Am I being paranoid?

[Closet Grower]

Hi,
Had abit of a strange one last night.

I have just started my first grow with a 250w light, 2 plants, in a growtent in my attic bedroom.

I have ducting venting out through the wall into my chimney with a small 10cm fan.

Last night I heard a helicopter outside my window, had a look outside and it looking like it was circling the area.

Now I live just outside a city but helicopters are not a regular occurance and I got myself majorly paranoid into thinking they were looking for me :S

Now, my question is, would a 250w MH light give off enough heat to be picked up by a chopper? The fan is sucking the air through a carbon filter, then through about 2m of ducting straight into my chimney.

The plants are still seedlings at the moment, but I need to know if I should take action and get rid :S

Thanks

[CT.Greenskunk]

Chill out no chance in hell that they can detect that...

[Closet Grower]

Dude I hope not, I was majorly freaking out :S

Outside was quite cold last night, so Im thinking of switching to a 18/6 cycle so i wont be venting any air between 12pm-6am.

[CT.Greenskunk]

Is this your first grow ??? Why would you do that for stealth ???

[McBudz]

I doubt they fired up the helicopter to investigate your 250 watt grow lol. What a waste of money that would be. Not that hunting grows is not a waste of money to begin with.. different arguement for different thread. I think the street lights are brighter then that. Don't sweat it. If you are really paranoid look into thermal protection with products like Block IR.

But on a side not I dont run my lights at night for that reason. Bright lights giving off heat in the middle of the night is not the best thing IMO. They look for that especially in warmer climates since growers take advantage of cooler nights to cut back on temp issues and expensive A/C.

[Vexer]

Your fine lol a 250 watt light isn't enough to attract any unwanted attention.

[Tead]

Did you check the news the next day for a reason for the circiling whirly bird?
I suspect you'd find your answer there.

cheers

[NormanTBates]

I just checked this forum because I had a similar incident to the one that began this thread. It was just freaky because they dont come around her, ever!

Anyways just wanted to thank everyone for the reassurance. I have a few cfl's and I kinda figured I was cool but had to be sure. I will check the news in the am

[poker shark]

Remember...the "pucker facter" increases 10 fold when we start growing weed...we see things we did not bother to notice before starting to grow...

[bundiGanja]

Just remember you have rights and as long as you only know about the grow, there is no possible way for you to get busted unless you invite a cop in you're house.

[NormanTBates]

Realisticly, how many watts do you guys thing it really takes for them to see IR sig from a chopper? Or at least a signature they would want to check out..

[skycowboy]

Look at it this way, yer coffee maker uses 1500 watts, old incandescent light bulbs are anywhere from 40 to 150 watts, put that into perspective with a 250 watt whateverlight. Now let's get a little analytical, say you are only doin' a little bitty personal garden, 400 watt HPS covers 3' x 3'. That should provide more than enough med's to go from harvest to harvest if you do everything else right. So should I be worried about extra 400 watts goin' 12 hours a day?
Well let's just offset that power. A 100 watt cfl that is 2700K uses 23 watts, the 100 watt cfl that gives out 6500K uses 26 watts. Let's make the math easy, just say a 100 watt cfl uses 25 watts. SO, if you replace one regular light bulb with cfl you saved 75 watts. Do that with six lights in your house and you saved 450 watts which offset your 400 watt HPS. Use the mix of cfl's to germ/clone/veg. As for the heat goin' up a chimney, well THAT is where I would expect to see some heat comin' from if it is cool outside.

[NormanTBates]

I see where you coming from skycowboy but I am not asking about a power bill and how much energy I'm using, I understand that. I want to know what size bulb it takes to create enough IR to raise suspicion during a fly over. I know they will see any heat regardless, but how much is too much?