How do they detect indoor growers

I was wondering how they detect indoor growers. My friend thinks they have some speical radar on planes that picks up a gas or heat that the plant puts off. I say they use thermal imaging to look at houses and try and find the heat from lamps. Who is right, or are we both wrong.

he is wrong you r right

They might use the heat imaging technology IF they suspect you/are onto you.
I'm guessing most folks get nailed by smell, or accidental fire. Marijuana radar? Not familiar w/that.

u can also b caught by smell, 2 much electricty used might cause investigation, word of mouth...(never tell anyone u grow).... ex gf might want revenge.. if the law do come to your door step say that u do NOT concent to a search... politely as possible..

Infrared imagers cannot see inside your house. Don't believe what anyone else here might say about them being able to. Helicopters use FLIR. FLIR stands for Forward Looking Infra Red. Infrared sensors work by creating an image based on returned thermal signatures from whatever the infrared beams are looking at. The only thing they can "see" is what they can hit. Infrared beams cannot penetrate walls, clothing, a piece of notebook paper for that matter. HOWEVER, if you're running 10x 1kw's, the heat from them has to be going somewhere. whether it's your attic, a vent pipe to the outside, or, god forbid, you let it stay in the grow room, then the heat will cause everything around it to warm up. If a cop chopper with FLIR looks at that house, the heat buildup will cause the walls in that room to be warmer than the rest of the house, which will in turn, show an image on his screen that makes that room look alot brighter than the rest of the house. If the hot air is coming out of a vent pipe or something, it will look like a bright white fountain pouring out. So no, thermal imagers cannot see inside your house, but they can see other tell tale heat signatures from your grow. But if you're only running one or two lights and keeping everthing cool, they wouldn't be able to see it. So your kinda right and wrong. Hope this helps.

The Smell, and the mailman,and the electric guy,and the cops when they end up there because of some petty shit, like your wife can drive right and can't keep a low profile and the neighborhood Ass Hole calls on her...... it's O.K honney it's just a 2 year min. I've come to belive no matter how safe YOU are....it's usually someone else that screws you up, just a bit from my own exp yours may differ...either way play safe.unless your basement is a green house (ha,ha,ha) it wont be the high tech shit that bites you it will be something dumb

NotMine is right. Only bigass growers get caught by heat. Meter readers will rat you out in a heartbeat because "crimestoppers" will give 'em a Benjamin for the tip. Sure, it's just speculation at that point, but now the cops will start watching you. From there, it's only a matter of time before they see something "suspicious" and start snooping closer. You're as good as fucked at that point. Remember, it's the gazelle that stands apart from the herd that gets eaten by the lion. Blending in and not standing out is the best way to go unnoticed in what we do.

caliboy80 said:

u can also b caught by smell, 2 much electricty used might cause investigation, word of mouth...(never tell anyone u grow).... ex gf might want revenge.. if the law do come to your door step say that u do NOT concent to a search... politely as possible..

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You are under no obligation to open the door... all they have to do is get in, ask for a search, and you say no. They are going to say oh well... i smell weed. Then they have reason to search. DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR! Lol

SmokieMcPot said:

I was wondering how they detect indoor growers. My friend thinks they have some speical radar on planes that picks up a gas or heat that the plant puts off. I say they use thermal imaging to look at houses and try and find the heat from lamps. Who is right, or are we both wrong.

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First to get information first by tracking purchases and some are not so covert and purchase with credit or debit cards. Then they have snitches in place to track your trips. They have handheld devices that track heat signatures of houses. Eventhough they cant but they do anyway is they request bills from the electric company. Its a long process for surveillance and it does not take days for a bust occurs not unless there is no doubt that poundage is being peddled out of a household with testimonies from snitches.

The owners of my local grow shop chain give thousands of dollars worth of hydro equipment to local school science labs. They are also generous benefactors to all of the local police organizations. I hope that keeps snooping to a minimum.

SmokieMcPot said:

I was wondering how they detect indoor growers. My friend thinks they have some speical radar on planes that picks up a gas or heat that the plant puts off. I say they use thermal imaging to look at houses and try and find the heat from lamps. Who is right, or are we both wrong.

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NotMine said:

The Smell, and the mailman,and the electric guy,and the cops when they end up there because of some petty shit, like your wife can drive right and can't keep a low profile and the neighborhood Ass Hole calls on her...... it's O.K honney it's just a 2 year min. I've come to belive no matter how safe YOU are....it's usually someone else that screws you up, just a bit from my own exp yours may differ...either way play safe.unless your basement is a green house (ha,ha,ha) it wont be the high tech shit that bites you it will be something dumb

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squishdoggydog said:

NotMine is right. Only bigass growers get caught by heat. Meter readers will rat you out in a heartbeat because "crimestoppers" will give 'em a Benjamin for the tip. Sure, it's just speculation at that point, but now the cops will start watching you. From there, it's only a matter of time before they see something "suspicious" and start snooping closer. You're as good as fucked at that point. Remember, it's the gazelle that stands apart from the herd that gets eaten by the lion. Blending in and not standing out is the best way to go unnoticed in what we do.

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SHIT!!! I was all prepared for a great post, but these guys said it all. Nothing more to add.

Heat sensing helicopters do not "see" the lights. They see heat being released from the grow house. Essentially if say there is a vent into the grow room the heat coming from the vent would be a solid 10-20 degrees higher than what is coming from a vent to another non-grow room. That is what sends up red flags. It means something in said room is emitting a large amount of heat and not a lot of things indoors do that. The point is that unless you have a server rack in a room or something similar its a good bet its a grow room. At that point all they need is a "credible witness" who claims they saw or smelled pot coming from the house. A good idea would be to have a window ac unit into the grow room. That would emit its own heat source to throw off detection as well as cool the grow room so that excess heat is not being emitted from it. You can find all this information online if you have more questions. The common misconception is that police have a magic spy camera that can see through your walls like X-ray vision. They do not, and if they did that would be a violation of your rights. And another thing, people often claim that they can't use FLIR on your house unless they have a warrant. This is not true. It was ruled in the supreme court that excess heat coming from a residence is public property much in the same way that what you throw away in the garbage becomes public property. It allows police to both use FLIR looking for high heat from your residence and go through your trash looking for clippings.

I do know that in winter, they usually go by the snow bieng melted off your roof (if in an elevated grow room), so if thats the case, try to keep it in the basement.

Otherwise, yeah meter readers will get ya...if not them, then the power company will usually see a spike in the energy consumption, and request to have a look-see to see if you have any "energy leaks", but we all know they just look for a grow room, and if found, call the police...

They used to use thermal imaging, but equipping helicopters with cameras good enough to discern the heat from a heated house and a basement grow room is EXTREMELY expensive, let alone pilots, fuel, etc.
They are more into looking for cocaine factories, exctasy and stuff like that

If they are in a helicopter, and looking for heat signatures they will be obviously looking at the roof. In most cases for homes that have electric fans in the attic to push the heat out come on around 120-140 degrees, during the summer, my fan hardly cuts off. What if the grow area does not exceed the temp of what the roof and attic does, then what is there to worry about?

The most reliable method of detection is done the old fashioned way, through informants.

The main reason not to tell anyone you have a grow. An informant will give you up in a heartbeat if they hear of your grow.

You dont need to worry, unless you have 10,000+ plants.

I spent 10 years in the US armed forces. One method they used on dopers was the "threat" of the urinalysis. Threat being the key word here. A lot of these legends you hear are to scare you into not taking the chance. Governments are made up of people. And from my 46 years on this earth I have come to the realization that people fucked up. So that means governments are fucked up. How many people on this site actually know someone who was busted with this helicopter shit? Most of what I hear is either large OUTDOOR grows being detected, Some idiot steals electricity, and my all time favorite, The tattle tail!

If you have a small grow that was planned right, and you keep your fucking mouth shut, I do not see a problem. But if you plan on being the next big primo herb dealer and you have 6000 watts of lights and your house hums from the outside. You better watch your ass.

Last word. Trust a wife, not a girlfriend.

jimdandy said:

Last word. Trust a wife, not a girlfriend.

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Amen, brother.

There was an interesting article a few weeks back in the paper here in North Carolina. The idiot cops were discussing how they find pot outdoors with helicopters. They are basically trained to eyeball new plantings from about 50 feet up. they spilled the beans on how they find it and what they are looking for. here is the article

newsobserver.com | Helicopters help root out pot growers

Johnnyorganic said:

The most reliable method of detection is done the old fashioned way, through informants.

The main reason not to tell anyone you have a grow. An informant will give you up in a heartbeat if they hear of your grow.

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CORRECT. Government law enforcement would not solve 99% of their cases if not for someone ratting. The other 1% is by luck or being on the scene when the shit happens. Prime example. UNIBOMBER.
Have a friend who is a cop. Have been told many times, when they roll up to a shooting, they look for people to rat. If no one rats, their chances go way way down in finding who did it. If the report comes back that the bullet was a 22, they just drop it. Not drop it 100% but they know the chances of getting the person are just impossible, unless someone rats.
Heres another example. A few weeks back on the news, there was a domestic problem in a city. Cops went to the call. The house next door was loaded with grow rooms. Four full floors in fact. There were two guys standing outside the home. When the cops came to work the domestic, these guys thought they were there for them. They ran into the home, the cops followed and bam, grow busted. The cops stated on the news. "No one would ever know about this place as it was fully vented and you could not smell anything. If not for the guys running into the home we woudl never have found the place." And that's in a large city. Cops don't have the time to fly choppers over the city and look at every place they see a heat sig from. They would be checking just about every other dam house for one reason or another. You think a black roof sitting in a summer sun won't give off more heat then your grow room? Roofs that melt snow do not mean you have a grow room. It can mean you have bad insulation in your attic.

jimdandy said:

Last word. Trust a wife, not a girlfriend.

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Gotta take in account your wife too... Some ppl dont marry the sane ones. If you fight with your old lady and she throws past shit up, id be weary.... Cops get called and if you can keep them out of the house you still have to worry bout her bein mad and saying HE GROWS WEED!!