054

"Such holidays in the sun don't come without sacrifices"