What is your electrical usage per month at your home? When do the cops come?lol

farlack

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Quote from: flipper on June 18, 2013, 12:02:54 AM

Quote from: infested999 on June 17, 2013, 11:40:07 AM

Quote from: FlappySocks on June 17, 2013, 10:42:50 AM

Maybe I am paranoid:

The electric company no longer estimate my bills, which they used to do every other quarter. They send a man round, in a car, to my house, and only to my house, regardless.
I get an e-mail once a quarter, asking for a meter reading. It doesn't matter if I give them one or not, someone still comes round to read the meter. I ignore the requests now.
A while back, a helicopter kept circling my area, night after night.
Cops on push bikes started cycling by, every day. Never seen that before.
One time I looked out the window, and cops on foot were staring up at my roof, then walked off. Huh

Well there isn't much you can do without arousing more attention. If you have absolutely nothing to hide and you want to end the suspicion you can go to your police station and set things straight.

They also check your water usage. Indoor farmers use a lot of water. High electricity + high water = a warrant.

Bullshit, I don't think plants use that much water. My water company said 3 people should be using around 5-6000 gallons a month.

Paladin69

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Quote from: mitty on June 19, 2013, 06:31:16 AM

Quote from: Paladin69 on June 19, 2013, 12:32:38 AM

Is this guy full of it?
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/anyone-else-get-busted-by-the-cops-for-suspicious-energy-consumption-23639

Noticed he has the scammer tag...

I think it's plausible; different places have different laws.
I'm still somewhat worried about attracting unwanted attention but figure the best defense is simply not having any type of illegal operation set up.

Not a great answer since obviously no one wants the cops breaking in at 3am looking for an indoor grow op only to find a bunch of mining hardware, but I don't know what else to do when the electric company claims your records are actually private.

I decided to call my electric company this morning. They laughed at me for being paranoid when I asked if there was a limit on electrical usage and why I'm asking...they said no. Their auto-pay for residential accounts cuts off at $5K per month. I won't come anywhere close to that. I'm predicting a $1200-$1500 bill @ around 9 cents per kWh.

I told them I was going be doing a personal project with many computer servers and I asked her to note that on my account. I joked about the same thing...I don't want to be confused for a grow op and used the proverbial "don't want the DEA busting down my door at 3am"...lady thought that was funny. If I start seeing coppers checking me out I'll just go to the police station personally and tell them the same thing.

mitty

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Quote from: Paladin69 on June 19, 2013, 12:32:38 AM

Is this guy full of it?
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/anyone-else-get-busted-by-the-cops-for-suspicious-energy-consumption-23639

Noticed he has the scammer tag...

I think it's plausible; different places have different laws.
I'm still somewhat worried about attracting unwanted attention but figure the best defense is simply not having any type of illegal operation set up.

Not a great answer since obviously no one wants the cops breaking in at 3am looking for an indoor grow op only to find a bunch of mining hardware, but I don't know what else to do when the electric company claims your records are actually private.

Paladin69

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Is this guy full of it?
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/anyone-else-get-busted-by-the-cops-for-suspicious-energy-consumption-23639

Noticed he has the scammer tag...

mitty

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My local utility company periodically sends out a "energy usage report" where they graph your month-to-month usage and compare you to 100 of your neighbors. I ranked 100/100 (100 means you used the most) due to my mining so I also started wondering at what point they'd send over the cops.

I emailed their customer support asking if high energy usage would cause law enforcement suspicion and this was their response:

Quote

Thank you for your notification. This information has been indicated on your account. Your electrical usage has indeed increased.

Your electric meter is a device to measure the usage within the home. We have no way to determine what is consuming the usage.

Additionally, our records are confidential and only the account holder, or someone authorized by the account holder, can obtain information on the account without a subpoena.

BTW I have National Grid.

@FlappySocks: I used to live in an area where the electric utility would read the meters of all the houses/apartments with electric heat every month and read the others every quarter (or maybe less). It's possible that your utility simply reads the meters of everyone who uses over a certain amount of electricity every month because those customers are the ones bringing in the most money and they'd like that money sooner rather than later. Also to save you from sticker shock of incorrect estimation. (They had my apartment down as having gas heat and were billing us ~$60-70 every month until we got a $500+ bill about 6 months after we moved in and once they decided to actually read the meter.)

ProfMac

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Quote from: FlappySocks on June 17, 2013, 10:42:50 AM

Maybe I am paranoid:

The electric company no longer estimate my bills, which they used to do every other quarter. They send a man round, in a car, to my house, and only to my house, regardless.
I get an e-mail once a quarter, asking for a meter reading. It doesn't matter if I give them one or not, someone still comes round to read the meter. I ignore the requests now.
A while back, a helicopter kept circling my area, night after night.
Cops on push bikes started cycling by, every day. Never seen that before.
One time I looked out the window, and cops on foot were staring up at my roof, then walked off. Huh

I'm going to invite them to show & tell. I like that better than a 3AM surprise.

Paladin69

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Quote from: cp1 on June 18, 2013, 01:36:07 PM

Quote from: Paladin69 on June 18, 2013, 01:29:31 PM

And yeah, my total usage for the month so far is 3500kw, sorry...yeah drop the h.

Total energy usage should be in kWh. kW is your instantaneous power usage.

Had to look at the bill again...ok, yes, kWh.

cp1

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Stop using branwallets

Quote from: Paladin69 on June 18, 2013, 01:29:31 PM

And yeah, my total usage for the month so far is 3500kw, sorry...yeah drop the h.

Total energy usage should be in kWh. kW is your instantaneous power usage.

Paladin69

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And yeah, my total usage for the month so far is 3500kw, sorry...yeah drop the h.

cp1

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Stop using branwallets

A watt is a unit of power, that is energy use per second. So if you multiply watts * time you get total energy use.

My computer uses 1000W of power. That is 1000J / sec, which tells us the rate of use of energy. Over an hour it will use a total of 1000W * 1 hr of energy, that is 1000Wh or 1 kWh. If you run your 1000W computer for a month it will use 1000W * # of hours in a month. Since there are about 720 hours in a month that computer will use 720kWh total energy.

An average home uses 500 - 600 kWH of energy in a month, an energy efficient home uses about half of that.

Paladin69

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Quote from: smracer on June 18, 2013, 01:07:44 PM

I have 10KW running in my garage for over 18 months. I called the power company and told them I was running computer servers and not growing marijuana. They looked at my account and said since my power was steady and not turning on and off like big lights were coming on and off that they did not suspect me of being a grower. They look for power spikes with growers.

I need to connect to a pool then that isn't retarded and vulnerable to ddos. **bitminter ahem**

Thanks guys for the personal stories and usage figures. Keep them coming. I've enjoyed reading this thread. I feel a lot less concerned now. Now I just need BFL to stop mining with my shit and send it.

smracer

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I have 10KW running in my garage for over 18 months. I called the power company and told them I was running computer servers and not growing marijuana. They looked at my account and said since my power was steady and not turning on and off like big lights were coming on and off that they did not suspect me of being a grower. They look for power spikes with growers.

mmitech

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things you own end up owning you

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: tosku on June 18, 2013, 05:25:09 AM

7000 kWh per month equals ~10kW.

That's not true.

7000 Kwh in 1 month
7000 Kwh in 732 hours
9.56 Kw
956 W not 10kW

Actually he is right, 7000 KWh a month, this means 24 hour x 31 day = 744 hours a month, so 7000/744 ~ 9.4 kwh.

my rigs use around 2.3 - 2.7 KWh and I use around 2300 -2400 KWh a month, so his state is just about right

I've got confused when I've just saw the numbers they were posting , I've thought they were talking about the hourly average of there rigs, but they are posting the average that they use the hole month

tosku

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...

zvs

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https://web.archive.org/web/*/nogleg.com

I had two patrol cars pull up to my house in either January or February.. I don't think it had anything to do with my electricity bill, though (which has ranged from around 3800kwh-4500kwh). Probably just some jackass neighbor reporting me for 'suspicious activity' (you know, having a window open and an industrial fan blasting into the house when it's 30o outside).

The reason for them being on my property was that they detected a 'chemical smell' pervading the roadside near my house

mmitech

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things you own end up owning you

Ah OK, they were posting the sum of K.watts they've used the hole month, I've thought that was the hourly average use, I just went full retard. Sorry

tosku

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7000 kWh per month equals ~10kW.

mmitech

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things you own end up owning you

Quote from: tosku on June 18, 2013, 04:22:48 AM

Quote from: mmitech on June 18, 2013, 03:22:37 AM

I see people reporting 3500 KW/h and others 7000 KH/h, this is just impossible, I work in production and the biggest machine doesn't use that much power and believe me it is so huge and complicated.

I think most people wanted to say 3.5KW/h or 3500W/h not 3500KW/h = 3.5 mega watt an hour

1 kWh = 1000 W for one hour = 3 600 000 joule. It's a unit of energy, and it's also how an electric power bill is quantified.

You are the one who introduced "KW/h", which is just confusing.

yes you are right i should write 3500KWh, but how do you translate 7000KW an hour ? this has to be a farm with at least 23000 x ATI 7970, otherwise what I've wrote was just right, I will just fix that KW/h Wink

tosku

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Quote from: mmitech on June 18, 2013, 03:22:37 AM

I see people reporting 3500 KW/h and others 7000 KH/h, this is just impossible, I work in production and the biggest machine doesn't use that much power and believe me it is so huge and complicated.

I think most people wanted to say 3.5KW/h or 3500W/h not 3500KW/h = 3.5 mega watt an hour

1 kWh = 1000 W for one hour = 3 600 000 joule. It's a unit of energy, and it's also how an electric power bill is quantified.

You are the one who introduced "KW/h", which is just confusing.

erono

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@ 5200kWh total per month.

infested999

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Quote from: mmitech on June 18, 2013, 03:22:37 AM

I see people reporting 3500 KW/h and others 7000 KH/h, this is just impossible, I work in production and the biggest machine doesn't use that much power and believe me it is so huge and complicated.

I think most people wanted to say 3.5KW/h or 3500W/h not 3500KW/h = 3.5 mega watt an hour

Yes definetly. These people don't have 3500 mining rigs.

mmitech

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things you own end up owning you

I see people reporting 3500 KWh and others 7000 KHh, this is just impossible, I work in production and the biggest machine doesn't use that much power and believe me it is so huge and complicated.

I think most people wanted to say 3.5KWh or 3500W not 3500 KWh = 3.5 mega watt an hour

flipper

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Quote from: infested999 on June 17, 2013, 11:40:07 AM

Quote from: FlappySocks on June 17, 2013, 10:42:50 AM

Maybe I am paranoid:

The electric company no longer estimate my bills, which they used to do every other quarter. They send a man round, in a car, to my house, and only to my house, regardless.
I get an e-mail once a quarter, asking for a meter reading. It doesn't matter if I give them one or not, someone still comes round to read the meter. I ignore the requests now.
A while back, a helicopter kept circling my area, night after night.
Cops on push bikes started cycling by, every day. Never seen that before.
One time I looked out the window, and cops on foot were staring up at my roof, then walked off. Huh

Well there isn't much you can do without arousing more attention. If you have absolutely nothing to hide and you want to end the suspicion you can go to your police station and set things straight.

They also check your water usage. Indoor farmers use a lot of water. High electricity + high water = a warrant.

ssateneth

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My electric bill is in the area of 7000 kilowatt hours. It's a relatively expensive bill, and I even have a large commercial grade window exhaust fan in the basement to keep venting out hot air, and I'm not worried about da fedz.

tosku

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Quote from: Paladin69 on June 16, 2013, 11:05:07 AM

I'm curious what other people are doing? I'm running about 3500kWh total per month for everything in the house. Mind you it is the hot summer months right now also.

3500kWh sounds like a lot, even for a house. But then we rarely have AC units in Sweden - our power usage is higher in the winter. What kind of mining rigs are you running?

I don't live in a house, only a flat. The power bill is around 600 kWh/month, half of which is for mining.

infested999

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Quote from: FlappySocks on June 17, 2013, 10:42:50 AM

Maybe I am paranoid:

The electric company no longer estimate my bills, which they used to do every other quarter. They send a man round, in a car, to my house, and only to my house, regardless.
I get an e-mail once a quarter, asking for a meter reading. It doesn't matter if I give them one or not, someone still comes round to read the meter. I ignore the requests now.
A while back, a helicopter kept circling my area, night after night.
Cops on push bikes started cycling by, every day. Never seen that before.
One time I looked out the window, and cops on foot were staring up at my roof, then walked off. Huh

Well there isn't much you can do without arousing more attention. If you have absolutely nothing to hide and you want to end the suspicion you can go to your police station and set things straight.

FlappySocks

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Oh yeah, and I once tried to change my electricity supplier to get a better rate. It was all about to go through, and then the new supplier rejected it. I called them up, and they made excuses about me having the wrong type of meter or something. I was on a special list of meter serial numbers. WTF?

FlappySocks

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Maybe I am paranoid:

The electric company no longer estimate my bills, which they used to do every other quarter. They send a man round, in a car, to my house, and only to my house, regardless.
I get an e-mail once a quarter, asking for a meter reading. It doesn't matter if I give them one or not, someone still comes round to read the meter. I ignore the requests now.
A while back, a helicopter kept circling my area, night after night.
Cops on push bikes started cycling by, every day. Never seen that before.
One time I looked out the window, and cops on foot were staring up at my roof, then walked off. Huh

infested999

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Quote from: spiral_mind on June 16, 2013, 02:43:33 PM

Quote from: infested999 on June 16, 2013, 12:49:12 PM

Quote from: Marduk on June 16, 2013, 12:48:08 PM

I have heard of police in the US using high electricity usage/high IR signatures to get a warrant for search. However unless they had another reason to look in your direction in the first place, that probably wouldn't happen. Also, unless you have a marijuana farm next to your mining farm, nothing would be confiscated. Cheesy

It happened to someone on the forums right here. They had a helicopter with thermal cameras so see if all the heat is located in one room and then got the search warrant.

The Supreme Court ruled that using an infrared camera on people's homes is illegal.

I don't think high electricity usage is a sufficient condition for them to bust your door down by itself.

http://bitcoinminer.com/post/5762837023/cyber-bitcoin-mining-grow-ops

spiral_mind

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Quote from: infested999 on June 16, 2013, 12:49:12 PM

Quote from: Marduk on June 16, 2013, 12:48:08 PM

I have heard of police in the US using high electricity usage/high IR signatures to get a warrant for search. However unless they had another reason to look in your direction in the first place, that probably wouldn't happen. Also, unless you have a marijuana farm next to your mining farm, nothing would be confiscated. Cheesy

It happened to someone on the forums right here. They had a helicopter with thermal cameras so see if all the heat is located in one room and then got the search warrant.

The Supreme Court ruled that using an infrared camera on people's homes is illegal.

I don't think high electricity usage is a sufficient condition for them to bust your door down by itself.

Paladin69

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Quote from: Marduk on June 16, 2013, 12:48:08 PM

However unless they had another reason to look in your direction in the first place, that probably wouldn't happen.

These smart meters they are attaching to everyone's houses I think gives the fuzz all they need.

Quote from: infested999 on June 16, 2013, 12:49:12 PM

It happened to someone on the forums right here. They had a helicopter with thermal cameras so see if all the heat is located in one room and then got the search warrant.

Did they confiscate his miners? Did they just come in, check it out, then leave? What are the details?

infested999

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Quote from: Marduk on June 16, 2013, 12:48:08 PM

I have heard of police in the US using high electricity usage/high IR signatures to get a warrant for search. However unless they had another reason to look in your direction in the first place, that probably wouldn't happen. Also, unless you have a marijuana farm next to your mining farm, nothing would be confiscated. Cheesy

It happened to someone on the forums right here. They had a helicopter with thermal cameras so see if all the heat is located in one room and then got the search warrant.

Marduk

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I have heard of police in the US using high electricity usage/high IR signatures to get a warrant for search. However unless they had another reason to look in your direction in the first place, that probably wouldn't happen. Also, unless you have a marijuana farm next to your mining farm, nothing would be confiscated. Cheesy

Paladin69

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I'm curious what other people are doing? I'm running about 3500kWh total per month for everything in the house. Mind you it is the hot summer months right now also.

Is using too much electricity enough to warrant "probable cause" for a search? Will they seize equipment? Cops freak me out. They can be such random jerks.

Topic: What is your electrical usage per month at your home? When do the cops come?lol (Read 4735 times)