power consumption of 600 watt is nuts

yea wow cali sucks with energy prices. Esp since they can increase your price by about 400 percent based on some baseline BS.

I also live in Cali and I got a letter in the mail a few weeks back that there going to be raising the prices on electricity, which is the last thing anyone needs! When I was running my 400watt HPS light, fans and a few cfl's in my grow tent my killa watt meter would show that its costing me $48 a month. During the summer time is when I consumed the most electricity since I have to run my AC all the time to keeps temp down. it went from $48 to $70 and that was using a portable unit not including my central air. That's when I decided to try out LED's. Now it only cost me $21 to run everything and I don't use my AC as much since LED's dont produce much heat at all. I also wasnt having much luck using HPS since I was having so many heat issues. But LED's are not for everyone since the price are still pretty high. So that's one option if you ever want to lower your electric bill.

klmmicro said:

Yes. Tell them that you rented out a couple of rooms and with the extra peeps, the consumption has multiplied. You can also tell them you just installed AC and need that factored in.

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tried this. they said there are only 3 factors that decide your baseline, and the only one that is controllable is geographical. the size of the house, the number of persons in the household, and whatever your running doesnt matter. the only thing that could have an effect is if you have your dr fill out a medical form from pge that says you need to run equipment for your health. then they give you more kwh in your baseline. i wonder if my medical marijuana would allow me to be accepted for that..

i found out a lot from calling them earlier though. i found out exactly when peak hours are. there are actually three types of hours, peak hours, partial peak hours, and off peak hours. off peak hours are from 8pm-10am in the winter, and 9pm-10am in the summer. im currently running from 6pm-6am. peak hours are from 5-8 in winter, and 5-9 in summer. the rest of the day is partial peak hours.

off peak = .11/kwh
partial peak = .16/kwh
peak = .28/kwh or something like that.

this means im running peak hours for 2 hours and then the other 10 hours are off peak.
after this harvest im going to be switching the times from 9pm-9am or 10pm-10am to stay completely off peak. (besides the vegging area with the HUGE 125 watt vegging cfl)

now im only worrying about the baseline. even though it would be cheaper cuz of of peak hours, the kwh used each month would still stay the same. which means we would still be on tier 3 or tier 4.

im going to try and get onto one of the two program pge offers;
care: 20% or more off bill (saves 20% on the bill)
fera: tier 2 and tier 3 for the price of tier 2. (saves maximum of $35/month)

also signed up for this 'balance payment plan' that i guess averages your bill, and give you a set price to pay and changes every 4 months, this brought a savings for around $150 month, bringing the bill down to around $200. i recommend signing up for this if you pay your bill on time everytime. you can also cancel anytime.

So Cal. resident here and I had to go through this same thing a couple weeks ago. Got the letter saying they're changing the meter to an electric on and a crazy ass bill. I called, complained, and began discussing peak hours. I was told 10am-6pm were my peak hours and the 11cent kwh jumps to 33cents during that time period. I'm running a 400watt flower room and a 160-420 watt florescent tube veg room.

So what I did was leave the plants in the dark till peak hours were over and changed the times. I use the ceiling fans instead of the AC and I run our pool pump & filter off peak and for half the time. And I routinely walk the house making sure shit aint on that aint being used. I can't have these 300+ electric bills either.

With tax season here I've already called places to have estimates on SOLAR panels and have those fuckers PAY ME.

odin92681 said:

So Cal. resident here and I had to go through this same thing a couple weeks ago. Got the letter saying they're changing the meter to an electric on and a crazy ass bill. I called, complained, and began discussing peak hours. I was told 10am-6pm were my peak hours and the 11cent kwh jumps to 33cents during that time period. I'm running a 400watt flower room and a 160-420 watt florescent tube veg room.

So what I did was leave the plants in the dark till peak hours were over and changed the times. I use the ceiling fans instead of the AC and I run our pool pump & filter off peak and for half the time. And I routinely walk the house making sure shit aint on that aint being used. I can't have these 300+ electric bills either.

With tax season here I've already called places to have estimates on SOLAR panels and have those fuckers PAY ME.

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id be worried about fucking up the cycle. would it be a bad idea to leave the light off longer?

orgnlmrwiggles said:

id be worried about fucking up the cycle. would it be a bad idea to leave the light off longer?

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Ya know, everyone thinks that. Leaving the lights off for a few more hours one time will only do one thing... make the plant stretch 1mm or 2. But in my experience MJ is a tough plant. Of course fucking with the light cycle often WILL run you the risk of hermaphrodites. But only 1 time to change the light cycle.... wont risk you your crop. The BENEFITS outweigh the RISKS.

I was getting jacked by PGE being over my quota of whatever and just had my time of use meter put in a while ago. It's going to be much better for sure, my rate off peak is now 6 cents all included per kw/hr. I'm low income too though so I think that had something to do with why it's so low for me now.

I feel like one lucky bastard, not trying to rub it in, sorry.

you growers on the west coast really get screwed on power costs. What is the reasoning for the higher cost for power out there from the utility comps?

I thought I was getting shafted for $250.00 to $275.00 a month running a 3br/3ba 2 story house with a hottub and....
6 x 600w @ 12/12
1 x 400w @ 24/7
12 x 23w cfls 24/7
1 x 800cfm fan 12/12 (for 6 cool tubes)
1 x 800cfm fan 24/7 (carbon filter)
1 x 10000btu a/c 12/12 (flower room)

plus several small fans,water pumps for a perpetual grow



Forgot to mrention I am on the Gulf coast