The cost of growing

[cspWarsaw]

Hi guys, I recently had to pull two plants from my closet grow due to the electricity bill coming in. I have 4 CFL 40W bulbs running they were going for 16 hrs a day and the increase in my MONTHY electricity bill was 200 dollars! it does not make sense to grow if you have to pay that much, you might as well buy.. is there a more cost effective way of growing? is the bill wrong? wtf?

 

[Icemud]

4 40w bulbs is not going to raise your electric bill by 200$...there has got to be something else causing the raised bill... I run 1000+ watts in just my lights, not including 5 fans, airpumps and humidifiers....and my bill only went up 120$ a month from what it was...

You may want to check to find out what other things you have running....

LCD tv's run a lot of electric
Cable/Dvr boxes are known to be very high user's of power
if your running a portible AC unit...this could add a significant amount to your bill

Here is the formula for figuring out how much it will cost...

If the appliance uses 45 Watts, you divide by 1000 to convert it into kilowatts and then multiply that by the number of hours (giving you kilowatt hours) .

So 45 W * 3.5 hrs /1000 = 0.1575 KWH


So for your situation 160w x 16/1000 = 2.56 KWH (per day).... now you would multiply this by 30 days to find your monthly usage... 76.8 KWH per month.... now you would multiply this by your price per KWH....on your bill...

So if you used my rate for KWH which is around .20$ then to run these 4 bulbs you would be paying around 15.36$ per month more than before.....

So somewhere you have some serious power running and costing you a lot...

 

[TorturedSoul]

LCD tv's run a lot of electric

If you mean the florescent type, more than LED-driven LCDs certainly. But I was under the impression that they're still more energy efficient than old-school CRTs. Although people always seem to upsize when going from a CRT to a LCD (and sometimes a great deal) which can in practice negate any potential savings.

Did you mean plasma televisions? I've heard that they're electricity hogs and that the larger ones can serve admirably as a room heater (lol).

if your running a portible AC unit...this could add a significant amount to your bill

Even if not, I would think. Venting hot lights into the general home space might only raise temperatures a degree or two (if that), but that would cause a central unit to work more too.

It's getting cooler. Is it possible that you've got a cold-natured wife or elderly parent that's running an electric heater? Or a child that's been playing hooky and running the home entertainment system while he/she should be at school? Electric (tank) water heaters use a lot of juice, is someone taking prolonged hot showers? Or... A drip at a faucet that's on the hot side doesn't just drip when you're looking at it, it drips 24/7/52 and in addition to wasting water, can cause your water heater to cycle slightly more often. New computer? If so, I wonder what size power supply it has, 400-watt? 650-watt? Depending on the CPU and other options, they can be big power users and some people leave them running when they're not actually using them. Swimming pool heater? Probably runs almost constantly this time of year. Dehumidifier? That's basically an air conditioner, they use a fair amount of electricity. Set an electric oven (big electricity hogs, along with water heaters, clothes dryers, and furnaces; gas is still cheaper for all of them I think - possibly even propane/bottled?) to preheat and then get baked (lol) & forget about it, letting it run overnight or <GASP> all weekend, that's a few bucks probably. Refrigerators really DO use more electricity when kids (or those who act like them) open them ten times per day or open them and just stare inside, lol. Also, when the gaskets get sketchy they run more (and less efficiently); close a dollar bill in the door and see if it's easy to wiggle it anywhere around the perimeter. And some units have a switch that you can flip if you notice condensation on the outside of the cabinet (which will probably use more electricity if you flip it).

Here is the formula for figuring out how much it will cost...

If the appliance uses 45 Watts, you divide by 1000 to convert it into kilowatts and then multiply that by the number of hours (giving you kilowatt hours) .

So 45 W * 3.5 hrs /1000 = 0.1575 KWH


So for your situation 160w x 16/1000 = 2.56 KWH (per day).... now you would multiply this by 30 days to find your monthly usage... 76.8 KWH per month.... now you would multiply this by your price per KWH....on your bill...

+REPs for showing people how easy it is to calculate their electrical costs.

Don't forget to add in ballast(etc.) losses. Rather small for electronic ones (CFLs, digital HID ballasts), but still a factor. LEDs don't have ballasts, but they've got one or more power supplies which change the AC to DC and lower the voltage; they can range in efficiency (and quality) too.

If your electrical company has variable rates (tiers), that's something to think about as well. If your electricity is cheaper between 5:00pm and 7:00am or whenever (which in plainspeak means you're paying a premium to use it at other times, lol) then adjusting your schedule so that lights run only during that time - or at least so that the time they run encompasses that time - can make a fairly substantial difference in a month's time.

I've heard that there are "usage tiers" as well where a person that uses more electricity pays higher rates. If that's figured up by the month or even by the 24-hour period, there's not much to be done about it I guess (well... In extreme cases, rent the house next door and split the grow.) but if it's figured in real-time, where an actual 4kW draw is billed at more than four times what an actual 1kW draw is, then a person could split their grow into two smaller ones during flower - running one garden offset 12 hours from the other one. Flip-flop controllers could be used so that one ballast could run two lights (at different times, of course). Still, that requires twice the space, more equipment, more work... And if the home has lower rates at certain parts of the day, the entire grow couldn't take advantage of them. Probably only really useful for extreme cases?

 

[Hogdady]

Hi guys, I recently had to pull two plants from my closet grow due to the electricity bill coming in. I have 4 CFL 40W bulbs running they were going for 16 hrs a day and the increase in my MONTHY electricity bill was 200 dollars! it does not make sense to grow if you have to pay that much, you might as well buy.. is there a more cost effective way of growing? is the bill wrong? wtf?

How is your usage monitored? Meter reader, Smartmeter or what? You obviously were overcharged. You should monitor your electric usage and see if it agrees with your statement. Looks like the Canadian avg is 11¢ a kwh. At that rate, your increase of $200 equates to over 1800 kwh!

 

[Hogdady]

I've heard that there are "usage tiers" as well where a person that uses more electricity pays higher rates. If that's figured up by the month or even by the 24-hour period, there's not much to be done about it I guess (well... In extreme cases, rent the house next door and split the grow.) but if it's figured in real-time, where an actual 4kW draw is billed at more than four times what an actual 1kW draw is, then a person could split their grow into two smaller ones during flower - running one garden offset 12 hours from the other one. Flip-flop controllers could be used so that one ballast could run two lights (at different times, of course). Still, that requires twice the space, more equipment, more work... And if the home has lower rates at certain parts of the day, the entire grow couldn't take advantage of them. Probably only really useful for extreme cases?

My utility provider (Pacific Graft and Extortion) has a 5-tier rate billing schedule. This is not the on/off peak tier. This is based on usage. The provider establishes a "baseline" for residential customers in your area, then adjust the rates up for every time your usage exceeds the baseline by 100%. Currently, the baseline rate is 11¢ a kwh. When you get to the 5th tier (every month I'm growin), the rate is 49¢ a kwh! However, I do not know of any utility provder in Canada that uses this type of usage tier plan.

 

[Icemud]

Hey TorcheredSoul! Great followup on the topic!! You listed a ton of thing's I forgot to add after I had posted.... Thanks for the Rep too!!

 

[cspWarsaw]

Thank you for the information, indeed I am a Canadian citizen and as far as I can tell they have now put us in a 2000kwh tier.. this seems crazy to me. We have contacted the provider and they said that the meter was reading correctly. i'm now in the process of going over all of the bills for the last 12 months and trying to sort this out.. for now I have two plants simply sitting in my room by the window.. they will likely go into flower or just die in the worst case scenario.

if I was to invest in an LED grow light I might be able to save more money but for the next 6 months that doesn't look like an option.. money is tight and I use marijuana to relieve pain caused from tarsal coalition in my right foot. I strongly disagree with drug dealers and wanted to grow so that I would be able to supply myself.

Hope I can figure this out.

 

[Hogdady]

Thank you for the information, indeed I am a Canadian citizen and as far as I can tell they have now put us in a 2000kwh tier.. this seems crazy to me. We have contacted the provider and they said that the meter was reading correctly. i'm now in the process of going over all of the bills for the last 12 months and trying to sort this out.. for now I have two plants simply sitting in my room by the window.. they will likely go into flower or just die in the worst case scenario.

if I was to invest in an LED grow light I might be able to save more money but for the next 6 months that doesn't look like an option.. money is tight and I use marijuana to relieve pain caused from tarsal coalition in my right foot. I strongly disagree with drug dealers and wanted to grow so that I would be able to supply myself.

Hope I can figure this out.

If your meter is read visually by the utility provider, then they can provide you with a monthly date that the meter is scheduled to be read. Just record the meter reading on that date and compare to their reading. Let me reiterate....unless you're running something that chews up mountains of energy, YOU HAVE BEEN OVERBILLED!

 

[CannaVince]

Well let's see here....3 lbs of Kush stolen.......2 weapons taken by police......and the bondsman.....my lost work wages.....and ohhh stress....grand tally is 16,219 dollars...that's what it cost me anyways.....