It's the heating pad that killed your power bill. The shop lights alone only
cost a couple of bucks a month to run.

80 watts per two 40w bulbs in one light fixture.
Operate 12 hours a day for 960 watts total consumption.
Operate 30 days in a month for 28.8KW consumption
If you pay fifteen cents per KW, then your total cost is 28.8 x .15 = $4.32

"sherwindu" wrote in message
...
I kind of figured it would affect my electric bill, but a recent increase
from
ComEd
in the Chicago area has made it more evident that raising plants from
seeds can
be
very costly. For about one month, I had two double flourecent shop lights
and
about
six small heating pads going to germinate my seeds. My electric bill
almost
doubled.
Guess there is no way around it, but makes one think twice about growing
veggies

and flowers from seed.

Sherwin D.