Appartment growing, electrical questions, thx.

Ok, so im gonna grow in an appartment building, its a 3 bedroom place iv got with my frend, and we are gonna use the free bedroom as a grow space.

We are using a grow tent from Secret jardin, the DR240W wich is 8x4x7.

We got a couple questions:

1. The outlets in the room have a maximum wattage of 1875w... is that for evrey individual outlet, meaning we can put 1875w on the first, 1875w on the secound and so on, or is that for the hole room circuit, meaning the combination of the 4 outlets in that room can not excede 1875w?

2. We made sure to get a place were we are the ones paying the electrical bill evrey month. We were wondering if the the landlorad still gets a record of the electrical usage of his units?

1) Sounds like that room is on its own 15 Amp breaker. So no, you cant run 1800+ watts on each outlet, but instead 1800 watts in that room. But honestly, its not the watts your worried about, but the amps of your equipment. (Any electricians feel free to correct me here, as I very well maybe wrong.)

2) As long as the electric bill is in your name your landlord wont give a flying hoot.

Good luck on your grow man!

bro depending on where youre apartment is at you can use your whole room as a grow room i live in a 3 flat condo at the top so it would be better if you was up high

Meangreenfarmingmachines said:

Ok, so im gonna grow in an appartment building, its a 3 bedroom place iv got with my frend, and we are gonna use the free bedroom as a grow space.

We are using a grow tent from Secret jardin, the DR240W wich is 8x4x7.

We got a couple questions:

1. The outlets in the room have a maximum wattage of 1875w... is that for evrey individual outlet, meaning we can put 1875w on the first, 1875w on the secound and so on, or is that for the hole room circuit, meaning the combination of the 4 outlets in that room can not excede 1875w?

2. We made sure to get a place were we are the ones paying the electrical bill evrey month. We were wondering if the the landlorad still gets a record of the electrical usage of his units?

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Meangreenfarmingmachines said:

Ok, so im gonna grow in an appartment building, its a 3 bedroom place iv got with my frend, and we are gonna use the free bedroom as a grow space.

We are using a grow tent from Secret jardin, the DR240W wich is 8x4x7.

We got a couple questions:

1. The outlets in the room have a maximum wattage of 1875w... is that for evrey individual outlet, meaning we can put 1875w on the first, 1875w on the secound and so on, or is that for the hole room circuit, meaning the combination of the 4 outlets in that room can not excede 1875w?

2. We made sure to get a place were we are the ones paying the electrical bill evrey month. We were wondering if the the landlorad still gets a record of the electrical usage of his units?

Click to expand...

1875 watts you say? Let's use some quick math. A=V*W so that's about 15 amperes. You should never exceed 80% of a circuit's capacity (this is important, as this is how fires can start, especially if the building is older). This leaves you with 12 amps. Using that math again we can see that we really have 1440 watts. This is total across all outlets on that circuit. Remember that this is total watts available, meaning every single thing plugged in (TV, computer, lights, pumps, fans, etc) cannot exceed 1440 watts.

For #2, no, your landlord will not see any bills in your name, as long as they are in your name alone at the electric company, and not paid through your landlord.

N.America or Europe? different electric systems. I will assume USA.
you will need to map out your breakers,it is very unlikely that 1 breaker feeds that room & only that room. turn off your breakers 1 at a time & see what goes out in your apartment. are the breakers 15 amp or 20? either way, your outlets are most likely rated for 15 amps so it is safe to draw about 12 amps from each breaker but you cannot exceed the breakers limit. this means you cannot plug a 1000 watt ballast and a 600 into the same outlet but you could plug them into 2 seperate outlets on the same breaker assuming it is a 20 amp breaker.

as for electric bills, in my state,they are public records and can be accessed by anyone. you could get the last tenants records to help you budget for the heating season. when buying a house, realtors often list last yrs utilities bill to show how energy efficient a house is.
as long as rent is paid & he has no troubles w/ you, not many landlords will give a shit how much you use. be frugile in your other energy use & a tent that size wont show much increase. hell, when my oldest daughter moved out, my bill dropped more than enough to add a 1k lighted room!

Each room is prob 15 amp. but watch out. if it's a cheap apt a couple bedrooms might be on the same 15 amp..

If you look in Panelboard it should list what room(s) are on which breaker and how many amps they are.

this is my area.. Just upgrade to a 30amp double pole breaker and you will be fine/safe.

well 30 amp gfci breaker is safer, however its a little more expensive. but you shouldnt spend over 50 bucks. I will have to do the same.

BrutZuk said:

Each room is prob 15 amp. but watch out. if it's a cheap apt a couple bedrooms might be on the same 15 amp..

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you need to find out how the house is wired.

As someone already has said you should never go over 80% of the amps because going over that will cause fires easily and if the wiring, plugs, barker box or rails in that place is old you should replace it because over time they get worn down and a higher chance of a fire happening.

If a rail is connected to 3 different plugs and you know what they are then you can't go over the amps of that rail between all 3 plugs.


15amps - 20% (This gives you 80% of the rail to use) = 12 amps should be the max you should use on a single 15 amp rail but I would drop it to 10 amps to be on the safe side since grow stuff isn't some thing you wanna mess around with.

10amps to 12 amps * 120 volts = 1,200 watts to 1,440 watts.


If you can upgrade to a 20 amp rail then the better.

313native said:

this is my area.. Just upgrade to a 30amp double pole breaker and you will be fine/safe.

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that will require rewiring the apartment.

mrmadcow said:

that will require rewiring the apartment.

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nope , it wouldnt

Thx Dudes!!

313native said:

nope , it wouldnt

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Can you explain why it wouldn't? By the research I've done, 15 amp circuits are generally wired with 14 gauge wire and 30 amp circuits with 10 gauge. Running a 30 amp across 14 gauge can lead to fire I believe...

technically, you could do as native says. however, the first time you draw 20-25 amps for more than a few minutes, you will start a fire.

Upgrade the breaker without checking the capacity of the cable ?

Cables can only take so much load. Be careful.

These are all good responses, but keep in mind that this is an appartment that I would be renting out... I cant just start changing breakers and stuff, lol.

wow, holy crap... I need a shovel to dig through all this bs here.. lol..

First off you are in north america? I am assuming yes..

Next, you cannot run wires from your panel to your room, even temporarily while you live there? I am assuming no you are not thinking about that as an option?

Okay now, we need to find out if that room is separate from the other rooms in your apt.. it will surely be separate from other apts.. to do this you go plug in a lamp into the outlets and turn off the breakers until that lamp goes out.. then go around the room with the lamp and see if the other outlets are dead.. Now go to additional outlets OUTSIDE of the room and see if they are ALL still working.. if they are you now have determined that that room is on a separate breaker. Why do you do this? because typically outlets in shared walls are on the same circuit, so you may have two circuits in that room that share their breakers with the outlets in those walls facing out to the other rooms.. hope i didn't loose ya there.. basically bedrooms side to side typically are on the same circuit because they share walls and code allows up to 10 plugs on a circuit, they cant all be used at the same time due to capacity restraints but code does allow up to 10 outlets on a single 15amp circuit.

If by chance the bedroom is alone you are in great shape.. if the bedroom shares the outlets with other rooms or other bedrooms you MUST REMEMBER all of the outlets on that circuit must add up to a maximum of 80% of the allowed 15amps, so 12amps.. 12 amps x 120v gives you you max continuous draw of 1440watts..

Now you should have a better understanding on how your apt is wired..

And you cannot get more then the allowed 1440watts in that room without running another wire from your panel or an extension cord from another room/circuit.

Why cant you put a 30a breaker in your panel or even a 20a breaker? I will explain it like this, your wire in your walls are like a small highway running through your town.. the on ramp is like the 15 amp breaker... the on ramp allows just enough cars through onto the highway to maximise travel... adding a 20 or 30A breaker is basically allowing double the amount of cars to go on that on ramp, but when the cars get to the highway its the same size it has always been, a small highway, only built for 12A max continuous, and now you are trying to force 30A through it... this equals a FIRE...
Your breaker is installed to PROTECT THE WIRE.... really understand that everybody, if you take away the breakers ability to limit the flow to what it is specified to run at, you are now sabotaging yourself and creating a very high risk of fire. So you understand now, you cannot get more "cars" to that room on the highway it has going to it, you must build another "road", ie. run another cable, or work within the 1440watt restriction provided that grow room is separate from the other circuits in your apt...

I know i rambled, but i hope it was clear?...lol

for the most part i would say a 3 bed room apt all rooms will be on one circuit. 12 outlets per circuit (which would be your 80% roughly).. now that is counting lighting as well. putting a bigger breaker = bad news the wire gauge is most likely 14 and with a 30 amp breaker it will def start a fire...