Maximum watts for a low key operation?

[AmazingBlazing]

Just wondering if anybody had a good estimate of when electric companies start getting suspicious about high energy usage. about how many watts can you be running before drawing too much attention? i know this question doesn't have an exact number but whats a rough estimate?

[whitestalkslongwalks]

depends on how much power you use now, and how big your house is. a little apartment can't have 1000's of watts without being suspicious

do you really want the MAX? how much do you want to grow? how much can you spend up front?

[GaGrown]

Rule of thumb is a 1000 watts per bedroom.I use 4 600 watt electronic ballasts and they have no electrical spike at start-up.With all 4 running you can see that the meter runs way slower than with 4 magnetic balasts.Most 1000 watt magnetic ballast will run at about 9.5 amps.With the 4 600's I have they run at 1.10 amps as you see thats 2400 watts,still the 4 don't run what 1 - thousand watter cost to operate. In my opinion you would be fine to use the digital ballast for the peace of mind,that your electric bill won't be alarming.

Ga Grown!

[AmazingBlazing]

thanks for the input guys

I know watts probably isn't the best unit of measurement here, but i don't really understand amps and don't want to calculate my kwh per month. So, would 3000 watts of equipment (lights, fans, heaters, whatever) be too much for a 5 bedroom house. Currently, all of my regular lighting throughout the house is flourescent energy saving bulbs. I think they're all 13 watts each too. ya its rather dim in my house. Besides the regular appliances i don't really have anything drawing a lot of energy. So what do you all think? anybody want to share their opinion?

[bejay]

personaly dont consider how many bedrooms a house has to be of much relevence atleast not at first, its more the increase in your electric bill, per example if you go from having an average electric bill of around 150 then all of a sudden it doubles it could be suspicious to some electric companys.
personaly wouldnt go over 1500 watts for starting out, in time say a year down the road you could probably increase it to 3000 with no problems.