I was curious how much the electricty would cost on lights in a lil grow box. i was thinking 2 hps 400 watt lights the reason im asking is i here alot about police finding grow opps by the electricity bill and i was wondering if two 400 watt hps lights would draw any attention n further more how much would the bill cost. my friend thinks theres no problem growing because he said all the ones that get caught r the people who fill the whole house up wit lights n stuff but im not sure, i want to here wat u guys think. he lives in kindive a smaller house so i thought that might make a big diffrence on the power bill?
each 400w light will bring your bill up an average of 30-40$, depending on your your light schedule. you can almost def get away with two of them. also, when buying an hid change the rest of the bulbs in your house to cfl's, turn off your lights when done, don't leave your tv on, ect. cut down on all power consumption (besides your hps of course).
To run an 18/6 schedule your lamps will use 800 watts per hour x 18 hours x 30 days in a month = 216 kilowatt hours. Now go look at your electric bill. First, see how this 216 compares to your overall usage. Your overall usage depends on many factors: how big your place is, if you have electric heat, electric hot water, electric clothes dryer, how many people live there, etc. Also look to see if your bill prints the actual charge for kilowatt hours and multiply that by 216. If it doesn't show the unit cost then divide the amount of your last bill by the kilowatt hours used to get a rough idea. For example, if your bill was $150 and you used 1200 kilowatt hours then your average unit rate is 12.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Therefore your lights would cost about $27 a month. Run the actual numbers based on your bill. And don't forget to factor in your fans and any other electric use when figuring how much your grow op will show on the electric bill. Where are you hearing "a lot" about LEO busting people with electric bills? Even if your electricity is higher than the neighborhood or higher than your own bill used to be there are many legal reasons you could be sucking down more juice. Maybe you took up ceramics and bought a kiln. Maybe your sick mother moved in and she is on a heart-lung machine. Maybe you set up a server room. Maybe you have a new roommate or girfriend who leaves the lights on all the time. LEO won't waste their time tracking down every power bill that is up a few bucks. They probaby are interested in bills that at 20 times the normal for the neighborhood, that are using enough for a Wal-Mart store in a deserted part of town, etc. Even then I don't know that LEO spends much time tracking down each abberant bill. More likely they get suspicious of one particular place and then subpeona that place's electric bill as additional evidence by which to seek a search warrant.