Well for folk like me with big ass home asics (scrypt or sha-256) it kinda depends on electricity price..how low can you go.
I'm in Midwest USA..under Xcel Energy ( a multi-state electric utility) Look at the back of your Xcel bill if you have one (ask your own other util about this as well..they are NOT advertised) and you will see a 'deep' discount if your electric is used as your primary mode of heating home
the thread below (story) shows how I fell into this with a customer rep on another manner and the Xcel customer rep toggled such as legit
even thou...I told her ..main reason for my 225 month elec increase from the previous year was due to 'server equip' in the basement
I offered to be around for an inspection (figure wtf they would go ..heh....nice try buddy and laugh) it never came to that just went thru
here is the link to the thread....post your results there ..with whoever your electric utility is...but it is the honest truth with my 2500 watts of miners in a 3 bedroom house w/o furnace use it is 68F and 62F 2nd floor and 64 upstairs.....so ..as I went thru this with the rep.....the MAJORITY of my heat is coming from electric (yeah I know going thru the titan scrypt miners first..but hey ....if that is the way the rep wanted to go with it I was not gonna argue)
anyway check it out was like 4.5c kwh or so savings or in my case 115 bucks a month ...add to the fact my monthly 'budget plan' gas heat bill went down 45 bucks a month..that is a savings of 160 bucks a month for 5 months (winter think it is 5 months almost) and the other 7 months 45 bucks savings
my point on posting to your thread here is I VERY WELL COULD HOME MINE WITH CURRENT OR USED EQUIP (at least scrypt maybe) due to the 'halving' of btc in 2016 and increase in price..in conjunction with the above program thru my electric utility!
I mean it went from 13.7c kwh to 9.27c kwh.....
so anyway ....some of us with equip that has ROI'd already...(big ass scrypt etc) ....others with cheap electric like 5c kwh or below ..like in Oregon State....maybe a deal on some 'used equip (prob scrypt the way btc diff looks to go up) ....next fall...and viola ...
According to my figures if BTC was to hit say 500 usd..and LTC was to keep say around its historical 0.01 ltc to btc ratio ($5 say) ....I would be like at
120 bucks over electric ...with the above util trick ..next winter ...so what the hell
w/o the above decrease from 13.7c kwh to 9.27c kwh in the winter under a 'next year i plan to mine plan' I'd be like 60-80 bucks under ..what I spent on electric ...so would be a definate no go...and that was figuring that 'difficulty' for LTC doubled
anyway something to keep in mind .here is the link for those trying to still home mine ..my electric decrease story/whatever
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.13344012worse that can happen is you keep your old electric rate in the winter..the hard part for me is say around april/may 2016 my price for electric goes back up
from 9.27c kwh to 13.7c kwh...that is gonna really really hurt...but again with the btc halving ..perhaps price of btc/ltc will come back big time...and a person could still be mining (at least in the winter) in the 2016-2017 winter season...
but likely only if i can stay in the above program mentioned in the link above I tripped over (again if you are Xcel Elec Utility customer it is listed on the back of the bill ....rate for if electric is your main source of heating......you just tell the rep such...if you have a well insulated house you probably are golden ..I have a large 3 bedroom worked for me
when the miners go away...i will simply tell them ..that it is now gas again (with a call) ..my only question is CAN I keep something going that makes sense (more crypto then elec spent) by next winter say
anyway ...was a big deal for me......check it out with your local electric utility and post your results in the above thread
so anyway home mining may be dead...but maybe with a bit of 'scampering' you can postpone it till 2017 ...er maybe?