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How expensive is indoor florescent lighting?

  • Thread starter Wolfn
  • Start date

Wolfn

Agent of Chaos
Howdy. I'm about to get into indoor growing and I would like to know how expensive it would be in regards to monthly usage.

I ordered this light fixture with a 125watt bulb:
http://homeharvest.com/hydrofarmcompactfluorescents.htm


My question is: with a 18-hour photoperiod a day, how expensive would this add to the monthly electric bill?
 
i have 8 25 wat bulbs and 3 20 wat tubes and it gave me 45$ more in my bill so just that one wouldnt be more than that.
 
shouldnt be more than about 5 bucks a month i'd assume, but it depends on your cost per kilowatt hour. I live in Canada btw and i think the hydro is a lot cheaper here. It might be different down south. I have 8 t5 54 tubes and 4 t8 32 watt tubes ( total of 560 watts) and I saw maybe a 10 dollar difference in my electric bill. Not too sure though cause i wasnt paying much attention lol, but it wasnt anything substantial. For reference, my computer has a 700 watt power supply so running my computer all day is more costly than running my lights.

Also if you think about it, if you use incandescent lighting in your home, you probably use 60 and 100 watt bulbs which consume more power than fluorescent tubes.
 
If you're concerned with lighting costs use T5 imo. They are very efficient for such a low wattage. Walmart has linkable 2ft T5s for $10. You can link up to five together to work off of one plug.
 
The T5s at walmart aren't the same as the High Output T5s that I get for my vivarium shelves, HO T5s put out double the light of a standard fluorescent strip light. I get mine here:
http://www.htgsupply.com/Category-Fluorescent-Grow-Lights.asp

The twin tube 4 ft fixture is temporarily out of stock but it's $49.99 and includes the two bulbs shipping to me is $22 for one or two fixtures not sure how much it would be to you.

Oh, just noticed you already got the giant Hydrofarm CFL, those are Ok ( I have two of those in boxes unused in my storage bin), they are pretty warm so be sure they're the warm plants you've got 'em over.
 
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Are you sure that's the two-tube 4' model you're talking about? Looks like $99.95 to me.
~Joe
 
The HOs really aren't that much more efficient especially for the cost. I have a 2 ft 1 bulb T5 thats 24w. It cost $20. I could buy 2 2ft fixtures from walmart and have 26w of lighting. HO T5 are probably the best but you still wont go wrong with a regular T5:).
 
Well you must consider that the few extra watts is giving you double the lumens (light output), so one of these bulbs equals two of yours and T5 HO bulbs don't need replacing for about 4 years as opposed to every 6 months or so with NO bulbs if you want maximum lumen output.

I was resistant to T5 HO too I liked my old T12s but once I tried them... :)
 
  • #10
Howdy. I'm about to get into indoor growing and I would like to know how expensive it would be in regards to monthly usage.

I ordered this light fixture with a 125watt bulb:
http://homeharvest.com/hydrofarmcompactfluorescents.htm


My question is: with a 18-hour photoperiod a day, how expensive would this add to the monthly electric bill?

Every time you consider this question, you need to know a little bit about your current electricity usage to get an accurate answer. Electricity prices are not linear, rather, they are tiered. So, for instance (using the cost of electricity in my area):

At the lowest tier of $.12 per kilowatt-hour, using 125 watts for 18 hours per day for a 30 day billing period would look like this:

($.12/kWh)*(1kW/1000W)*(125W)*(18h)*(30days)(1month/30day) = $8.10 per month

At the highest tier at $.40 per killowatt-hour with the same usage:

($.40/kWh)*(1kW/1000W)*(125W)*(18h)*(30d)(1mo/30d) = $27.00 per month

But, do note, that even if you DO break in to the highest tier, it wouldn't be until some point later on in the month. So that $27 figure isn't really attainable and was, rather, meant to illustrate the type of effect that tiers can have. So be wary about giving your parents a low estimate.
 
  • #11
Wolfn, I came up with $4.75 per month at my electricity rate. You'll need to know your cost per kwh to figure it out. Shouldn't be bad.
 
  • #12
For me running a 125 watt bulb for 18 hours would be $9.07.

125 X 18 = 2250 W

2.25 KW X 31 days = 69.75 KW

69.75 KW X $0.13 per K = $9.07 per month


My setup runs about $1.25 a day when I have the lights on for 16 hours.

Right now the lights are on about 9 hours a day. I believe in the sunrise - sunset method.
 
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  • #13
For me running a 125 watt bulb for 18 hours would be $9.07.

125 X 18 = 2250 W

2.25 KW X 31 days = 69.75 KW

69.75 KW X $0.13 per K = $9.07 per month


My setup runs about $1.25 a day when I have the lights on for 16 hours.

Right now the lights are on about 9 hours a day. I believe in the sunrise - sunset method.

Nice calculation dear. Here i got some doubt about the charge of the per unit will differe because of the location and the electricity company 's rate per unit. so need to calculated myself an it is around $ 25 per month only.
 
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