Electricity Bill Sky rocketed

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oonzpoonz

Member
Bill went up $100 using only 75 extra watts to veg for a month... Now I'm using 250 watt hps, should I expect a $300 increase? Honestly the $100 increase for plugging in a few florescent bulbs and my new computer seems absurd.. Is this normal?

Also more info: Been tracking my KWH usage and from the 13th to today I have used 366 kwh.. That's supposedly $36... in 4 days!? ugh.

any insight would be appreciated thanks
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
have the meter tested, this has happened quite a bit to people around here, repeatedly. something is wrong and they get horribley overcharged, my 400w hps and the rest of all my grow shit only adds about 15-20 a month and i cancelled that out is a way by replacing all my old energy wasting halogens in my house and switched to 13w cfls. just one halogen can easily use 100-150w by itself. so that really dropped my bill for me.
 
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oonzpoonz

Member
darkdestruction420 said:
have the meter tested, this has happened quite a bit to people around here, repeatedly. something is wrong and they get horribley overcharged, my 400w hps and the rest of all my grow shit only adds about 15-20 a month and i cancelled that out is a way by replacing all my old energy wasting halogens in my house and switched to 13w cfls. just one halogen can easily use 100-150w by itself. so that really dropped my bill for me.
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How would I have the meter tested?


dam612 said:
keep off the wow and u should be alright
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Been thinking about this
 
WanderingGrow

WanderingGrow

Active Member
call up your electrical company and request a test or call because mine jumped like 500 one month and it was the meter reader transposed my number wrong call up the compny and see what they say yur reading is to what it actualy is
 
HowzerMD

HowzerMD

Well-Known Member
Something most people don't know is that a high performance PC can suck a couple hundred watts or more. That coupled with a grow op, incandescent lights over an entire house, appliances an electricity bill can get quite high. Especially if you aren't anal about conserving.
 
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oonzpoonz

Member
HowzerMD said:
Something most people don't know is that a high performance PC can suck a couple hundred watts or more. That coupled with a grow op, incandescent lights over an entire house, appliances an electricity bill can get quite high. Especially if you aren't anal about conserving.
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I realize the things you mentioned... We have 9 people living in this house but the electricity is being blamed on me for obvious reasons. I suppose a $200 bill isn't too terrible with so many people in the house, with 3 air conditioners, fridges, etc etc... But I'm being made to pay the difference so just trying to figure it out
 
HowzerMD

HowzerMD

Well-Known Member
Idk. It doesn't sound like what you have running is going to cost over $100. Not close. Maybe someone ELSE is growing dope in that house as well:joint:
 
Spanishfly

Spanishfly

Well-Known Member
Friend of mine once started to get massive bills - turned out all the lights in his street had someone how been connected to his supply.
 
WanderingGrow

WanderingGrow

Active Member
no your electricty provider does not need to look in your house. heres how this works the electricity company like com ed is responsibble for getting power to your meter form there you have 3 main wires that go th your breaker or fuse pannel. from these wires on through your house you need an eletrician. when your provider comes out they will test everything on there end if it tests fine they will recomend you an electrcian or tell you you need one at that point the electrician would come into your home. only reason i know this is i work for an electrical contractor and have had to deal with com ed multiple times.
 
TheJointProject

TheJointProject

Well-Known Member
Not sure where you live but it is summer time. Those air conditioners are working some massive overtime and prob jackin up your bill some. also, check with your electric company and see how far out they bill you. where i live they actually bill for 2 months out. so that means that the bill i'm paying this month is actually for the electricity that i used 2 months ago, not the month before.
 
jondamon

jondamon

Well-Known Member
I would have to agree that it is probably the AC in your house that is causing the rise in electricity costs.

If you want to add up your grow running costs you only need a few minutes to check.

You can do this with 1 of your roomates who obviously know you are growing so that you have a witness.

First you start with taking the wattages from all your equipment that includes

Lighting
fans
Reservoir
or anything else that you have running in your grow op.

Then you multiply the amount of each of the items wattages by the number of hours that it runs for.

So for instance if you use a 400w light then this uses around 400watts of electricity per hour, you then multiply this amount by the number of hours you have it running.
18 x 400 = 7200w this is 7.2Kwh per day
Fans
100w x 24 (if you have your fans running constantly) = 2400w this is 2.4kwh per day

Now add all your kwh together to get the total running amount of kwh per day for your grow 9.6Kwh

Then you multiply this number by the amount you pay for electricity, in this case i will use 0.09 (GBP)
total daily running cost of 0.864 (GBP) this is definately not alot of money per day. Then you multiply this by the amount of days the bill you have received covers. This will work out your Billing amount extra per bill for your grow room.

If you have trouble working it all out drop another message on here with
1. Amount paid per Kwh
2. Amount of Watts used per day

With this information i can tell you how much of that bill you have to pay for your grow op.


J
 
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9867mike777

Well-Known Member
It sounds like some people were trying to blame the computer for sucking power, but my relatively powerful computer with a 22" LCD monitor and many peripherals, only uses 170 watts, so I would look elsewhere. Get one of those $20 devices which will tell you exactly how many watts everything is using. Letting my monitor power down when I'm not at the computer saves 40 watts per hour. With my LCD TV, if I turn the brightness sky high, it uses 90 watts more than when I adjust it appropriately.
 
G

gobbly

Well-Known Member
the jump in cost you are indicating is terribly excessive for the power draw you are talking about. If it's a high end PC with a lot of components connected then it is probably drawing more than your 250w light, but without testing it hard to say for sure.

I would also call the power company and check with them. You want to be a little careful that they don't find your grow, and by all means, let them know that you got a new PC or two and are running them almost 24/7, but that the jump in cost still seemed excessive. That way they won't be trying to figure out why you are using a bit more than before you got the light. Mainly I would just be concerned that they don't dig too much. But yeah, it certainly sounds like something is wrong, that sounds like a major jump in usage.
 
WanderingGrow

WanderingGrow

Active Member
your electrical company does not cover the inside of your house.so unless the meter is inside(which i highly doubt it is)they dont even need to enter the premesis. if its not an internal meter problem or a stoned meter reader who thought your number was higher or something else from the meter to them, they wont dig at all. once power enters your home an electrician would have to track down any problems, most of them do something or another so a lil tip would keep them quiet. i mean just my opinion but unless they think you or soeone is stealing power they dont usualy want to mess with their best customers.
 
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