how many watts can you have going and simply plug it into a wall socket, i never hear anyone talk about this and im an idiot so i dont know and i sure as hell cant do any rewiring in my house. i wanna use as little elctricity as possible and grow 2-3 plants on a budget...any help???
Power (or watts) is a fuction of voltage and current. Therefore a standard recepticle would be wired to a 15 Amp fuse or breaker. If you house voltage is 110 Volts then Power = 110 Volts X 15 Amps = 1650 Watts max. So 1650 / 250 = 6 250 Watt lamps. Is that OK for ya? Just make sure all of your lights have a proper ground and that if you are using any extesion cords make sure they have a ground too. Then if you overload the circuit you'll just blow a fuse and avoid burning down your house.
A good rule of thumb is to only load a breaker up to 80% of its capacity. On a 15-amp service with 14 gauge wire one should only load it up to 12 Amps MAX. Since most lights will draw 1 amp per 100 watts a 15-amp breaker can handle one 1000w light each. So a safe bet is no more than 4 250w on same 15amp circuit.....