Cannibisology
Member
Hey everybody! Just wondering when the power company would start getting suspicious about the amount of power im consuming?What range of wattage/amps/kilowatts should i stay in?
-
ICMag with help from Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest in November! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!
power company suspicious?
- Thread starter Cannibisology
- Start date
B
bighogg
depends. do you live in bumblefuck indiana? or are you in a metropolis? how large is your house and how much electricity do your neighbors use?
police when getting a warrant for electrical use compare your use to your neighbors, then they can take this information to a judge to get a warrant....
personally i think about 8-10 kilowatts total is the most i would use if i wanted to get semi-good sleep.
police when getting a warrant for electrical use compare your use to your neighbors, then they can take this information to a judge to get a warrant....
personally i think about 8-10 kilowatts total is the most i would use if i wanted to get semi-good sleep.
gotbackwoods
Member
I think something like 1000 watt per room in your house plus if you have kids your bill will be higher. If the weather is warm the air conditioner comes into play as long as you pay your bill on time. Think how many people out here are doing this as long as your not stealing their electricity you should be good. Shit I live in a apartment and have three kids always using my 1000 watt every day damn nerar for the last three years then I add a 400 watt in flowring to that plus pumps fans plus all the stuff my kids leave on tv's on all day game systems computers home theater systems. I sleep like a baby. There is a sight that you can read off how much your electric company charges per kilowatt per hour you add what size lights you are using and your schedule that they are on. During veg 1400 watt is like between 15 and 30 bucks a month that is nothing . Be cool Stay safe
rootfingers
Active member
Cannibisology said:
When you stop paying your bill or start stealing electricity.
Imo the only other possibility is if you have power spikes but that seems hard to avoid. Even with a flip flop you still have spikes on start up.
cordobayumyum
New member
More instructive to think about when LEO become suspicious
More instructive to think about when LEO become suspicious
As bighogg mentioned, it is smart to compare youe usage to that of your neighbors, but I think SomeGuy's suggestion that you check the usage of the prior owner/tenant is spot on.
Unless your electric company has a remote monitor that can track your usage all the time, which is unlikely, as long as your usage is similar to or less than the usage of the previous occupant it would be difficult to articulate PC based solely on the number of KWs you used.
With that said, there are example where LEO have started investigations based only the number of KWs used. The Austin Chronicle reported in 2007 that the local power company was voluntarily cooperating with the police without being forced by court-mandated warrants. In this example the police were interested in people who were using more than 4,000 kilowatt hours per month. The story can be found at http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:561535
Hth
More instructive to think about when LEO become suspicious
As bighogg mentioned, it is smart to compare youe usage to that of your neighbors, but I think SomeGuy's suggestion that you check the usage of the prior owner/tenant is spot on.
Unless your electric company has a remote monitor that can track your usage all the time, which is unlikely, as long as your usage is similar to or less than the usage of the previous occupant it would be difficult to articulate PC based solely on the number of KWs you used.
With that said, there are example where LEO have started investigations based only the number of KWs used. The Austin Chronicle reported in 2007 that the local power company was voluntarily cooperating with the police without being forced by court-mandated warrants. In this example the police were interested in people who were using more than 4,000 kilowatt hours per month. The story can be found at http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:561535
Hth
Thanks for the link cordobayumyum. One of the more interesting reads i've had on this site in quite some time...
U
ureapwhatusow
does anyone remember the link or equation for calculating kilowatts
googled this:::
according to that formula 4 600watt lights running at 12 hours is jsut under 900 kilwatts per month
How do I calculate monthly energy cost?
This is a simple calculation but requires an understanding of the difference between energy (Watt hours) and power (Watt). Electrical power is the flow of electricity like gallons per minute of water, but the monthly electrical bill is an amount of electricity like total gallons in our example and it is expressed as kilowatt-hours (units of 1000 Watt hours) . To convert the flow to an amount of energy to kilowatt hours, multiply by the duration or time, in our example, one month
Energy = Power X Time (Watt hours = Watts X Hours)
A measure of electrical energy is kilowatts. Utility billing rates are expressed in kilowatts hours (cost per kW.hr) When using kilowatts, the time unit is hours and Watts are divided by 1000.
To Calculate the amount of kilowatts used in a month
Formula
Hours in a month = 720 hours (30 days x 24 hours)
A 100 W appliance's consumption can be expressed as 0.1 kW (100 W ÷ 1000)
If this appliance is operated constantly for a month, then the energy consumed would be: 72 kW.hr per month
(0.1 kW X 720 hr per month)
Calculating Cost:
If electricity costs 10 cents/kW.hr, then that appliance’s cost is $7.20 per month to operate (72hr x $0.10).
A common error in the calculation is not converting the power from Watts to kilowatts, resulting in an answer that is a thousand times too high.
(Note: W = watts, kW = kilowatts, and kW.hr = kilowatt hours.)
googled this:::
according to that formula 4 600watt lights running at 12 hours is jsut under 900 kilwatts per month
How do I calculate monthly energy cost?
This is a simple calculation but requires an understanding of the difference between energy (Watt hours) and power (Watt). Electrical power is the flow of electricity like gallons per minute of water, but the monthly electrical bill is an amount of electricity like total gallons in our example and it is expressed as kilowatt-hours (units of 1000 Watt hours) . To convert the flow to an amount of energy to kilowatt hours, multiply by the duration or time, in our example, one month
Energy = Power X Time (Watt hours = Watts X Hours)
A measure of electrical energy is kilowatts. Utility billing rates are expressed in kilowatts hours (cost per kW.hr) When using kilowatts, the time unit is hours and Watts are divided by 1000.
To Calculate the amount of kilowatts used in a month
Formula
Hours in a month = 720 hours (30 days x 24 hours)
A 100 W appliance's consumption can be expressed as 0.1 kW (100 W ÷ 1000)
If this appliance is operated constantly for a month, then the energy consumed would be: 72 kW.hr per month
(0.1 kW X 720 hr per month)
Calculating Cost:
If electricity costs 10 cents/kW.hr, then that appliance’s cost is $7.20 per month to operate (72hr x $0.10).
A common error in the calculation is not converting the power from Watts to kilowatts, resulting in an answer that is a thousand times too high.
(Note: W = watts, kW = kilowatts, and kW.hr = kilowatt hours.)
Last edited:
Purkle said:
Ya, I'm sure running some noiseyass generator all day and night long would decrease someones power paranoia
Y
yamaha_1fan
clowntown said:
exactly. digital "smart" meters are routinely being installed and swapped in place of the older style.
The biggest advantage to the power company is the ability of remote monitoring so no meter readers are needed. Plus they can tell when the meter has been uninstalled for more than a few minutes
Even if they don't have graphs most companies have a program that will average your usage for a year so that your bill isn't really low in the winter and really high in the summer. My bill came saying if you want to sign up for that program send x amount of money next month and check this box. The x amount of money was the last people's yearly averaged monthly bill.
goodmangigabyte
Member
Thanks for that article, Cordo.
It's really interesting, what the Austin Police Dept was trying to do with records from the energy company.
If you read the article, you'll note that in one email, the detective tells the power company worker that he wants records for everyone who's used more than 4000 kilowatts a month, 'in order to get a broader range of possible suspects'. So evidently he was only targeting people with more than 4k kilowatts a month usage previously. And he was comparing their electricity usage with the size of their home: if you use 6k kwatts a month in a ten thousand square foot mansion, maybe that's not so suspicious. 6K kwatts a month in a 1600 sq foot home would be suspicious though, and lead to further investigation (a walkaround, a flir, a knock and talk, etc).
If you figure you have one 1k light, on for 12 hours a day, 30 days a month, that's 360 kw a month right there. Plus all your other electrical stuff, if you have a good amount of electronics, maybe you total a 1000 kw hours in a month. You're still well under the 4k threshold.
Conceivably you could have 4 1k watt lights, that's about 1300 kw hours, all your other electronics will make your total consumption at most 2500 kw hours a month. Well under what that particular detective was looking for...
I'm thinking that this type of search is hard for LEO's because the lower your standard, the more results you get, and the more screening you have to do. So a LEO could look for accounts that use 2000 kw hours, but they'll get like thousands of accounts, and most of those will be businesses, some of those might be large homes, some of those might be guys that have a LOT of electrical stuff (multiple computers, hot tub, appliances, electronics etc). That's a lot of crosschecking of addresses that they have to do.
Bottom line: you could probably have 4-5 thousand watts of light, easy, without breaking a sweat. 10 k watts, you're in the range of what this detective wanted to lower his range to.
It's really interesting, what the Austin Police Dept was trying to do with records from the energy company.
If you read the article, you'll note that in one email, the detective tells the power company worker that he wants records for everyone who's used more than 4000 kilowatts a month, 'in order to get a broader range of possible suspects'. So evidently he was only targeting people with more than 4k kilowatts a month usage previously. And he was comparing their electricity usage with the size of their home: if you use 6k kwatts a month in a ten thousand square foot mansion, maybe that's not so suspicious. 6K kwatts a month in a 1600 sq foot home would be suspicious though, and lead to further investigation (a walkaround, a flir, a knock and talk, etc).
If you figure you have one 1k light, on for 12 hours a day, 30 days a month, that's 360 kw a month right there. Plus all your other electrical stuff, if you have a good amount of electronics, maybe you total a 1000 kw hours in a month. You're still well under the 4k threshold.
Conceivably you could have 4 1k watt lights, that's about 1300 kw hours, all your other electronics will make your total consumption at most 2500 kw hours a month. Well under what that particular detective was looking for...
I'm thinking that this type of search is hard for LEO's because the lower your standard, the more results you get, and the more screening you have to do. So a LEO could look for accounts that use 2000 kw hours, but they'll get like thousands of accounts, and most of those will be businesses, some of those might be large homes, some of those might be guys that have a LOT of electrical stuff (multiple computers, hot tub, appliances, electronics etc). That's a lot of crosschecking of addresses that they have to do.
Bottom line: you could probably have 4-5 thousand watts of light, easy, without breaking a sweat. 10 k watts, you're in the range of what this detective wanted to lower his range to.
julsbagell
Member
pay your bill you wont ever hear anything last year we had 3 1200.00 bills in a row never heard anything.lots of people have high electric bills.electric tools and appliances take up tons of watts jaquzzis and pools also.
...I run a 3kw flower room 1 kw veg room and a big dehumidifier and my monthly bill touches on 3000 kwHours....
