Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys, so my electric bill finally came in!

I had 5000 megahashes running for the entire month of April 2013.


March 2013 the electric bill was $180, April 2013 the electric bill was $360. Without factoring in heating differences in the weather and stuff like that, this eludes to a hardware mining overhead cost $170


is this good or bad, what are my kilowatt hours, and how would I calculate that?

mainly curious because I have sold off some of that cluster computer already, but plan to buy more hardware factoring in these variables

Your kW/h/$ is very high. Consider getting a new power company if possible. Buy a grid-tie solar power system if you plan on mining at that speed. It'll be worth it over time.

can you elaborate? what are more KW/h/$ and how would I personally calculate that?

I would like to be able to put these numbers and hypothetical numbers into mining calculators

Ask your electric company!

kwh*usage*24*30=cost

(1) You need to measure how much electricity (watts) your miner is using at the wall. Best way is to use a Kill-A-Watt meter. This is your WATTS.
http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU

(2) Figure out how many HOURS your miner is running. This is your HOURS.

(3) Multiply WATTS x HOURS / 1000 = KWh

(4) Find out how much your electric company charges you (per KWh). Multiply by above and you get your cost.

(5) You can use this calculator to help as well:
http://bitclockers.com/miningcalculator

Can't you just use the kill-a-watt to display the KWh used?

Assuming 100% uptime that's not bad.

$170 is 24 cents per hour; at .15 kwh (seems to be about average) that means you are pulling 1575 watts at the wall.

well, his math was wrong, so it should be $180, since he says he's not factoring in heating differences (sure as hell doesnt live in texas then, cause my differences would be in AC use)

$180 for 5000mhash is pretty cheap electricity, i would think.  but, then, I've always used cards with crap efficiency (5830, 5870, etc)

in regard to OP's plan to buy more hardware, to make it easy i'll disregard price fluctuations...  but be sure to take into consideration the upcoming 10-15% difficulty increase, and that all subsequent difficulty increases will likely be similar or higher than that.... and the decreasing value of your assets (the hardware you bought)

That is actually pretty cheap electricity. As a very rough average, a PC with two 79XX's will pull ~500w total and produce ~1000 mhash/sec. At 10 cents per killowatt hour of electricity that is $1.20 USD per day. Times 5 machines to equal ~5gh and your up to $6 per day. Then times 30 and you are at your $180 mark in additional electricity per month.

If I mined with 5GH/s at my house in the Socialist Republic of Kalifornia, SCE would run me $720/month before AC costs.  Considering it was 90F today and will be 95F tomorrow, it would probably be $1k with AC running  :o

$170 is damn cheaper than most everything (except free)

better get an apartment with free elec and mine the shit out of it

at current rate you have a profit of $700 per months, not bad

5GH/s with what equipment?

You may get the police busting down the door expecting you to have been growing something inside the house...

I've got a total of 1 card may bump up to 2 at home the rest are at work where I don't pay for electricity :D  Without mining I used to hit $300-350 in the summer of Texas prices.  After installing the 21SEER AC last year it never went over $150 ish :)

Has anyone actually ever INVITED the police to his mining rig saying "Hey, I noticed some of my friends got busted out of bed for their electricity bills and so on, could I invite an officer to my place for some coffee so we don't waste valuable government money on me NOT growing marihuana?"

I have actually thought about doing that one day. If my elec bills would climb to a level that might be considered dangerous, I would walk over there and tell them "Hey, I know that police raids tend do happen at 5.30, and to prevent someone busting my door in while i am sleeping, would you want to have some coffee at my place after your shift to see that you don't have to raid me? I would love to see your time rather used on someone that hurts our country."

never invite a cop into your home. someone may have left even a small bag of drugs at your place somewhere you don't know about, the cop may find it.

Fascinating idea. But let's just say this didn't happen and I would probably invite friends over here that carry a badge. Probably the better solution.

I'm from San Antonio, but live in Cali atm (military) I plan on moving back to Texas in the next couple of years.  What's a 21SEER? is that a brand of AC?
I'm going to be looking into buying a house and want an efficient  AC becasue I know how that Texas heat can be, thanks.

Lennox XC21 - Techincally 21 is for 1.5ton this one is either 18.5 or 19.5 (3.5ton).  I can save more on long trips by turning it way up when we are gone and adjust 1h before returning on my phone :)

Everything is illegal if you don't trust them don't invite over.  If the cop is a friend I wouldn't worry.

agreed


but for the record, i did have two cruisers pull up at 1 am to my house, probably sometime in january or feb?   i live in a rural area that's incorporated into a small town (pop 2000 roughly), so those 2 policeman were the two that are always on duty on nights.  so the whole police force pulled up (ok, they may have had someone extra working that night, hah)

appeared to be looking through my server window (it was like 30o outside or so and it had the fan in the window blasting in, etc).. so i opened the door and asked what the problem was, and apparently there was a 'chemical smell' wafting from my house, that they could smell from about 200 yds away (the main road)

but i forget myself when they're actually there and present, so, yeah, i invited them into the house.  they saw my computers and left.  took about a minute.  though in hindsight, i wouldnt have let them in

Thanks for the info!

Damm thats one hell of a bill! HOpe you made some coin to pay for it!

this cop busting/raid thing is getting me a bit worried...

:(

I'd in fact have made them coffee.

 Invite them round then? How many kw are you pulling from the wall? Anything above 1-2kw constant is gonna look odd to the power company, and some are obliged to tell the police if something looks dodgy.


Just invite them round for a cuppa, explain your concerns and show them your 'servers'.

Congress does Kim Jong -Il style inspections of american mining rigs, and outlaw dollars.

My main problem would only be the time of day. Raids tend to be in the morning time before six o clock around here.

So I'd be like "good morning officer, I was just going to Ned, how can I help you?":)

You might get a front door to the face if you tried that and weren't quick enough. Plus they could seize anything in the house for 'inspection' if they wanted, I know people who've had PC's/mobiles taken for months as 'evidence'

I can't imagine the cops face when busting in on what they think might be the pot bust of the year only to find a miner and his giant computer ;D

To be honest, if someone asked me what i was doing with this, I would probably say "Search for Aliens, did you ever hear about the SETI project? And of course have my main computer ready running Folding@home or SETI@home :D

Im not sure if I should go with SETI oder Folding here... the SETI thing sounds a little more nuts. The other thing on the other hand is something people won'T comprehend. "You are folding proteins? What the f*???!"

when I was shopping for parts at Home Depot, a nice girl working there was helping me get my random list of parts. I told her I was protein folding and explained how that worked

I will probably continue to do that, and sound quite a bit more altruistic than reality

I am thinking of throwing my CPU power that is unused to folding. Does Folding nowadays allow GPU usage`?

We have an ex cop working for us that quit because it was too dangerous.  I've got him really interested in all my pc equipment sitting on my desk at the office lol.

According to the FSA if you are mining you are emitting currency and therefore should be regulated .... Ha ha ha ! But yes they would have grounds, especially if you are smoking pot and mining at the same time...

I just started mining again, it was getting too cold in my office!!

yes, cpu and GPU are usable. nividia is to folding as AMD is to mining though.

http://folding.stanford.edu/ for a looksee

At first i was afraid to look inside this thread.
It is my first month mining 24/7 and i have yet to receive the bill.

But the numbers from the OP looks kinda cheap.

In Hong Kong  we actually get a "rebate" each quarter against our electricity bill.
So the way I look at it , the government pays me to mine.

Depends on how much your income from mining is.
For 5GH/s it's not too high, also consider other companies they might be cheaper.

they'll show up, probably shoot someone's dog, arrest you for something else, and taze/beat someone in the process....not really kidding...

my neighbor had some rigs going, the cops came in full swat gear with sub machine guns and a battering ram..... theres some tax payer money wasted.

They launced a nuke at my friends house... sigh.

Wow your spending a lot of money on electricity.

I wish I had 5GH in April..  your system should be good till the end of the year!

electricity gets more expensive day by day

Would love to know where people are getting electricity for 15c/kwhr or even 10c/kwhr, here in Adelaide I'm paying closer to 30c/kwhr and during peak usage (eg, hottest days during summer) it can be >50c/kwhr!

0.08$/kWh here in Quebec/Canada.  :D

http://images.lpcdn.ca/435x290/200902/24/50837-barrage-hydroelectrique-daniel-johnson-manic.jpg

Yeah it's ridiculous how much it varies.  In Seattle, WA my mother-in-law gets a discounted rate under $0.05 USD per KWH.  They used over 6500 KWH last month since they have an electric heaters (not gas).

1000 miles to the south in Southern California I have Southern California Edison and their prices are pretty much the highest in the US.  I'm usually at Tier 2/3 border so I pay either $0.29 or $0.35 per KWH using just 300 KWH on average.  If I mine or even use AC a little bit I go to Tier 5 which costs $0.46 per KWH - this happens at just 500 KWH, so obviously my GPU farm isn't at home.

Leave it to California to stifle technology with their green BS. With all their mouthing off about clean solar the state produces much less power than WA state's hydroelectric capacity.  That's why Dalkore is setting up an ASIC farm at $0.02/KWH - that's as close to free as it gets I imagine.

dear god that is alot.  im in LA 1st tier around .15 cents.

I wasn't kidding about my cop story as well!   :o

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fuck cops!