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How much does your light setup cost per month?

So I just got my power bill after getting my lights set up again for the first time since the apartment.

In the apartment, my light bills, with my lights being on from when I woke up till when I went to bed (about 12-16 hours) was about $50 a month.

My light bill at the house (4 bedroom, basement, gas heat, electric water heater) the first month here was $50.

I got the light bill for December today, it was $195. The major change in the house? I set up my lights.

My lights are 4 standard 4' fluorescent lights, on a 4x mount -- standard shop light setup. I did purchase a timer this time, and have been running them for exactly 16 hrs a day -- although I'm dropping it down to 12 hours a day right now. They're in a basement room with no natural light, surrounded on 4 sides by tin-foil -- standard rack setup, really, sans the rack. Plants are loving it, but my wallet sure ain't.

I plan on getting a Kill-a-watt tomorrow to try and find out if the lights really are using that much power, and if not, what in the house is, but I thought I'd ask -- what's an average power bill with grow lights run? I don't want to give up my plants, but with this kind of light bill, I might have to.


EDIT: This thread is really old, so won't bump it, but the solution was -- the power company messed up. They misread the meter once, so we had an extra 1000KHW appear on the next bill. So... yeah.

In my apartment, with a computer running nonstop and the lights running 16 hours a day, my light bills are around $30-40 a month.
 
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Crazy! Our Bill is generally $60 a month (in winter) for our condo to have my 660 Watts of T5 HO lighting along with all the household electronics (PC, TV, fridge stove, etc). In summer with 2 ACs running it jumps to about $125.
 
T12s are what, about 40W per tube? So maybe 160W for the fixture. At 16 hours a day it should be about $5-8 per month depending on your rates. Look at your energy bill for the Kilowatt Hour Cost and plug in the numbers into this calculator:
Energy Usage Calculator

Be aware that there may be surcharges or tiered rates based on stepped amounts of usage.
 
Mine run about 12 hrs a day right now, 2 dual 4' 40watt fluro tube fixtures and 7 23watt cfl's cost me about 30 cents a day to run. 321watts x 12hrs/day at $.082.
 
Got 220 watts of lighting, about 220€ / year
 
I would double check you meter reading listed on the bill, compare it to what the actual reading is currently. Ours is usually off a couple times a year, not in our favor ?!? I run about 8 4' fixtures and don't notice how much they draw on the bill. Not much.
 
i have 3 2' tubes and 8 25 wat spiral compact flor. and its like 35$ more a month give or take
 
If you have 4 fixtures with 2 bulbs in each fixture is 320 watts per hour.
320 watts times 16 hours is 5120 watts per day or 5.12 K watts.

If your rate is $0.100 per k watt, it is 51 cents per day.

30 days will be $15.30 plus taxes and other fees.

Colder weather, Christmas lights ?????
 
As NAN stated, it depends on your part of the country and how much usage you're already using in your home. Here in California, we DO use the Tiered system and if you go above a certain amount, they can charge you in a totally different tier which may cause your bill to sky rocket.
 
  • #10
We are on a tiered system here also. In the winter, my lights cost about $12/month. In summer, with the ac bumping us into the next tier, about $18ish a month.

Certainly your lights are not costing you that much extra a month...how much are you paying per kwh?
 
  • #11
Just got my December electric bill. $399.04

I'm happy!
 
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