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

[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.