Chris n
Member
I've been lurking around these boards and others for about a year, trying to find as much information as possible on every aspect of cultivation. By far the scariest of these is the dreaded power bill. Growing marijuana can be an experience which leaves us in a state of constant paranoia. Somehow we feel like "the power company just knows" what we are up to. Or, we are lulled into a false sense of security justified by the logical assumption that as long as we "pay our bill on time" the power company will not notice/look the other way. Both ends of the spectrum are wrong on this debate. The most conclusive evidence I have read either way is anecdotal at best. I propose that we take a look at the different methods the power companies use to monitor our activity, allowing us to better understand how to protect our privacy.
It is more important now than ever for us to figure out what is safe and what is not. My local power company has recently hired on a slew of new workers to undertake the task of installing smart meters on all the homes in their area. These meters are capable of remotely informing the power company of how much wattage you are using per hour, and claim to be able to know what sort of appliance you are running at what times due to electrical signatures. This is B.A.D for growers. It would be very easy to spot grow-ops with this technology. Fortunately for us, we are the prohibitees, which means we are always ahead of our opposition. It is our duty to the community, ourselves, and our family to find new and creative ways to combat unjust prohibition. That is what this thread is for, the sharing of knowledge alongside new and creative solutions.
I urge respondents to avoid personal philosophical justification of ideas. An example of this would be "Pay yuor bill on time brahsef the electic company just wanna make they money and u good." Another example would be "YOUR GONNA GET CAUGHT DOOD THATS 2BILLION KWH A DAY ON 12/12 AND THEY CAN SEE THAT SHIT! JUST USE A 23WATT CFL LIKE I DO AND SMOKE LIEK ONE BOWL EVERY 3 MONTHS." These sort of responses are not helpful because they are merely opinions, unfortunately they are overwhelmingly popular on this particular subject. The best way for us to spread good information throughout the community is to do research and make claims based upon verifiable evidence. Here are some examples.
Example 1: Gary John "I was reading through the privacy policy of my local electric company and the area that specified their policy regarding turning information over to the police sounded very ambiguous. In order to get a better grasp of what I was dealing with I loaded up skype and made an ANONYMOUS phone call to customer service. They informed me that Wang-A-Dang electric in no way compromises the privacy of it's client base unless a warrant is issued from a law enforcement agency, or theft is suspected and verified. I asked where I could find a copy of this policy in writing and the representative pointed me here (copy of link, or picture of scanned document)"
- From this we can see that our light schedule and power consumption will likely not result in LEO knocking on our doors. Now I can't say for sure how much power in this situation you can draw before something IS said. Although as long as the consumption is kept within the reasonable area of 1,000Watts's per bedroom the coast would be clear.
Example 2: Bill Budsman "So I've worked at HumDigger electric for 12 years and I can tell you that X-Type of meter does not give any remote information to power company. They need a guy to come check it and can only tell how much total energy you used during a billing period. However, Z-Type of meter can tell them everything about what your doing. You'd need a battery back up device on every outlet to keep them from knowing the diameter of your wife's ariola."
- From this we can say hey "I have X-Meter or Z-Meter." Plan accordingly for our stealth. It would also be reccommended to follow suite with Mr. Gary John and find out what the privacy policy of your local power company. If it is similar you may not need to worry about the Psychic Z-Meter. If it is not similar and you have a Z-Meter, you may want to invest in a flipbox and do a double flower room with your ballasts hooked into battery back-ups. If you have the old blind X-Meter it probably won't matter either way as long as you keep your consumption in the range of 1,000Watt per bedroom.
It is important to remember that there are ways around everything. Let's figure out how they work, and then figure out how to work around them. I have heard that if you are using a battery back-up (the black boxes you use to protect you computer from power outages, they are heavy and are not the same as a surge protector) that the power company would not get an electrical signal from what is plugged into the back-up i.e magnetic ballast, but would instead get a reading from the ultra common battery back-up. This is an assumption I'm making based off of common sense and hear-say. It would be great if someone could verify this. The Flipbox, or flip-flops that I mention exist and can be found off of any search engine. What the flipbox does is allows you to keep one ballast on 24/0 and run two lights at 12/12. With these tools alone we can probably get around most detection. However, this adds a-lot of expense to the grow room which not everyone can afford. With better information we can understand our situation and plan how to remain safe, private, and economical.
Now, let us pool our knowledge and drown the world in a Sea-Of-Green!
It is more important now than ever for us to figure out what is safe and what is not. My local power company has recently hired on a slew of new workers to undertake the task of installing smart meters on all the homes in their area. These meters are capable of remotely informing the power company of how much wattage you are using per hour, and claim to be able to know what sort of appliance you are running at what times due to electrical signatures. This is B.A.D for growers. It would be very easy to spot grow-ops with this technology. Fortunately for us, we are the prohibitees, which means we are always ahead of our opposition. It is our duty to the community, ourselves, and our family to find new and creative ways to combat unjust prohibition. That is what this thread is for, the sharing of knowledge alongside new and creative solutions.
I urge respondents to avoid personal philosophical justification of ideas. An example of this would be "Pay yuor bill on time brahsef the electic company just wanna make they money and u good." Another example would be "YOUR GONNA GET CAUGHT DOOD THATS 2BILLION KWH A DAY ON 12/12 AND THEY CAN SEE THAT SHIT! JUST USE A 23WATT CFL LIKE I DO AND SMOKE LIEK ONE BOWL EVERY 3 MONTHS." These sort of responses are not helpful because they are merely opinions, unfortunately they are overwhelmingly popular on this particular subject. The best way for us to spread good information throughout the community is to do research and make claims based upon verifiable evidence. Here are some examples.
Example 1: Gary John "I was reading through the privacy policy of my local electric company and the area that specified their policy regarding turning information over to the police sounded very ambiguous. In order to get a better grasp of what I was dealing with I loaded up skype and made an ANONYMOUS phone call to customer service. They informed me that Wang-A-Dang electric in no way compromises the privacy of it's client base unless a warrant is issued from a law enforcement agency, or theft is suspected and verified. I asked where I could find a copy of this policy in writing and the representative pointed me here (copy of link, or picture of scanned document)"
- From this we can see that our light schedule and power consumption will likely not result in LEO knocking on our doors. Now I can't say for sure how much power in this situation you can draw before something IS said. Although as long as the consumption is kept within the reasonable area of 1,000Watts's per bedroom the coast would be clear.
Example 2: Bill Budsman "So I've worked at HumDigger electric for 12 years and I can tell you that X-Type of meter does not give any remote information to power company. They need a guy to come check it and can only tell how much total energy you used during a billing period. However, Z-Type of meter can tell them everything about what your doing. You'd need a battery back up device on every outlet to keep them from knowing the diameter of your wife's ariola."
- From this we can say hey "I have X-Meter or Z-Meter." Plan accordingly for our stealth. It would also be reccommended to follow suite with Mr. Gary John and find out what the privacy policy of your local power company. If it is similar you may not need to worry about the Psychic Z-Meter. If it is not similar and you have a Z-Meter, you may want to invest in a flipbox and do a double flower room with your ballasts hooked into battery back-ups. If you have the old blind X-Meter it probably won't matter either way as long as you keep your consumption in the range of 1,000Watt per bedroom.
It is important to remember that there are ways around everything. Let's figure out how they work, and then figure out how to work around them. I have heard that if you are using a battery back-up (the black boxes you use to protect you computer from power outages, they are heavy and are not the same as a surge protector) that the power company would not get an electrical signal from what is plugged into the back-up i.e magnetic ballast, but would instead get a reading from the ultra common battery back-up. This is an assumption I'm making based off of common sense and hear-say. It would be great if someone could verify this. The Flipbox, or flip-flops that I mention exist and can be found off of any search engine. What the flipbox does is allows you to keep one ballast on 24/0 and run two lights at 12/12. With these tools alone we can probably get around most detection. However, this adds a-lot of expense to the grow room which not everyone can afford. With better information we can understand our situation and plan how to remain safe, private, and economical.
Now, let us pool our knowledge and drown the world in a Sea-Of-Green!
