Holy electric bill!!!!

[rebeccaj76]

Hey again my friends.
I'm a little concerned; I just received my first electric bill with my whole setup going -- cloning, vegging and flowering at the same time and my normally (non-growing) electric bill is about $200 a month with the central air going.... the one I just got was $550!!! I nearly dropped a load in my shorts. I have a t-5 in the clone room, full spectrum flourecents in the veg room - with fans, humidifiers and air cleaners going 24-7; and in the flower room - ozone generator, carbon filter, fans, 2 ballasts one with 250 HPS and one 250 mh. The lights are on 12 and everything else 24-7.
Should I be worried, please say I'm paranoid... advice also MORE THAN welcome!!!
Thanks buddies!:(

[HighTillIDie]

not really, sounds like you have shitty elec prices

if you can pay, you should be ok... as long as it is a house

[rebeccaj76]

It is a big house and we do have crappy electric prices around here; we follow all the rules to stay on the DL; just a little surprised and worried about this one.
Oh well, guess that dam new 'whole house humidifier and air filtration system' costs a lot to run....???? ;) ;)

[Divestoned]

another thing you can do to drop the price...is to set your clone and veg. rooms on 18/6 instead of 24 hrs.this is not gonna hurt your plants,and in my opinion is the way to go anyway.

Dive:stoned:

[turtle420]

What cools your lights?

If you can 'hood' or 'cool tube' your lights, that'll take off a big load off the air conditioner.
Especially the HPS... they love to give off heat.

Do you *have* to run the humidifier 24/7?
Can't you set it on high for one-two hours, two times per day?
Same thing for the air cleaners.

And, why the ozone generator if you have the carbon air filters?
Try it out with the generator OFF, and see if the carbon air scrubber can handle it.
If it can't... oh well.

WOW!
Lighting bolt!

You use a humidifier?!
Well, ergo, that would mean you have low humidity.

"Swamp coolers" work very good in low-humidity.
They consume MUCH less energy than an air conditioning unit, and they can drop the air temperatures considerably.
Wiki swamp coolers to see what I'm talking about.
eBay has shitloads of them.

They won't replace your a/c unit, but if it can take off a 4,000BTU load off your a/c, that's less electricity consumption from you.

You can buy a 'Kill A Watt' to measure exactly how much electricity everything consumes.
Then do an Excel sheet, punch in the hours, and you can get creative really fast.

Finally, try and run the house as "energy efficient" as possible... CFLs everywhere... etc.

Hope that helps!

-turtle420 :cool:
.

[HighTillIDie]

What cools your lights?

If you can 'hood' or 'cool tube' your lights, that'll take off a big load off the air conditioner.
Especially the HPS... they love to give off heat.

Do you *have* to run the humidifier 24/7?
Can't you set it on high for one-two hours, two times per day?
Same thing for the air cleaners.

And, why the ozone generator if you have the carbon air filters?
Try it out with the generator OFF, and see if the carbon air scrubber can handle it.
If it can't... oh well.

WOW!
Lighting bolt!

You use a humidifier?!
Well, ergo, that would mean you have low humidity.

"Swamp coolers" work very good in low-humidity.
They consume MUCH less energy than an air conditioning unit, and they can drop the air temperatures considerably.
Wiki swamp coolers to see what I'm talking about.
eBay has shitloads of them.

They won't replace your a/c unit, but if it can take off a 4,000BTU load off your a/c, that's less electricity consumption from you.

You can buy a 'Kill A Watt' to measure exactly how much electricity everything consumes.
Then do an Excel sheet, punch in the hours, and you can get creative really fast.

Finally, try and run the house as "energy efficient" as possible... CFLs everywhere... etc.

Hope that helps!

-turtle420 :cool:
.

agreed, sounds too me like you need to widdle things down, and go efficiant

[Mississippi Steve]

Having a huge increase in your light bill like that is sure to send up red flags at the power company. That is not a good thing. You really need to look into the super energy efficient stuff. Turn the A/C thermostat up to 77 or 78 degrees will help a lot.

[rebeccaj76]

Thanks guys... we don't run an a/c seperate from the house and yes, our house is DRY like the Sahara. My husband is kind of the MacGyver type and has the carbon filter piped into our furnace and we only run the ozone generator during the end of flowering when it gets really stinky and you can kind of smell it through the rest of the house...
We'll try the 18/6, and look into that swamp thing on ebay.
Thanks again - as always, saved by the forum.

BTW, anyone ever heard of anyone getting 'flagged' for their electric bill????

[razzapiggy]

Which state do you live in? That will in large determine weather or not PGE would get involved. In alot of instances, they like you as a customer because they are making a ton of money off you. In super conservative states, they might flag you... but really, $500 a month really isn't THAT high.

Re: The person who said you could save money by switching your clones to 18\6

Be aware that this will cause unstable humidity and likely make your cloning more difficult.

[Forwhat420]

Fluoro your whole house out. and of course be very concious of your appliances. I unplug mine when not in use. this will shave a few watts. also how many rooms in house? generally you can run up to a 1000 watts per room and be safe. you are hopefully just paranoid.