Um, probably, yeah. Now, that might not be a problem for you, looking for suspicious electric bills without a warrant isn't practiced, or even legal everywhere. That said, if someone *is* looking for high electric usage in your area, I'd expect a knock on the door with that kind of power use in a small place like that.
Have you done this or just thinking about it? I was considering 1500 watts in my small 3 bedroom cheaply-built apt but was wondering if I would have to run a seperate breaker for my growroom. All my lighting and plug-ins in my house are wired to two 15 amp breakers. 1500 watts of lights and then my fans will be stretching my 15 amps really thin for the rest of my house. Just wondering what kind of special wiring you had to do or are planning to do?
if i did do something like this. should I expect a knock from the electric company to see why i'm sucking so much juice? or worse from the police?
Completely depends on your location. Either it won't be an issue at all so long as you pay the bills, or else it will be the red flag that gets you looked at a hell of a lot more closely, including a possible friendly knock at the door, during which the officer will likely "smell marijuana" and use that as probable cause come inside to take a look. Best thing you can do is some legal research to see how things tend to be done where you live.
And that's a perfectly reasonable amount of power use for a 3 bedroom place, I wouldn't expect you to have any trouble. 10,000 watts in a 2 bedroom is a completely different matter.
10kw x 12 hours per day (flowering) x 30 days = 3600 kilowatt hours per month just for lights, add fans and other juice usage to that. Compare that to the average US household monthly usage of about 750 kilowatt hours. Possibly suspicious? I think just a tad. If you decide to try it, see you in about 20 years...
My buddy in northern California has a 3br house that has 12,000 lighs in the 2 car garage, and 2,000 more in a small bedroom. He has to run 2 15,000BTU air conditioners while the lights are on in the garage, and he has 3 very large CAN filters to scrub. He uses roughly $600 in power each month, including the utility expenses of living in the home, and as long as he pays his power bill it's cool. He does have prescriptions to account for all of his plants though, so if you're not in a legal medical state I wouldn't risk prison for a long time.
They *will* find every one of these, not might, but will. It's purely a matter of time. This is because they monitor how much power is actually used in any given area, not just what the meters show is used. When these don't match, they *have* to find the source, because if it's not someone stealing power, it's going to be damaged lines or equipment that could electrocute someone.
I am using 1500 watts just in my growroom and then whatever we use living from day to day. I checked my box and all of my lighting and sockets are all on two 15 amp breakers. I did not even think about the electric box untill I watched that video ready set grow made by High Times. The first thing they mention is electric safety so thats when I figured out I had a potential problem on my hands. What I ended up doing was have one of my friends run me a new outlet from the box with a seperate 15 amp breaker. It took a little time and money but it was worth it to me not to have to worry about it. Also I was afraid everytime my wife turned on her hair dryer it would kick the breaker and turn off my lights. So with some money and a favor from my friend I fixed the problem. If you have any more than a 1000 watt light you should check out your wiring and breaker box and see if you have enough electric to be safe.
Do NOT EVER tamper with your meter, that only will result in two things: 1) much higher probability of raising suspicion and getting caught and 2) you now will have two sets of charges being brought against you...
As an electrician i agree 100%. Its not a question of "if" they find out, the question is when. They will change the meter to digital real soon (there doing it everywhere) so you cant tamper with it and also the meter readers dont have to get out of there trucks. Its like a remote control that reads meters from up to 200' away. The only logical place you could drill a hole to stop the spinning wheel is through the glass. And as soon as you do condensation will start to creep in and rust shit. (ive seen it) When the company comes to change the meter and sees a hole in it they will do everything in there power (no pun intended) to completly face fuck you. And i dont know about the state you live in, but in my state it is a FELONY to tamper with the meters. You will get arrested. I ran 2 seperate 20amp breakers for my room. And it only houses 1-600w hps, some fans and some air pumps. It was definately overkill but i didnt want any chance of tripping breakers. And to the guy above who has 2-15amp breakers running an entire apt. Definately not code. unless you live in alaska. I dont see how your not tripping those breakers left and right.
LOL true that bro true that. wtf r u tryin to grow? a fuckin huge operation? lol,hellllla sketchy, i would never grow im to scared lol