Anyone with some experience here, please help out. I plan on living in a small 2 bedroom apartment sometime soon. I also plan on setting up a grow tent when I move in. I will be using a 600w HID. My question is: Will a 600w light that is running 24 hours/day during the vegitative phase be a dead giveaway that I am growing on my electric bill? My logic is that (from my knowledge) an apartment this size uses anywhere from 600-1000kwh of electricity per month, and using a 600w HID light will signifigantly raise that. The math: 600w x 24 hours per day = 14.4 kwh/day 14.4kwh/day x 30 days = 432 kwh (just to run the light each month, not to mention all of the extra growing equipment that will be running) So is this going to throw up a big red flag if all of my neighbors bills are 600-800kwh/month and mine is 1000+ kwh/month? Or is there some sort of flaw in my math/logic? Thanks for any help. -Totem
Just say you have like 3 tv's on all the time and a space heater on. They ain't gonna bother you if you pay your shit on time.
24/7 for flowering? If you want to force flowering, you will need to set yor timers for12/12. i have (2) 1000 watt HPS and fans, etc. and my bill isn't even $60 more than I used to pay. I'd be more worried about the smell and the sound from the fans if I were in an apartment. A slightly higher electricity bill won't raise a red flag but the smell will.
Ugh... sorry. Saying 24 hours a day for flowering was just a typo; it totally slipped my mind. I have edited it now. Anyhow, what is the difference I can expect between a 24 hour veg and an 18/6 veg? By the way Saivr, I am planning on creating negative air pressure in my grow area with an exhaust fan running air through activated carbon to neutralize any odor. Thanks.
18/6 veg will give you more stretch and taller plants. While the lights are off, the girls search for the sunshine.
18/6 helps alot with the root systems. When the lights are off the plant uses alot of its energy to help establish the roots. Stretching plants on purpose to get taller never seems like a good idea to me. You want more so bushy vs. taller as bushy usually nets a higher yield. Not saying by keeping the plants on 24/0 the roots wont grow or will be weak. Just you often see more established healthier root systems coming from plants with some dark time. Shoot, my plants are on 24/0 now, but soon ill switch to 20/4 or 18/6 towards the end of veg to help their roots out a tad before i switch to flower. Roots usually stop growing during flower as the plant uses its energy more towards the buds.
Space heaters are usually 1000+ watts, you'll be fine. In fact, it would be LESS suspicious running 18/6 or 24/0 than 12/12 because you won't have an obvious spike that starts and ends at the same time every day. 18/6: you turn the heater off at night when you go to bed and aren't in the living room. 24/0: heater is always on. But as mentioned above, if you pay your bill they won't notice/care. An extra 800 watts an hour isn't going to be noticed really.
In the United States no one gives a shit about anything as long as you can pay. The vast majority of people who get busted from power are not actuality paying there bills. Many steal power and the power company sees irregularities, you become dramatically behind in your bills and the computer sends your bill to a actual person which can key them off. Computers nowadays pump out the bills since most power boxes are digital and send the information to the power company. No human actually sees it. Its when your behind that someone does and even then it can take months. Also the people that tend to get busted for power use are the ones that all of a sudden start using power that is in the thousands of watts more then what they use now. Your 600watts is nothing really. 600watts is not shit on a power bill you use a considerable amount more then that. Your oven uses more then 2000watts, a Xbox 360 can peg it over 300, a gaming computer 1000 watts. I have a killawatt and plugged in my entire home theater system to it...LCD, Home Receiver, Direct TV HD DVR, Xbox 360 etc and when its on with moderate volume its over 1000 watts. The average house in America uses 2-4kw of power at any given time. You just don't realize it. Your ref rig and hot water heater constitute the bulk of that bill actually. As for being in a Apartment...I live in a one bedroom and have been running my lights nonstop all year long
I would have to respectfully disagree depending on what the LE are looking for in your area. I've heard reports of people near me getting fucked with the new smart meters, they can pick out 12/12 and 18/6 usage trends a mile away. At least if it is consistent power usage they can assume it some sort of electronics that you leave on 24/7 like a server or home theatre receiver, etc.
Might be true but very very rare. The name of the game is money money money. Why would a power company even care if your paying your bill. They won't. Also if its below 1000 watts thats nothing. People have no idea what there house hold devices use and they see say 600w HPS and think thats a lot. Buy a killawatt and you will be amazed at home much power something uses.
Based on experience be very very weary growing in an apartment. There are so many factors to be thrown in. Good luck. as long as the bill is paid you will be okay, some people have ass loads of electronics running 24/7.