i have a 12000 btu portable that pulls around 800 watts when cooling and i am running central ac too, im thinking 4 lights always running 12/12 because i do my vegging and cloning elsewhere. And i know i can calulate this by multiplying the price of a kW by the number of kW im using by the number of hours its in use everyday by the number of days in the month which comes out to around 250 a month, so from what ive heard here i think ill be okay. thanks alot guys
Firstly, I'm in a pretty similar-sized setup to you (housewise, three bedrooms) and I'm a little sketched about 2400 watts flowering, 650 watts vegging and the assorted goodies it takes to keep my room in check (chillers, AC, fans, etc.).
FYI, your electric bill is gonna be fucking bonkers during the summer.
Trying to keep all that shit cool (reservoirs, rooms, etc.) in 100F heat is gonna be hell - you might want to consider just taking the summer off from growing (it's the way I'm leaning, because 2400 watts of AC running 24/7 to cool 2400 watts of lights just doesn't make much sense to me - prolly just do some pollen chucking under a 400HPS in the summer).
Also, those kWh calculations never seem to come out right for me..........I do all the math, think of every little thing that's running in my rooms, and somehow it's always 25% more than I'd calculated.
Just an FYI - another thing that no one has mentioned is tiered pricing - I know that it gets exponentially more expensive for me (and a lot of the Cali guys/girls as well) when I go above a certain baseline, and each tier gets to be progressively more and more of an ass fucking.
Long story short, your electric bill is gonna be at least 25% higher than you thought, tiers are like wiffle ball bats in your anus, and I'd personally feel comfortable with 2-3 lights at your place.
This is all assuming you're in a non-med state, of course..........
