How To Save On Electricity: Post Tips Here

[RandyRocket]

we have a two bath apartment. over each sink is a 4 light set of incandescents. so the bath MrsRocket does her self up in I put 4 13watt cfls.

the other bath i unscrewed all but 1 bulb and put a cfl there.

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grow at night so less cost to cool.

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winter grows can save on heat if you vent to the next room.

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turn lights off just like dad allways said.

 

[somebody041]

save electric convert your ballast over to 220 volt

this does not reduce the wattage used by lights AT ALL. it simply splits the amerpage into 4 parts instead of 2 like a 120volt outlet does.

it DOES NOT SAVE YOU ANY MONEY ON ELECTRICITY!!! please do not spread this misinformation

 

[fat sam]

the way i save 30% on power is i run the lights off peak hours, the price for peak (8 am-5 pm) is 0.18 per kwh where off peak is 0.12.... seems to be a chunk off the bill right there, for flower i run the lights from 7 pm till 7 am and in veg they go from 5 pm till 11 am

 

[superdave5]

QUANTUM BALLAST! Ive said it before but nobody seems to have heard of em. Digital ballast that is fully adjustable. Meaning that during early stages of veg if you have a 1000w ballast you can run it at 50% (500watts) during mid veg to flower 75% (750 watts) and during mid to late flower 100 percent. This will cut down some of your costs. Worth looking into trust me they work great! Also make sure you read the amps and hertz on your AC and other units not just the watts

 

[superdave5]

oh yes and what fat sam said as well. DO NOT RUN EVERYTHING DURING PEAK HOURS, if your growing indoors you want you lights off during the hottest part of the day anyway which on average is your main peak hours

 

[meofcurse]

you could have a smaller lamp for first stages.for example i have a 150w mh i am gonna use it for first stage of my next grow and later move them under 600w.but yes this Digital ballast is great!

 

[squirrelfooker]

Holy shit this thread is full of wrong info.
Some of this has been stated already but just to be clear...
-Switching from 120 to 220 volt will NOT save any power, as you are billed in kilowatt hours not amps. Look up ohms law.
-Running lights 24 hours will NOT save energy compared to 18 hours a day. What's the startup on your bulb? Not much. How long does it pull startup amps? A few seconds.
-Not everyone has peak and off peak utility rate hours, but if you do take advantage of them.

Everything else about unplugging things and switching the house to CFL's would be correct. The only way to cut power to a grow is to use smaller fans, pumps, lights, or run them less. Design the system with good ventilation that will not require an A\C or heat if possible. Don't use a 800 cfm fan when you only need 200 cfm.

Cutting power usage outside the grow is the easiest way.
Hang dry your clothes outside, dryers use alot of power.
Turn down your gas water heater to the lowest setting still usable, set your elect water heater on a timer to be off at night
Switch to small watt cfls around the house
Turn down the refrigerator setting to the lowest needed (and clean the coils on the back of it)
Clean your AC filter, and have it serviced
Insulate your attic better, get better windows, etc, to keep heat/cool in the house

Do NOT steal power, and please don't tell others how to do it. You will eventually get caught.

 

[LiEBE420]

change to 220 volt

 

[laserbrn]

Even though I completely think it's useless I did buy a power meter. Not just for this little experiment, but also to monitor the efficiency of my grows. I can now tweak things and change things to TRUELY achieve maximum perfomance while eliminating any guessing.

I am 100% certain that 18/6 will consume less power than 24/0, but just to FINALLY nip that old wives tale in the bud I'm going to test it out.

There's no way that lamp can draw 6 hours worth of power in even the first hour. Even if it was an hour long spike (it's not) it would have to draw 6x as many amps as during normal operation, can you say blown breakers?

 

[GrowingMadness]

This thread is going good

 

[0caicaiin7]

I read about half of this post and started laughing. No offense but it happened.

With all of these people saying they have plugged all of the stuff into a power strip and turn it off to save power, this is retarded. Turning something off usnt going to stop the power, the power goes from the wall into the m,etal plug. if it is plugged in then there is power being drawn from it.

You need to totally unplug everything from the wall, not just turn it off it if you want to stop the flow of electricity. This will lower the bill more than just turning stuff off.

Dont get me wrong, turning stuff off does it's work too, but it is still going to draw electricty.

Hope that helps.

 

[laserbrn]

I read about half of this post and started laughing. No offense but it happened.

With all of these people saying they have plugged all of the stuff into a power strip and turn it off to save power, this is retarded. Turning something off usnt going to stop the power, the power goes from the wall into the m,etal plug. if it is plugged in then there is power being drawn from it.

You need to totally unplug everything from the wall, not just turn it off it if you want to stop the flow of electricity. This will lower the bill more than just turning stuff off.

Dont get me wrong, turning stuff off does it's work too, but it is still going to draw electricty.

Hope that helps.

Wow...this might be the stupidest post I've ever read. If you plug everything into a power strip, the turn that power strip off, guess what? It's the exact equivalent of unplugging it from the wall.

Many, many electrical items do actually still draw current when you have them "off" but if you shut off a power switch, it's truely disconnected not just in an "off" state.

 

[mygirls]

I read about half of this post and started laughing. No offense but it happened.

With all of these people saying they have plugged all of the stuff into a power strip and turn it off to save power, this is retarded. Turning something off usnt going to stop the power, the power goes from the wall into the m,etal plug. if it is plugged in then there is power being drawn from it.

You need to totally unplug everything from the wall, not just turn it off it if you want to stop the flow of electricity. This will lower the bill more than just turning stuff off.

Dont get me wrong, turning stuff off does it's work too, but it is still going to draw electricty.

Hope that helps.

if your going to say something say it right... it not that if you unplug every thing, it every thing that has a stand by. TV, STEREOS,COMPUTERS. lots of things these days with standby's on them but not EVERYTHING....

 

[Scubasteve420]

Holy shit this thread is full of wrong info.
Some of this has been stated already but just to be clear...
-Switching from 120 to 220 volt will NOT save any power, as you are billed in kilowatt hours not amps. Look up ohms law.
-Running lights 24 hours will NOT save energy compared to 18 hours a day. What's the startup on your bulb? Not much. How long does it pull startup amps? A few seconds.
-Not everyone has peak and off peak utility rate hours, but if you do take advantage of them.

Everything else about unplugging things and switching the house to CFL's would be correct. The only way to cut power to a grow is to use smaller fans, pumps, lights, or run them less. Design the system with good ventilation that will not require an A\C or heat if possible. Don't use a 800 cfm fan when you only need 200 cfm.

Cutting power usage outside the grow is the easiest way.
Hang dry your clothes outside, dryers use alot of power.
Turn down your gas water heater to the lowest setting still usable, set your elect water heater on a timer to be off at night
Switch to small watt cfls around the house
Turn down the refrigerator setting to the lowest needed (and clean the coils on the back of it)
Clean your AC filter, and have it serviced
Insulate your attic better, get better windows, etc, to keep heat/cool in the house

Do NOT steal power, and please don't tell others how to do it. You will eventually get caught.

I have been trying to live off the grid for a few month and I follow the above pretty close. My electrical bill is around 60-70 per month for my house.

In addition to the above add timers to the power strips so we don't have to rely on our memory to turn them off. And definitely a programmable thermostat for your heating/air.

 

[imburne]

Replace ALL your bulbs in the house with CFL's. On average a typical bulb is 60 watts in comparison to a 13 watt, 9 or 7 watt CFL which I use in the house. Also for veg, use a T5 if possible and for the clones use a CFL. For flowering use a digital ballast. Running the lights at night also helps to reduce temps. Really though the CFL's will dramatically save you some cash in the end. When I had a apt., I immediately cut 20-30 bucks off my bill every month just from the switch.

 

[squirrelfooker]

I read about half of this post and started laughing. No offense but it happened.

With all of these people saying they have plugged all of the stuff into a power strip and turn it off to save power, this is retarded. Turning something off usnt going to stop the power, the power goes from the wall into the m,etal plug. if it is plugged in then there is power being drawn from it.

You need to totally unplug everything from the wall, not just turn it off it if you want to stop the flow of electricity. This will lower the bill more than just turning stuff off.

Dont get me wrong, turning stuff off does it's work too, but it is still going to draw electricty.

Hope that helps.

You are wrong.
Using a power strip and shutting it off will do the same as unplugging it. The switch opens the electrical contacts and breaks the circuit. No electricity will flow. Using a power strip to shut it off will shut off things that use standby and draw power any time they are plugged in. They make power sensing strips that will shut themselves off when only a small load like a phone charger with no phone is plugged into it. When it senses a higher demand it turns back on.

I'm not sure why I even keep looking at this thread.

 

[TeaTreeOil]

Beats fooking squirrels?

 

[thatdjsnow]

well since this thread branched and digressed into all types of ways to save on electricity....

Rent one of those blower machines form Lowes or Home Depot and re-inulate your attic with that blow-in insulation made from recycled newspapers.... its easy to do, doesn't itch, and you can save enough money on your elec. bill in one winter season to have payed for it.

Also - a lot of appliances have energy settings that you can adjust to use less power when you are using them, if you must. Examples would be Computer monitors, some TVs, Window AC units, Refrigerators... etc. Just look around, you might be surprised at what you find to have energy saving settings.