Say if you were to grow maybe 4-5 plants under a 600w light. I'm pretty new to growing and if I choose indoors this is the only main concern I have. Also my closet is 5 ft long and a little under 2 feet in width(deep) How many plants would you expect to grow in there?
hey i run a 600 watt hps as well as a 450 cfm fan, fluros for veg and i also use an electric space heater to heat my space during lights out. i'd say its about a $25-$30 electric increase per month, but lately i've been trying to offset the cost by switching over to CFLs in the lights we use most as well as developing energy saving habits that we all should do anyway, like shutting off the lights when leaving the room. as for your closet, what is the vertical height? do you plan on having seperate areas for veg and bud? soil or hydro? answers to these questions will help paint a better picture.
Ok not bad then. It's 9' in height. Can you not use the hps for vegetative and flowering stages? I plan to cover it in mylar and hang a light from the top. It has no air vents in there so I'm also worried about the temperature. I'll have fans of course but what about these ducts people use?
Personally, 3-4 max. You could definitely sqeeze in more if you wanted to go shorter veg, lower individual plant yield.
Not much at all, cost-wise.... and if a new grower happens to have been a person who left a lot of lights on, maybe had a habit of leaving windows open with the heat/air-con going, or if he or she frequently pre-heated the oven a good while longer than needed before the food goes in, and similar oversights.... when these things are corrected and limited, many growers find that they actually REDUCE their monthly bills even after adding a good 1,000watts or so to their grow rooms! For instance, when I move I always call my new power provider and get an idea of the last owner/tenant's electric consumption, and then I try to aim for that, or a bit lower when possible. My grow rooms contribute towards heating my house in the winter, and (to some extent) cooling it in the summer. I moved into my last house with 3400watts in grow lights alone, not counting a/c, pumps, fans etc.... for most months out of the year, my bill on average is $20 - $50 cheaper than the last family who lived here The number of plants is up to you... If your environment is dialed in and well-controlled, you could grow one large plant in that space, and without training you'd become quickly overcrowded, in the same amount of time it would take to grow ten+, much smaller plants, in a less than optimal environment (in terms of ventilation/humidity/CO2/medium etc.). When growing from seed, you'll want to start by successfully germinating at least four plants, as in four should survive germination to be grown, so you can have better odds for at least one(+) female. If you're new, or working with variable/unknown genetics, then starting with a greater plant number will give you better results in terms of figuring out your environment, and in case something goes wrong with a few plants early on. And if you have too many plants when it comes time to transplant or bloom, just cull those that appear the weakest or least hardy.
You can use hps for both stages but your plants will be prone to stretch during veg. You could install air vents. What does your set-up look like? What's the situation?
Awesome, great information So the electric bill wouldn't really be a problem, now to focus on the closet itself. Could you help with the above question about temperature? And to the poster above me, It's a rental townhouses, but the landlord never stops by. The closest has no air vents in it and I probably couldn't install them. I don't even know how to.
If you're hoping to save on power consumption, toss those CFLs, they are a HUGE waste in terms of useful energy output. You'd be much better off in terms of growth, and power consumption, with a smaller HPS/MH. This rough chart may help you make up your mind.... 150w incandescent = 2,550 lumens or only 17 lumens per watt 150w halogen = 3000 lumens or 20 lumens per watt 150w of Fluorescents = 9,000 lumens or 60 lumens per watt 150w of Compact Fluorescents = 10,500 lumens or 70 lumens per watt 150w Metal Halide = 13,500 lumens or 90 lumens per watt 150w High Pressure Sodium = 16,000 lumens or 107 lumens per watt Lower wattage means slower growth, and lower lumens per watt means growth slows even more. CFL growers need to compensate by adding days and even weeks to their cycles, just to grow plants that are still smaller, completely ruining their savings. Gram for gram, plants that were grown at any point during their lifecycle's using CFL's, produced more costly and less efficient bud. (Keep in mind this chart is a few years old, for instance today some horti-HPS bulbs begin their life closer to 130 - 140 lumens per watt.... that's TWICE the useful light output of CFLs! )
It depends on your electric rate. Look at your bill, or the utility company website and find how much they charge per kW/h. Four decent sized plants, or a few more small ones. Probably yield about the same either way.
Thats like the same for me. I have a 400watt running, a 450 cfm fan, 2 circulating fans and a booster inline fane to help get the stench out. Costs me about 22$ a month. Heres how to find out. Lets say you are consuming a total of 600 watts per hour. multiple 600 by... lets say 18 for veg. Then multiply that times 30 for one billing period. next you need to see how many Kwh that is so divide that by 1000. A Kilo watt hour is 1000 watts running for one hour. That came out to 324. Next you multiply that by your electric companies Kwh cost. Mine is 9.2 cents (remember this is in cents so move the decimal accordingly) Total would be 29.80$. Not to bad. Equation: ((Watts * hours) * days)/1000= kwh usage kwh usage * rate = cost Yay Math!!