high electric bills help!

ogkush420

Active Member
My 600 lumatek cost about 40 with fans and everything 24 hours a day my 1000w galaxy cost about the same 12/12IMG_20130121_132425.jpg
 

bicoastal

Member
Electric companies also charge more money for electricity as you use more. In my part of California there are 4 pricing tiers, with the 4th being the highest at 30 cents a kWh and the 1st as cheap as 15 cents. You may have moved into a different tier so your company could have raised your usage rate.
 

THE KONASSURE

Well-Known Member
You need to watch out for power meters they don`t really work correctly

In the uk we use "rings" unlike most of Europe, see in most places each outlet or at best a small ring is rigged up to a RCB or a trip switch or fuse what ever you want to call it

We then have a fuse in each plug the max fuse a plug can have is 13 amps this allows to have 3000kw draw on a plug but you can normally push them a tad more then that

The system was used after ww2 to speed up the re-building of the uk and save on copper wire as we had bugger all left after using it all to beat the Gerry`s anyway enough history.


In the uk house can have all of the outlets on one ring running off of one fuse, the lights are normally on another so you can have as little as 2 breakers on your fuse board


most houses with 2 floors have the following

1 breaker for down stairs plugs

1 breaker for upstairs plugs

1 break for down stairs lights

1 breaker for upstairs lights

1 breaker for cooked (60amp) only if you have an electric cooker other wise this is kept spare

1 spare breaker (these are here for adding an electric water heater or boiler)

Now the problem is that some of the rings can be pretty epic with lots of things running at once, a UK power meter and probably all others measure the power in phase (uk 50hz) the problem with that is that all having lots of things running at once can cause issues with the phase also items running at a diffrent hz or things that use induction can sometimes not fully cycle or be out of phase to what the meter is expecting

This can lead to your meter not correctly reading how much power your are drawing it can run fast or slow, most induction stuff had phase correction but I have heard of people messing with this on electric induction hot water heaters so that they only pay for a small % of the power the use because they are not using the full cycle in phase of the ac supply so the meter will not read the draw.

Basically it all adds up to one thing power company`s have no clue how much power your really using they can only go by the meter and they fully admit that power meters are not accurate even when used correctly in the UK

So it`s best to measure an items draw with a good tester to see what its really pulling and then check what your meter say`s it is pulling most of the time you`ll get lucky and it will come up about the same or even under

Some times it`s way over this is why the "W" rating and the draw measured at the plug can still sometimes mean that you end up paying more or less then you would expect to pay for your power because the fact of the matter is that power meters do not work correctly

They never tell people this because well every house has one and they need most people to pay their bills and no argue the total or come up with some way of getting most of their power for free

I`m pretty sure my meter moves a lot slower then it should but hell it still moves faster then my old key meter did

The power company insisted it be changed as my old key meter was charging me about £5 per month for almost unlimited power lol

It`s a bit more then that now but my power bill is still lower then my internet lol
 

jpill

Well-Known Member
not trying to be rude, but you could of at least waited until you got a 1,000 watt HID before you made this thread!:dunce:
 

giggles26

Well-Known Member
Which weighs more: a pound of feathers or a pound of rocks?

Which uses more kWh: 250W of HID, 250W of LED, or 250W of CFL?
I think it's a pound of rocks! hahah. and then 250 of cfl! Yes that's right ;)

I kid I kid, 250 watts is 250 watts whether it's led,cfl or hid.
 

THE KONASSURE

Well-Known Member
yes but if it`s led there is less heat and you can target spectrum's better and get more of that energy into light onto the plant in the wavelengths it needs

but then again soil and hps grows nice weed too it`s just well the fan`s and the bulbs and all that jazz it`s a hassle I can`t stand so I use led, cfl and induction but I don`t scrimp around using 300w per sqm no way I use oh around 800w a sq meter of led induction and or cfl I`ve yet to see any leaf burn but I`m kind of happy about that the latest lighting set up seams to be doing well so far still to get this kind of light in hps I`d need 2 to 3 600w lamps and that would be a mega cooling issue
 

hsfkush

Well-Known Member
You need to watch out for power meters they don`t really work correctly

In the uk we use "rings" unlike most of Europe, see in most places each outlet or at best a small ring is rigged up to a RCB or a trip switch or fuse what ever you want to call it

We then have a fuse in each plug the max fuse a plug can have is 13 amps this allows to have 3000kw draw on a plug but you can normally push them a tad more then that

The system was used after ww2 to speed up the re-building of the uk and save on copper wire as we had bugger all left after using it all to beat the Gerry`s anyway enough history.


In the uk house can have all of the outlets on one ring running off of one fuse, the lights are normally on another so you can have as little as 2 breakers on your fuse board


most houses with 2 floors have the following

1 breaker for down stairs plugs

1 breaker for upstairs plugs

1 break for down stairs lights

1 breaker for upstairs lights

1 breaker for cooked (60amp) only if you have an electric cooker other wise this is kept spare

1 spare breaker (these are here for adding an electric water heater or boiler)

Now the problem is that some of the rings can be pretty epic with lots of things running at once, a UK power meter and probably all others measure the power in phase (uk 50hz) the problem with that is that all having lots of things running at once can cause issues with the phase also items running at a diffrent hz or things that use induction can sometimes not fully cycle or be out of phase to what the meter is expecting

This can lead to your meter not correctly reading how much power your are drawing it can run fast or slow, most induction stuff had phase correction but I have heard of people messing with this on electric induction hot water heaters so that they only pay for a small % of the power the use because they are not using the full cycle in phase of the ac supply so the meter will not read the draw.

Basically it all adds up to one thing power company`s have no clue how much power your really using they can only go by the meter and they fully admit that power meters are not accurate even when used correctly in the UK

So it`s best to measure an items draw with a good tester to see what its really pulling and then check what your meter say`s it is pulling most of the time you`ll get lucky and it will come up about the same or even under

Some times it`s way over this is why the "W" rating and the draw measured at the plug can still sometimes mean that you end up paying more or less then you would expect to pay for your power because the fact of the matter is that power meters do not work correctly

They never tell people this because well every house has one and they need most people to pay their bills and no argue the total or come up with some way of getting most of their power for free

I`m pretty sure my meter moves a lot slower then it should but hell it still moves faster then my old key meter did

The power company insisted it be changed as my old key meter was charging me about £5 per month for almost unlimited power lol

It`s a bit more then that now but my power bill is still lower then my internet lol
I wish my fucking key meter would piss about and charge me £5 a month for unlimited power...
 

Mithrandir420

Well-Known Member
welcome to the game , rookie... You gotta pay to play
Number two rule of this game. (The 1st rule being: You don't fucking talk about grow club!)

Let me get my smart ass out of the way: 250 watts and you're worried about the bill? Awww.. how cute. Someone thinks he's a grower. ;)

250 watts ain't shit. That's like leaving your TV on all day while you are at work.
 
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