Utilities Incuded?!?

Hi guys, I'm new here so forgive me if I've posted this in the wrong section or violated some rule. Anyway, I've been thinking about starting my own indoor grow but I have a question that I'm not sure has been asked before. I live in an apartment where electricity included. Now at first this seems ideal to not have to pay for all that electricity I'm going to use. However, I realized that my landlords probably know what the average use and bill is for this apartment and if the bill and usage all of a sudden went up it would throw up some red flags. They could then become suspicious and could possibly cause me a few problems.

Does anyone else live in a place where you don't pay for electricity or the landlord or someone else pays for it and you are still growing? If so, how do you avoid the suspicion. If you don't, do you guys think it is possible or would you attempt this anyway or is it too risky?

I dunno but i would have to say it depends on the buildings setup. and your setup. is the building on one meter? or does it calculate each suite? is it a large building where a 30-50$ increase may be easier to hide. how much power are you planning on using? If you are planning a small grow try to conserve your usage elsewhere. your efficient use of power elsewhere can camoflage some of the increase made by your lights? hope this helps you make your choice and good luck to you

i don't think anyone can know for sure how your landlord monitors usage, but i'm with kronix on trying to conserve elsewhere.

the problem with that is that i would assume that if your electricity is included, your landlord would have already installed high-efficiency appliances and cfl bulbs in all the sockets, which would make further conservation more challenging.

if the apartment is stocked with ordinary incandescent bulbs, you can probably slash a couple hundred watts just by replacing them with the lowest watt cfls you are comfortable with. i slashed almost 300 watts myself in my apartment. there are ceiling fans in every room with 3 bulbs apiece and i removed most of them and replaced some of them with cfls, then i did the same with table lamps. if you have a tube tv replace it with an led flatscreen if you can afford it.

setting appliances to the economy setting, making sure nothing is on standby, avoiding energy hogging appliances like space heaters and a/c, being a nazi with turning off lights are good ways to curb everyday usage.

if your utility company observes "peak and off peak" usage you will want to run the majority of your grow during the overnight hours since off-peak use is billed at a lower rate.

I wouldn't go over a 1k watt setup in your situation. If it were me I'd shoot more in the 4-600 range.