highest electric bill without worry

[the widowmaker]

if u can, put every thing on 240v insted of 120. what i mean is ur a/c is runnig on 120v which means ur pullin a lot of amps. if u get 240v a/c, light ballast it cuts the amps in half which means less power to run. like say, i have a 400w hps on 120v she draws 4amps but 240v she draws 1.8amps. all u need is two hots and a ground from ur panel.

I understand what your saying bro and you are correct but unfortunately the electricity company bills us in kilowatt hours so it doesn't matter which you run on the electric bill will be about the same, it would be less of a fire hazard and you could run more lights on 240v but really theres no price saving

 

[headband]

Dude get CFL's bulbs , you could have 12 in a box and still not use as much power as a 400w HPS..

all these ppl on here saying that law enforcement doesnt look at electric bills are just ignorant ppl who dont know any better...

Here in cali i know that the police work with gas/electric/water utilitie companys and they look for power spikes that run in 12/12 cycles or 24/7 cycles.. they know how pot is grown they know when its being grown especially if you use HPS lights

you can grow legally in cali, then you dont have to worrry about anything, thanks prop 215,sb420 o ya, screw the cfl's, hps is proven.

 

[THCPezDispenser]

really though when it comes down to it do you think the electric company is watching peoples bills to see who has a gain and who doesn't, most of the stuff that is done is all automated now anyways so if you pay the bill on time and as far as anyone from outside of your house can tell theres no growing going on, why would anyone take the time to look specifically at your account and say, damn you know what bob jones just went from using 10k an hour to 12k an hour

Oh they do look, that's for sure. Check this out from BC Hydro:

hxxp://www.bchydro.com/rx_files/safety/safety46140.pdf (Copy & paste and replace xx with tt)

But as they say in this pamphlet, they are looking for the big guys, so someone running a single 400 or even 1000 isn't going to trip the panic alarm at the electric company.

"Consumption information will be provided only for residences that exceed a range of usual consumption (that is, several times the normal consumption). The average consumer would not appear on such a list."

 

[Hick]

Dude get CFL's bulbs , you could have 12 in a box and still not use as much power as a 400w HPS..

all these ppl on here saying that law enforcement doesnt look at electric bills are just ignorant ppl who dont know any better...

Here in cali i know that the police work with gas/electric/water utilitie companys and they look for power spikes that run in 12/12 cycles or 24/7 cycles.. they know how pot is grown they know when its being grown especially if you use HPS lights , ya they work the best im not saying they dont

but plenty of ppl use CFL's and grow some dank weed soo thats always an option for ya.

I wont touch an HPS with all the cali bust recently from using simple 400w hps lights..

They ar busting 400 watt grows in CA?.. AMAZING!.. I thought CA was the forefront for decriminalization, legalization. Do they check to see if the resident has a liscense, before they bust 'em?..
I'm "betting"" their electrical useage has absolutely nothing to do with it. A 400 watt light most certainly is NOT going to raise the bill significantly. In addition, "12 - 40 watt cfls IS over 400 watts.
You really shouldn' throw that "ignorant people" around, quite so freely.

 

[the widowmaker]

I still fully believe that they will not initiate investigations based on electricity usage. They will use it as evidence but they will start the case from somewhere else first, it never begins with electricity unless you are stealing it or not paying the bill they don't have the right because of data protection, they would have to be investigating you first.

 

[headband]

They ar busting 400 watt grows in CA?.. AMAZING!.. I thought CA was the forefront for decriminalization, legalization. In addition, "12 - 40 watt cfls IS over 400 watts.

so y waist 400 watts of your electricity using crappy cfl's to grow bud. GG your using 400 watts anyways, why not use a 400hps, you arnt saving any $$$ with cfls, your actually runnin 80 watts over, so its more expensive, and less effective than an hps. In california grow ops are the ones being taken down, the large medical marijuana ops. Some growers out grow, what they are aloud, this is when they get taken down. They have to file paper work with the state, to be a caregiver, so they can grow other peoples limit. But more times than not, they are growing over the legal limit without being a caregiver. Depends on where you live, in oakland, its a 72 plant limit, where i live its a 6 plant limit. Then going to the state to become a caregiver, you can grow other patients scrips, with there approval. The pigs in california, will bust anyone with weed, they hate it, they will try to get you in the most trouble possible.

 

[Sin inc]

all i know is that where i live the electrick company is sueing the state people at around this time last year they risre thier price's up around 70% and now they rised them antoher 30%. so bacily the ele company is sueing everybody in the state. my bill before was around 200$ now its aorund 500+ some jump!!! thier putting in are a$$$$ now we can't doing ant thing

 

[dankbud420]

when winter comes around they raise gas prices, and spring-summer they raise eletric bill thats the way it goes. nothing we can do to make them change there ways but u can change how we use our power. get every thing 240v cuts amps in half. kilowats are used less by 240v than 120v because it clean power instead of dirty power. which means two hots is cleaner than one hot with a nutral. less amps means less kilowats used.

 

[Useless]

get every thing 240v cuts amps in half. kilowats are used less by 240v than 120v because it clean power instead of dirty power. which means two hots is cleaner than one hot with a nutral. less amps means less kilowats used.

Running 240 only cuts the amperage draw in half because it is running on two legs instead of one. The total amperage draw at the panel is the same. Therefore kilowatt hours are the same.
The benifit, as you touched on in your post, is that 240 will run the ballasts in a balanced power draw. Therefore, the ballasts run more efficiently and cooler. This reduces resistance in the ballast, and as a result requires less energy to use. So you can get about a 10% avg. drop in elecrictal usage (kwh) and an increase in balast efficiency resulting in higher output at the bulb.
Saying that running at 240v vs. 120v will drop your bill in half is completely incorrect.

 

[dankbud420]

all i know is that i got everything running on 240v and my eletric bill droped like 20 bucks. 2 window ac units, 400w ballast and air purafire all switched to 240v.