Remote mining operation possibilities

[kenji]

A mining operation consisting of $100,000 worth of miners could save up to $40,000/year by switching from an expensive $0.15/kWh electricity rate on the east coast of the USA to a cheap $0.04/kWh electricity rate on the west coast of the USA in Washington. For a relatively small mining operation (~40 ASIC'S), would this ever make sense? Being that small of an operation means you're not hiring a 24/7 on site support person - which would eat a lot of those profits - or building out a custom warehouse with high security, so would it ever make sense at that level to host your miners on the other side of the country with no one there to look out for them? Would the $40,000/year savings be worth it? Obviously just moving to Washington would solve this entire dilemma, but not everyone with families or work or friends and such would want to do that, when instead they could just travel out there when needed then return home.

A round trip ticket from the east coast USA to Washington including car rental, gas, and food for one day is only ~$500. Even if you had to visit your mining operation up to an unlikely, astounding three times per month for maintenance or immediate emergencies like flipping on tripped breakers would come out to ~$18,000 per year, even still netting you an additional $18,000 profit per year. Since it obviously - to me - makes sense from a monetary standpoint, it only comes down to deciding if it's worth your time. If you have a full time job obviously you can't be called away on a moments notice for 48 hours, but if you had a flexible job or no job at all, and didn't mind traveling like that, I wouldn't see the problem. I'm curious to hear what you guys think about it, or if anyone has any such experience with this.

edit: I didn't think of the rewards you could get from using a credit card that rewards air travel as well.

[1714668886]

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[1714668886]

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[1714668886]

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[rifleman74]

A mining operation consisting of $100,000 worth of miners could save up to $40,000/year by switching from an expensive $0.15/kWh electricity rate on the east coast of the USA to a cheap $0.04/kWh electricity rate on the west coast of the USA in Washington. For a relatively small mining operation (~40 ASIC'S), would this ever make sense? Being that small of an operation means you're not hiring a 24/7 on site support person - which would eat a lot of those profits - or building out a custom warehouse with high security, so would it ever make sense at that level to host your miners on the other side of the country with no one there to look out for them? Would the $40,000/year savings be worth it? Obviously just moving to Washington would solve this entire dilemma, but not everyone with families or work or friends and such would want to do that, when instead they could just travel out there when needed then return home.

A round trip ticket from the east coast USA to Washington including car rental, gas, and food for one day is only ~$500. Even if you had to visit your mining operation up to an unlikely, astounding three times per month for maintenance or immediate emergencies like flipping on tripped breakers would come out to ~$18,000 per year, even still netting you an additional $18,000 profit per year. Since it obviously - to me - makes sense from a monetary standpoint, it only comes down to deciding if it's worth your time. If you have a full time job obviously you can't be called away on a moments notice for 48 hours, but if you had a flexible job or no job at all, and didn't mind traveling like that, I wouldn't see the problem. I'm curious to hear what you guys think about it, or if anyone has any such experience with this.

edit: I didn't think of the rewards you could get from using a credit card that rewards air travel as well.

Have to have a local who would be emergency backup, even if they're only on the payroll for 10 hours a week or so.  Other than that, you're good.

[kenji]

A mining operation consisting of $100,000 worth of miners could save up to $40,000/year by switching from an expensive $0.15/kWh electricity rate on the east coast of the USA to a cheap $0.04/kWh electricity rate on the west coast of the USA in Washington. For a relatively small mining operation (~40 ASIC'S), would this ever make sense? Being that small of an operation means you're not hiring a 24/7 on site support person - which would eat a lot of those profits - or building out a custom warehouse with high security, so would it ever make sense at that level to host your miners on the other side of the country with no one there to look out for them? Would the $40,000/year savings be worth it? Obviously just moving to Washington would solve this entire dilemma, but not everyone with families or work or friends and such would want to do that, when instead they could just travel out there when needed then return home.

A round trip ticket from the east coast USA to Washington including car rental, gas, and food for one day is only ~$500. Even if you had to visit your mining operation up to an unlikely, astounding three times per month for maintenance or immediate emergencies like flipping on tripped breakers would come out to ~$18,000 per year, even still netting you an additional $18,000 profit per year. Since it obviously - to me - makes sense from a monetary standpoint, it only comes down to deciding if it's worth your time. If you have a full time job obviously you can't be called away on a moments notice for 48 hours, but if you had a flexible job or no job at all, and didn't mind traveling like that, I wouldn't see the problem. I'm curious to hear what you guys think about it, or if anyone has any such experience with this.

edit: I didn't think of the rewards you could get from using a credit card that rewards air travel as well.

Have to have a local who would be emergency backup, even if they're only on the payroll for 10 hours a week or so.  Other than that, you're good.

I suppose if you found warehouse space or something along those lines then that could work out. You could likely form somewhat of a relationship with the property manager or owner and pay them handsomely to check-in on your warehouse unit, flip breakers if they trip, check temps, security cameras or whatnot whenever needed. Outside of something like that though, I don't see many people having the option of having a close friend that lives in the middle of nowhere in Washington that they trust enough.

I didn't even think of that though, thanks for bringing that up, not a bad idea!

[rifleman74]

A mining operation consisting of $100,000 worth of miners could save up to $40,000/year by switching from an expensive $0.15/kWh electricity rate on the east coast of the USA to a cheap $0.04/kWh electricity rate on the west coast of the USA in Washington. For a relatively small mining operation (~40 ASIC'S), would this ever make sense? Being that small of an operation means you're not hiring a 24/7 on site support person - which would eat a lot of those profits - or building out a custom warehouse with high security, so would it ever make sense at that level to host your miners on the other side of the country with no one there to look out for them? Would the $40,000/year savings be worth it? Obviously just moving to Washington would solve this entire dilemma, but not everyone with families or work or friends and such would want to do that, when instead they could just travel out there when needed then return home.

A round trip ticket from the east coast USA to Washington including car rental, gas, and food for one day is only ~$500. Even if you had to visit your mining operation up to an unlikely, astounding three times per month for maintenance or immediate emergencies like flipping on tripped breakers would come out to ~$18,000 per year, even still netting you an additional $18,000 profit per year. Since it obviously - to me - makes sense from a monetary standpoint, it only comes down to deciding if it's worth your time. If you have a full time job obviously you can't be called away on a moments notice for 48 hours, but if you had a flexible job or no job at all, and didn't mind traveling like that, I wouldn't see the problem. I'm curious to hear what you guys think about it, or if anyone has any such experience with this.

edit: I didn't think of the rewards you could get from using a credit card that rewards air travel as well.

Have to have a local who would be emergency backup, even if they're only on the payroll for 10 hours a week or so.  Other than that, you're good.

I suppose if you found warehouse space or something along those lines then that could work out. You could likely form somewhat of a relationship with the property manager or owner and pay them handsomely to check-in on your warehouse unit, flip breakers if they trip, check temps, security cameras or whatnot whenever needed. Outside of something like that though, I don't see many people having the option of having a close friend that lives in the middle of nowhere in Washington that they trust enough.

I didn't even think of that though, thanks for bringing that up, not a bad idea!

Yeah doesn't have to be anyone who's a close friend but someone local who can keep an eye on things.  I'm sure you can slide them a BTC or two and would make them very happy.   Good luck!

[kenji]

A mining operation consisting of $100,000 worth of miners could save up to $40,000/year by switching from an expensive $0.15/kWh electricity rate on the east coast of the USA to a cheap $0.04/kWh electricity rate on the west coast of the USA in Washington. For a relatively small mining operation (~40 ASIC'S), would this ever make sense? Being that small of an operation means you're not hiring a 24/7 on site support person - which would eat a lot of those profits - or building out a custom warehouse with high security, so would it ever make sense at that level to host your miners on the other side of the country with no one there to look out for them? Would the $40,000/year savings be worth it? Obviously just moving to Washington would solve this entire dilemma, but not everyone with families or work or friends and such would want to do that, when instead they could just travel out there when needed then return home.

A round trip ticket from the east coast USA to Washington including car rental, gas, and food for one day is only ~$500. Even if you had to visit your mining operation up to an unlikely, astounding three times per month for maintenance or immediate emergencies like flipping on tripped breakers would come out to ~$18,000 per year, even still netting you an additional $18,000 profit per year. Since it obviously - to me - makes sense from a monetary standpoint, it only comes down to deciding if it's worth your time. If you have a full time job obviously you can't be called away on a moments notice for 48 hours, but if you had a flexible job or no job at all, and didn't mind traveling like that, I wouldn't see the problem. I'm curious to hear what you guys think about it, or if anyone has any such experience with this.

edit: I didn't think of the rewards you could get from using a credit card that rewards air travel as well.

Have to have a local who would be emergency backup, even if they're only on the payroll for 10 hours a week or so.  Other than that, you're good.

I suppose if you found warehouse space or something along those lines then that could work out. You could likely form somewhat of a relationship with the property manager or owner and pay them handsomely to check-in on your warehouse unit, flip breakers if they trip, check temps, security cameras or whatnot whenever needed. Outside of something like that though, I don't see many people having the option of having a close friend that lives in the middle of nowhere in Washington that they trust enough.

I didn't even think of that though, thanks for bringing that up, not a bad idea!

Yeah doesn't have to be anyone who's a close friend but someone local who can keep an eye on things.  I'm sure you can slide them a BTC or two and would make them very happy.   Good luck!

Oh, I wasn't asking for me, haha. I just had the thought pop up into my head and was curious. Hopefully this thread helps out anyone in that position though, and maybe me if I make it one day!

[VirosaGITS]

You would need switched PDUs, that's what i do, but at some point you just need to have hands on and there's not really much you can do remotely. Personally, if i was making trips specifically for maintenance, i think i would go nuts. I often go and fix somethings, only for it to break again 2 days later or really just the same problem creeping up again.

It may be doable, if you keep a fairly sized margin of error, but it may be better for your sanity to just have them hosted in a Datacenter. I guess in the end of the day it's up to you to compare the models and decide if dealing with a mess remotely is emotionally sound for you or not.

[kenji]

You would need switched PDUs, that's what i do, but at some point you just need to have hands on and there's not really much you can do remotely. Personally, if i was making trips specifically for maintenance, i think i would go nuts. I often go and fix somethings, only for it to break again 2 days later or really just the same problem creeping up again.

It may be doable, if you keep a fairly sized margin of error, but it may be better for your sanity to just have them hosted in a Datacenter. I guess in the end of the day it's up to you to compare the models and decide if dealing with a mess remotely is emotionally sound for you or not.

Well said. I however have researched how much data center hosting would be and you wouldn't believe what they charge.

[kenji]

Now that I think about it, if you cared about nothing but maximizing savings, you could just rent a house since the extremely cheap power out there is applied to residential, and just live out there with them.

That should be the new question, would you move across the country to live in the middle of nowhere and make $60,000 per year more than you do now (I added $20,000 to the $40,000 because you now don't have to rent a place to live and a place to mine, just one place)? I wonder what you guys would have to say to that, haha.

edit: Since Spokane is a very large city, I found very cheap warehouse spaces to rent. Even though you're paying slightly more for electricity there rather than out in the middle of nowhere, the savings on rent are worth just finding some warehouse space there!

I won't lock this thread even though it's obviously now been answered, in case anyone that reads this at a later point in time has anything to add or share!

[ricknamer]

Now that I think about it, if you cared about nothing but maximizing savings, you could just rent a house since the extremely cheap power out there is applied to residential, and just live out there with them.

That should be the new question, would you move across the country to live in the middle of nowhere and make $60,000 per year more than you do now (I added $20,000 to the $40,000 because you now don't have to rent a place to live and a place to mine, just one place)? I wonder what you guys would have to say to that, haha.

edit: Since Spokane is a very large city, I found very cheap warehouse spaces to rent. Even though you're paying slightly more for electricity there rather than out in the middle of nowhere, the savings on rent are worth just finding some warehouse space there!

I won't lock this thread even though it's obviously now been answered, in case anyone that reads this at a later point in time has anything to add or share!

Too many hippies out there.  I'd rather stay east and make less.

[rifleman74]

You would need switched PDUs, that's what i do, but at some point you just need to have hands on and there's not really much you can do remotely. Personally, if i was making trips specifically for maintenance, i think i would go nuts. I often go and fix somethings, only for it to break again 2 days later or really just the same problem creeping up again.

It may be doable, if you keep a fairly sized margin of error, but it may be better for your sanity to just have them hosted in a Datacenter. I guess in the end of the day it's up to you to compare the models and decide if dealing with a mess remotely is emotionally sound for you or not.

Well said. I however have researched how much data center hosting would be and you wouldn't believe what they charge.

Keep researching, there are much cheaper alternatives.