POWER BILL / ELECTRIC COMPANY - How not to become a suspect.

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!

what i do is when the electric person comes and checks ur meeter i pull out a bag of cronic and smoke a doobie with him

Greed is what gets you caught, I work for hydro and and am the guy they call to make the grow house safe from an electrical point of view. I fucking hate it because the guys steeling hydro are shitting in our back yard and bring down the heat.

#1 Pay your bill on time.
#2 No more than a 30% INCREASE IN HYDRO per quarter ( that's 3 months)
#3 If they come around asking be nice and just say you raise tropical fish and thanks for being concerned.
#4 Hydro companies like people who pay for hydro, that's what we do sell the shit. We are not paid to police the public it's not our job. Most of us are trying to make a living too so we don't give a shit. But you steal from us, we will find you. Pay your bill and don't be greedy.

Peace love and Hari Krishna

If you check out some of my other posts you will see how we catch them and what we do when the five O comes to us.

All hydro companies have software that flags excess usage on a grid than we go out to find it, we don't go out for less than 50% on anyone's bill and most of the time it's flagged as odd and watched to see if there is a pattern than it's checked against paid for vs used from that grid. If used = paid for we don't care> full stop if it don't add up we put taps on the lines and narrow it down to your house and call the cops. Now if you paid for it we won't look for you....

By the way the biggest theft of hydro is in BC Canada.

concern troll

nice info.
thanks

"1,000KW per bedroom" = 1,000,000 watts per room....

My bad the 1000kw was a typo, I'll change it. Woodsmaneh! Thanks for your input that's exactly what I was looking for. I've been searching for good information but haven't been able to find it, or the topic/thread didn't answer the questions that were in my mind. I will definitely look up some of your other posts.

When you move in you ask for the last 2 years history and build from there, softly softly catchie monkey.... common sense, go buy a couple NFG welders and leave them in the drive way, junk yard air conditioners, you don't want them to work be creative guys, buy an old pottery oven.. When hydro shows up they go O ok no problem the guy does welding = lots electric!!

My head is spinning now for something totally different

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jQN6y5mW08

Chris n said:

My bad the 1000kw was a typo, I'll change it. Woodsmaneh! Thanks for your input that's exactly what I was looking for. I've been searching for good information but haven't been able to find it, or the topic/thread didn't answer the questions that were in my mind. I will definitely look up some of your other posts.

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Was just razzin' ya!
I know what you meant.
Would be one heck of a grow op to have 1,000,000 watts in a room.
"Might as well be walkin' on the Sun."
Peace!

they dont give a fuck there not in cahoots with the cops anyway they just want that money and you want weed they dont know what your doing in there just keep an ear out and be ready to get rid of the shit if the cops come knocking

Is 3000K a concern in the midwest?? i havent recieved my electric bill yet but im sure ass hell gonna pay it on time.

hey chris,
second to snitches and nosy neighbors, electricity consumption is one of the biggest threats to keeping an indoor grow op from getting busted!
for the knuckleheads: it aint the elec comp u need to be concerned about...it's the oinkers! if they have the slightest suspicion u r growing they WILL subpoena your bill! elec company must then comply. if your bill is somewhat higher than your neighbors, oinkers r going to start investigating u more thoroughly! this elec usage issue is going to get even worse with the implementation of smart meters. the only way i can figure a way around this is to go off grid with either solar or wind power with battery backup!

I called the power company and I said I have a chevy volt, in winter just say you're afraid of natural gas on only use electric heaters

CypressRyan said:

I called the power company and I said I have a chevy volt, in winter just say you're afraid of natural gas on only use electric heaters

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and what possessed u 2 call them?

I can only speak for industrial spaces, which we grow in. When I ordered power for my latest op, I acted real dumb like and asked how much she thought my electric bill would be. She, of course, said there was no way to know. I then asked what the last tennants bill was. She gladly layed out the history of my unit. The last tennant was using between 11,000 and 15,000 KWH/month. PERFECT! My 20,000 watt op draws about 13,000 KWH/month. So, I have no worries about a sudden jump from the average on the unit. While wiring my current grow op, I noticed several 3 phase circuits labeled "ovens". After asking the neighbors I found out the last tennants were potters. Some good luck, at last.

On a previous warehouse grow my usage was way over the unit's average. The power company contacted my land lord, who called me. I simply told her I was running several automated plasma cutters that ran around the clock. End of story.

In general, power usage and infared detection are used to get a search warrant. In other words, the power company doesn't call the cops, the cops call them. And why would the cops call them? Because you made the most common mistake that gets 99% of us busted. You told the wrong person.

As far as the power company being able to detect what you're using, I don't doubt it. But, do you think they would spend the $$$ to identify what their customers are using just to help the Man? No way.

If the cops get a tip that you're a grow op, you're busted. They're gonna search your trash, check your bill, hit your op with the infa red, check for odor (which they always find), and basically tell the judge whatever lie is necessary to get the warrant. The key is, and always has been, keep your mouth shut.

I have a chevy volt.

collective gardener said:

I can only speak for industrial spaces, which we grow in. When I ordered power for my latest op, I acted real dumb like and asked how much she thought my electric bill would be. She, of course, said there was no way to know. I then asked what the last tennants bill was. She gladly layed out the history of my unit. The last tennant was using between 11,000 and 15,000 KWH/month. PERFECT! My 20,000 watt op draws about 13,000 KWH/month. So, I have no worries about a sudden jump from the average on the unit. While wiring my current grow op, I noticed several 3 phase circuits labeled "ovens". After asking the neighbors I found out the last tennants were potters. Some good luck, at last.

On a previous warehouse grow my usage was way over the unit's average. The power company contacted my land lord, who called me. I simply told her I was running several automated plasma cutters that ran around the clock. End of story.

In general, power usage and infared detection are used to get a search warrant. In other words, the power company doesn't call the cops, the cops call them. And why would the cops call them? Because you made the most common mistake that gets 99% of us busted. You told the wrong person.

As far as the power company being able to detect what you're using, I don't doubt it. But, do you think they would spend the $$$ to identify what their customers are using just to help the Man? No way.

If the cops get a tip that you're a grow op, you're busted. They're gonna search your trash, check your bill, hit your op with the infa red, check for odor (which they always find), and basically tell the judge whatever lie is necessary to get the warrant. The key is, and always has been, keep your mouth shut.

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i aggree 100% keep it zipped and u can grow old growing!!!! G

I dont think I should be too worried about my power consumption. I am legal to grow medical marijuana and will be running 1000 watts