National Grid

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

Have gas rates gone up?

I normally pay around 100 dollars for a month of natural gas in the winter and my March bill is 195.80. While March sometimes goes up slightly, in the years I have lived in this apartment it has not been over 150 (and that was that year that Natural Gas was really expensive)

My landlord told me that the gas company had been over to fix something on Monday morning so perhaps it had been leaking or the meter had been broken...

Is there any recourse for not having to pay a natural gas bill that is twice the amount you normally have to pay?
(I did check and I did pay the Feburary bill)

Therms Feb - 60 - estimated
Therms March - 139 - actual

Therms from 2008 (I don't have 2009) is 72 and 78 for Feb and March

So what happened is that the meter was wrong before and they took what they haven't been getting and added it into this month's bill.

Is this legal?

Comments

[aroraborealis.livejournal.com]

Is there any recourse for not having to pay a natural gas bill that is twice the amount you normally have to pay?

Well, do you want to keep receiving natural gas service to your home?

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

I'm moving May 1st. So.. not really?

[ron_newman]

Sticking your landlord, or the next tenant, with the bill isn't a very good plan.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

and is not my plan.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Doesn't your bill tell you how much gas was used, what the meter readings were, and what rate was charged?

If the meter readings are accurate, there's no reason to expect you'll be able to get it adjusted, but at least you'll be able to understand where the charge came from.

[ron_newman]

Has the amount of gas you used changed a lot between February and March? The bill should tell you this. Natural gas is measured in 'therms'.

Did you have a series of estimated readings in past months, followed by a real meter reading?

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

yes, it apparently was a series of estimates, and then a real meter reading with the actual usage for the months beforehand added on top of this month's bill.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

Ooh, ooh, I have an idea! Did you forget to pay your last bill? Sometimes I get a huge bill and I freak out and then I realize that I forgot to pay the last bill, which is why its about double what it was supposed to be.

Or do you have NStar Electric as well? One time they reversed the payments so my $10 electric bill check was applied to my gas bill and my $100 gas bill check was applied to my electric bill. That left me with a huge credit on one and basically the scenario mentioned above for the other.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

last month's bill was paid.

never deducted my Feb. payment

[mjrocks98.livejournal.com]

I pay my bill online & I paid my Feb. bill twice before it was ever deducted last month. I sent them an email & then it was deducted right away. That is why my March bill was double this month & then they corrected it when they received my email letting them know the 2 days I made the Feb. payment. Double check your bank account to see if your last months payment was ever deducted.

Re: never deducted my Feb. payment

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

it was. and they also have it in their system

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

How does your 2009 February & March therm usage compare to your 2010 February and March therm usage?

[ron_newman]

Yes, if you could post a new table with therm usage per month instead of dollar amounts, that would help.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

I don't have this information.

[ron_newman]

It should be on your monthly bills. Mine gives me 13 months of therm history (though it's an NStar Gas bill rather than National Grid)

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

which as they are only online and I don't have access to them, I don't know. I updated the post with the 2007 info.

[ron_newman]

I doubt that you can get the bill reduced, but since it went up so sharply, you might be able to work out a payment plan to spread out the increase over the next few months.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

even though I'll be shutting off the gas on May 1st?

[ron_newman]

it's worth calling them to ask, at least.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

it's pretty much the same, with the only difference being that it was a little colder last year. The thermostat is an electronic programmable type.

[warlord-mit.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you had a bunch of estimated readings that were lower than actual, so when they finally performed an actual reading you had to catch up. This happened to me once a long long time ago. It means their estimation is low, but unfortunately there's not much you can do about it; you DID use the gas, just over the past few (estimated) months.

Sorry.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's my guess as well, I'm thinking perhaps over the last year and a half.. I had hoped the amount had gone down given that gas prices had gone down and that we were using less because of the electric thermostat.

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised that it took that many comments for someone to correctly identify this issue. This is exactly what happened. It has been an estimate and you finally got the correct reading and had to catch up.

There is nothing you can do legally, as this works both ways. For example, I pay estimate water bill, which is higher than our actual usage. Every year or 2, i have someone come and check the meter, and I get huge credit towards my account.

[ron_newman]

A city official told me that they have converted almost all residential customers to electronically-read water meters, so this billing oddity should go away for you.

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

Yes. That's true. However, in order to be switched you have to have it installed. The last time I called to have it installed I had to take half day from work. they guy showed up, looked at it, and said. "Well, you need a new meter. But we're out of stock so you'll have to make another appointment when we get it." I haven't bothered to schedule another appt again.

It's easier to just fill out the little card they send to you to ask you what the count is.

They did mine on a Saturday...

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I was surprised, since anyone with a job would prefer that, no?

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

How long's it been since your bill shows that it's based on an "Actual" rather than "Estimated" reading.

I had a situation once where something was broken so that actual readings were never happening, so it was estimated month after month after month. I was lucky that in my case when they fixed things and got an actual reading, it turned out that they owed me money.

[curiositykt.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking since 2006 or so, but I think this is only reflecting a year or so.

[jamiesquared.livejournal.com]

They estimate a lot of usage and your bill should say estimated readings but when they come out and do the actual readings if you used more or less then you will owe or get a credit.

I actually had a reverse situation...they estimated last years gas in the winter on the previous winter and when they came and did an actual reading we had used less because it had been warmer so we got a credit.

I posted something similar last month!

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

This month, something does not add up either. I was away MOST of the month, leaving almost all lights off and the temperature at 54 C, so my plants would not die. Yet, gas usage did not seem to reflect that. WTF?

do call and ask for a reduction

[hiddenbear.livejournal.com]

A few people have said that they doubt that you could get the bill reduced. I've had the opposite experience. If you call and speak with someone, they definitely have the power to reduce your bill. Explain to them that you understand that the previous months were estimates and this one is an actual, but that you are not prepared to pay that large a bill all of a sudden. Keep calling until you find a nice person on the other side of the line. I once had a bill reduced by 80%, but that was an extreme circumstance ... no payment plan, just flat out reduced.

[mihmo.livejournal.com]

I am in the same boat. Please let us know if you work anything out with National Grid. My therms usage in Feb 2007 was 17 therms. This past Feb, 60 therms. Both are actual readings and not estimates. Yet, we haven't changed our habits as far as I know. I have NStar though, not National Grid. Calling up NStar did not help - she told us it was 6 degrees colder this year on average (does that account for 40+ extra therms? I think not.) January was similarly sky-high this year, with 69 therms used this year...