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a few issues I would like to talk out...

K

karynne

Member
grid power: at what point does one need to address this issue? if you are running 600watts only, no one would notice... but where do you draw the line? 1800 watts on for 12 hours then off for 12 would look rather suspicious if someone is standing outside your house monitoring your power usage. they would see it shoot right up and hold. -in comes the flip flop method.... BUT, with 600$/month power bills in a residential area where other people are 150 tops.... this is where my question comes in. rather than 1800 watts on for 12 then off, running 1200 consistently seems like the better option (and really... using 2400 watts worth if you think about it) where can you draw the line of the max you can run. not the maximum you could possibly get away with, but enough to do what you want and still be explainable. sure you could come up with a story each time you get investigated for having 1000$/month bills, but eventually they will send a plane over your house or something. best bet is to never even blip once on the radar

smell: carbon filters/scrubbers, yeah I have built them and am currently using one. but never have I attempted 5+ lbs from a single location. assuming you dont open your cab on a regular basis, can you really expect 100% of the smell from 5 pounds of flowering buds to disappear?

renters: there's always that chance of the landlord calling you to give you his 24 hour notice of him coming over tomorrow to do... oh... say some general maintenance or fire detector testing, or just random inspections.... I guess the only option here is to tear it down if the guy needs specific access to the grow room... or do you not chance it and pull it all down "just in case"

fire: probably should have been number one, but I don't see people employing sufficient prevention methods. sure they may be costly to setup and seem impractical because "it'll never happen to you" right? well what if it does, you are out of your home (in your name) and it catches fire. police/fire dept show up and find out the source of the fire was your dresser with wires running into it. maybe you will be lucky and it'll burn up most of the incriminating stuff, but you aren't exactly walking in the park here.

people: obviously the golden rule is don't tell anyone, but sometimes it doesn't work out like that. it is a big job and you need partners. so these partners: do you have anything on them? why are you bringing them in in the first place? I know IIII won't tell anyone, but I do have a partner and I am trusting my LIFE with this person. but atleast he is illegal somehow too, if I ONLY tell one person and be careful about my ways, this is the ONLY person in the world who could burn me.

stealth: can you hide your grow in plain sight? I think it would be ideal if (small scale anyways) you could hide your grow right infront of everyone. put it under your tv and have a computer running next to it, no one would think twice unless there's smell or light escaping

I am going to be growing on the grid in town and need to be as safe as possible. I could figure it all out on my own, but what fun is that. I like hearing people's thoughts. sorry if I rambled on my wakenbake
edit,
what about the final switch. do you have a failsafe for when shit hits the fan? a failsafe for if you slip up? what do you do, just jump the border or get jumped by a guy NAMED border in jail? if you get word of something going down, would you burn the whole thing to the ground and fuck off for a while?
 
S

stillsmokin843

Member
hard to say from all the advise i have ever gotten is dont worry about it just pay you bill on time and never steal power. that also depends on where your at. As far as a plan goes they say if your growing big the first thing ya needs to do is get a good lawyer on retainer. hmmm so go as big as ya feel ya can get way with i have also heard that it make a differance if you elec company is independant or not.... peace
 
H

hamstring

Well-known member
Veteran
[smell: carbon filters/scrubbers, yeah I have built them and am currently using one. but never have I attempted 5+ lbs from a single location. assuming you dont open your cab on a regular basis, can you really expect 100% of the smell from 5 pounds of flowering buds to disappear?
Click to expand...

I like to get others opinion but when I had a indoor show a friend swore he could smell it when he walked in but I never heard it from anyone else. Might have been because he new there was a grow.
PEACE
 
E

enojadoperro

Member
For stealth, the best idea I've every tried and have seen is a large lockable standup freezer.
They are secure, light proof and it's a freezer it's supposed to be plugged in and it's going to make noise.
No one is going to think twice about it if they walk by and it's humming along from the exhaust fan noise or why is there a power cord running to it.
I don't mean a working freezer, I'm not sure how well that would work.
Would it create too much humidity, make it too cold, I don't know, I used a broken one and gutted it just using the shell.
 
Lazyman

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
Yeah your power usage and monitoring depend heavily on where you live. PG&E doesn't care a whit. If youre in Canada and on BChydro, they watch you like a hawk, as do many smaller electric companies in the states.

For smell, yes a big enough filter and fan will remove 100% of the odors, but remember filters don't work if the RH is above 50%, nor do ozone generators if you get one. A bucket of Ona gel is good insurance for smell emergencies, and is relatively cheap.

Fire, I currently use a pair of smoke detectors, and have a halon fire extinguisher in my grow room. My next grow will have a security system that calls or texts me when there is any kind of problem (water on floor, temps too high, etc.)

Partners are very tricky, I spend money on things like trimming machines instead of hiring trimmers. Better for security. I am setting up a 16KW op next month that I will basically run myself, but I feel it's the upper limit as to how much one person can handle. My wife helps me out too, but with monthly harvests, transplanting and trimming it will be a full time job for both of us. Watering and everything else is 99% automated, just have to top off nutes every week or so.
 
xOOx

xOOx

Active member
i believe carbon and ozone generators begin to feel the pinch around 75-90% humidity with hardly any odor reduction over 90%.. they still will work up to 90% but at reduced efficiency relative to the humidity (hmm, relative humidity, lol)

the only reason ozone gens have an issue is cause of the electric arc on the ceramic plate(s) can not maintain a strong constant current thru moist air.

exception: UV lamp ozone gens are not effected and will still produce ozone in high humidity

xoox
 
G

Ganja Outlaw

Member
Don't worry about your power bill as long as you're paying it. There are tons of reasons why a person could have excessive or odd power consumption... so the electric company isn't gonna think anything of it.

As many have said to me before... if someone is paying attention to your power bill, that means you've already screwed up in some other area of security.
 
wintermute

wintermute

Member
Big Red Panic Button

Big Red Panic Button

karynne said:
...
what about the final switch. do you have a failsafe for when shit hits the fan? a failsafe for if you slip up? what do you do, just jump the border or get jumped by a guy NAMED border in jail? if you get word of something going down, would you burn the whole thing to the ground and fuck off for a while?
Click to expand...

I have only one fail safe panic button: Power Strip for Computers! In emergency it goes off and all data is encrypted for my eyes only! See Full Disk Encryption threads.

If I ever caught wind - how do you expect that by the way? got a mole inside? - I would be growing lots of tomatoes when they came for a peekaboo! Perhaps inspired by Homer's Tomacco!
For any decent size grow it is all game over if they are coming though - nothing you can do except flee jurisdiction and stay long gone.

Best defense is stay off radar by not being stupid :)

As for fire, safety, I am big fan of grow automation and protections. Maybe more to say about this later. Computer grow automation with right sensors and cut offs and fail safes would be worry free even months unattended. Monitor remotely and tend infrequently. This deserves a thread of its own!
 
K

karynne

Member
good points, I have been reading and haven't come up with anything new yet. would anyone else care to shed some information?
 
C

cannabi

Member
If you pull 1800 watts per day, every day, @ 12 hours per day at the exact same time every day---who knows, maybe that's safe but then again maybe it isn't.

Instead, double your flowering area by setting up two exactly identical flowering rooms.

When one is on the other is off, therefore you'll pull 1800 watts per day, every day, @ 24 hours per day, which is more power, obviously, but it's not on any certain 12 on, 12 off schedule.
 
K

karynne

Member
cannabi said:
If you pull 1800 watts per day, every day, @ 12 hours per day at the exact same time every day---who knows, maybe that's safe but then again maybe it isn't.

Instead, double your flowering area by setting up two exactly identical flowering rooms.

When one is on the other is off, therefore you'll pull 1800 watts per day, every day, @ 24 hours per day, which is more power, obviously, but it's not on any certain 12 on, 12 off schedule.
Click to expand...
that's what i mean when i was talking about the flipflop method
 
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