dumb question regarding mining

[the founder]

I'm in a technology incubator

the power is paid for by the incubator (the state of Pennsylvania),  is it a valid business model to host miners here?  

I rented out two offices, yet only use one of them.

I repeat --  FREE ELECTRICITY.

[franky1]

well if its free electric and you would continue paying rent whether the building was in use or not. then of course using the office as a location for your mining rigs is more beneficial and profitable then doing it from home.

but now you have to think about the equipment and maintenance costs. as well as any "business" costs with registering as a business and all the health and safety regs you will have to abide by, due to having a large scale electrical units housed in these offices, producing excessive heat.

[mitty]

You could probably use <1000W without it being a big deal, but anything past that and they might notice.  Included or "free" electricity applies to normal electric use, not running a bitcoin mining farm.

Of course that's a generalization... you can always ask the manager of the facility.  If you're hesitant to do this then you probably already have your answer.

[Herodes]

If you're ready to take the heat if the shit hits the fan - then go ahead.

[deathcode]

You could probably use <1000W without it being a big deal, but anything past that and they might notice.  Included or "free" electricity applies to normal electric use, not running a bitcoin mining farm.

Of course that's a generalization... you can always ask to the manager of the facility.  If you're hesitant to do this then you probably already have your answer.

+1 Agreed plus the problem at these BTC prices isn't electricity anymore. Electricity is fairly cheap, however the initial investment in equipment either GPU or ASIC is considerable.

This that building a 2000MHash GPU rig is about $1200-$1500 (you have AT LEAST $1050 in three 7970's) + CPU, memory, mobo, flash drive, PSU, case(optional) etc...

that machine will produce around ~4 BTC at current difficulty so about $400 at current prices meaning your ROI is about three months without counting a huge spike in difficulty that given the facts that Avalon will be shipping batch 2 and three, seems highly likely and BFL "might" join them also...

Again, free electricity shouldn't be a big deal, but your initial investment is.
If you have the equipment already, then you should be mining the shit out of it already!