How To Lower Your Electric Bill For An Indoor Garden

While growing plants indoors is quite rewarding, it’s also expensive and hard to justify the cost at times. It’s hard to avoid increasing your electric bill when you set up grow lights at home. That’s why you may understandably wonder how to lower your electric bill for an indoor garden.

You can lower your electric bill for an indoor garden if you use sustainable LED and CMH lights. Try not to run your grow lights from 5 P.M. to 8 P.M. when billing rates are higher. Group your plants and only run your lights for 8-12 hours a day to lower your electric bill without stunting plant growth.

It’s also worth downsizing your indoor garden to reduce how many grow lights you need. Insulate your grow room to prevent temperature loss, or else your HVAC system will run more. Follow along as we explore how to lower your electric bill for an indoor garden, so you can save money.

How to Reduce Your Electric Bill With Grow Lights

1. Don’t Run Lights During Peak Times

Electric companies charge higher rates during peak times. In most places, peak usage times run between 5 P.M. and 8 P.M. You can lower your electric bill if you turn off the grow lights for your indoor garden during this time.

It helps to set your grow lights to a timer and program them to turn off at or before 5 P.M. That way, you will only use your grow lights when the rate is lower. If you time it right, you won’t need to turn the lights back on once peak time is over.

2. Less Is More

It may be tempting to set up an abundance of grow lights for your indoor garden. While grow lights are necessary, you don’t need nearly as many as you may think. For example, many indoor plants do better with partial shade, so excessive light may hinder their growth.

In that case, it’s better to group your plants based on how much light they need. That way, you can keep full-sunlight plants together under lights and partial-shade plants slightly out of the way. The lights above the full-sunlight plants will still help the partial-shade plants, albeit more subtly.

Set up your lights so that there is 20-30 watts per square foot of indoor garden space. Anything more than that is overkill and will significantly increase your electric bills. Excessive light can scorch your plants and stunt their growth.

3. Program The Lights

If you experience abnormally high electric bills after starting an indoor garden, it may be because you run the lights too long. Most plants only need 8 to 10 hours of light, but some tropical plants thrive with 12 hours of light.

The longer you run your lights, the higher your electric bill will be. You can lower your electric bill if you program the lights to turn on and off automatically. How long you run the lights is up to you, but you must provide at least 6 hours of rest without light.

Otherwise, you may stunt the growth of your plants and experience high bills. You can avoid peak billing times if you set your lights to turn on between 5-7 A.M. and turn off at 5 P.M. It takes some experimentation, but soon you'll figure out the best schedule to lower your electric bill.

4. Boost Efficiency

You cannot lower your electric bill if your indoor garden runs on inefficient lights. Today, CMH and LED lights are the most energy-efficient options for an indoor garden. LEDs, for example, are quite intense and provide light without getting overly hot.

They are unlikely to scorch your indoor plants unless you put them too close to the leaves and flowers. Look for low-wattage LED lights to save money without sacrificing valuable growth. CMH lights are similar in that they provide strong light without eating up your electric bill.

That said, CMH lights are more expensive than LEDs, but the energy savings are worth the cost. CMH lights are especially useful if you keep your indoor garden in a small space. That’s because they don’t generate much heat, so they shouldn’t raise the temperature in your home.

5. Downsize

It may be tempting to grow an enormous indoor garden, but it’s also expensive. Not only does this lead to expensive electric bills, but you must also spend a fortune on supplies. That includes pots, soil, fertilizers, nutrients, and gardening tools.

Large indoor gardens also become expensive when a pest infestation breaks out. Pests quickly spread to nearby plants whether they are indoors or outdoors. That means you must spend more on pesticides and remedies.

However, grow lights are the biggest cost factor when it comes to large indoor gardens. The 20-30 watts per square foot rule quickly adds up if you have to provide light for a lot of plants. Slowly downsize and stick to plants that thrive and look the best in your indoor garden.

6. Use Natural Light

While grow lights are necessary, they aren’t your only option. You can grow many indoor plants without grow lights if you use sunlight. Ideally, you should use a mixture of natural and artificial light for the best results.

This is much easier if your home has lots of sun-facing windows. You can easily put small plants on shelves near your windows to give them natural light. Try not to obscure your windows too much, or else the sunlight won’t spread far within your home.

Pay attention to where the sunlight lands in your home during peak sunlight hours. Set up your grow lights accordingly based on spots that don’t get much natural light. This helps reduce how many grow lights you need, which is a great way to lower your electric bill.

7. Insulate Your Grow Room

A poorly insulated grow room can increase your electric bills significantly. This happens because of temperature loss, which triggers your HVAC system to run. For example, poorly insulated rooms lose heat, and this may trigger your furnace to run.

A grow room must maintain a consistent temperature for germination and humidity purposes. Tropical plants also need consistent warmth to grow and thrive. Insulate your doors and walls to minimize thermal energy loss in your grow room.

That way, your HVAC system won’t have to work so hard. This can lower your electric and gas bills, and protect your HVAC system from unnecessary strain.

Summing It Up

The best way to lower your electric bill for an indoor garden is to avoid running your lights during peak billing hours from 5-8 P.M. It also helps to reduce how many grow lights you use and group plants as close as possible. Downsize your indoor garden and put some of them near sun-facing windows, so you don’t need as many lights.

Related Guides:

• How To Make Indoor Plants Grow Faster
• 10+ Indoor Plants That Don't Need Water Often