gas bill

[leafspice.livejournal.com]

Hey all --

Did everyone else's gas heating bill absolutely jump this month, as compared to previous months? I completely understand that it's much colder than previous months, and that gas is not exactly cheap these days, but we saw a jump from $150 last month to $250 the month ending Dec. 31! We have your typical two-bedroom Davis Sq. apartment, about 800 square feet. My parents have a 2600 s.f. place and it only cost them $150 this month! (Now, granted, they do have electric heat, but still...) We always keep our place at 60 degrees, do not cook very often, and were even gone for the holidays for the last 10 days of the month, so our place was at like 57 degrees for that period of time.

I just want to see if anyone else has seen comparable atrocious bills before I freak out any further. I lived in a different Davis apartment last year that was bigger than this one is, and we never saw such a high bill. I'm not sure if I should call NSTAR to see if we have a leak (we already have had one this year) or call the landlord to have him try to weatherproof it better. Argh!

Thanks for your input!

Comments

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing on the radio awhile back that NStar had announced there was going to be a fairly substantial jump in the price of home gas in the coming months. I don't remember the reasons, other than the general rise in prices caused by oil being so high was catching up with their industry as well. I do remember them saying that prices this year would likely continue to go up since last years prices reflected energy purchases from the previous year when prices were lower.

Regardless, it wouldn't hurt to call NStar and ask them what's up.

[ron_newman]

One thing to check: did the number of "therms" you consumed go up a lot from the previous month? Or did the rate per therm go up? You should be able to find this information on your bills.

[leafspice.livejournal.com]

Both went up -- so I realize that gas pricing went up, and that we used more energy (it's obviously harder for our heating system to keep us warm in colder weather). So I definitely expected a higher bill, just not this much! After perusing NStar's website, however, I'm realizing that this might just be how it is this winter. I still might give NStar a call to make sure we're not leaking, but it appears that this will just be a nasty winter for keeping warm!!

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

We installed a programmable digital thermometer, so we can just not heat the house during the day and not have to remember to change the temperature all the time, in hopes it will help this very problem.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Ours went up. It's going to kill us this year.

[ron_newman]

Sounds good, as long as you don't let it get so cold that pipes freeze.

[ellf.livejournal.com]

My NSTAR electric bill jumped from $105 in November to $391 in January. We have non-electric heat -- I think NSTAR is out of its bloody mind.

[lidiya6.livejournal.com]

Our gas heating bill for Nov was about $100, for Dec - about $200. We keep heat fairly low (62-66 when home, 55 when out/sleeping). We have a 2-bed and some of the windows are covered w/ plastic. Gas price per therm is about $1.50 - I think it is about double last year's rate.

The number of therms we used went up a lot from nov to dec - simply because Nov didn't have many days that required us to use the heat as much.

It is in our lease that we must keep the heat at 55 (at least...) in order to prevent pipes from freezing.

[terse-scribe.livejournal.com]

Mine actually went a little down. I've got Keyspan and am on a payment plan where you spread the pain evenly through the year. Supposedly this means you pay the same thing each month, whether you're using 15 therms or 300. However, as gas prices vary and as your usage changes compared to last year, smaller scale adjustments are made. Mine went up for my December bill, but went back down to what I was paying earlier in the year for my next check.

[terse-scribe.livejournal.com]

Oh, and when you add Keyspan's delivery to the supply costs, it's working out to around $1.80 to $1.65/ therm on my January 06 bill vs. $1.42 to $1.26/ therm last year in Jan.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

i'm also on the payment plan for nstar, so it's the same every month (until august, when they'll adjust it), but the monthly bill did jump a little between i think sept and oct (or possibly oct and nov, i'm not sure) which i figured was just a result of gas prices going up, because i'd heard that they would.

[tisana.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, then it wasn't just me? I opened my NStar bill today and nearly choked. I'd thought I'd been paying fairly regularly...
While it still smarts to have to pay that much, now it makes a bit more sense...

[dreamgirly19.livejournal.com]

as long as you are above 58 at the max. lowest pipes should be fine.

[dreamgirly19.livejournal.com]

i didnt mean that! i hit reply by accident..

i meant the temp should stay around 58 if not home no lower because the amount of energy it then takes to turn it up, you end up using more energy than keeping it at that temp.

sorry about referring to pipes.

from my bf the plumber of 15 years: it has to below freezing outside for pipes to freeze, if you keep the house @ 55 and its below freezing outside your pipes can freeze. Also be sure to ideally keep the temp in house when not home above 55 for another reason such as the amount of energy it takes to heat a house up that is at 45 to 70 degrees is WAY more unefficient than to heat a house to say 70 from 55 at least. :)

[dreamgirly19.livejournal.com]

thats the best way to go!

[dreamgirly19.livejournal.com]

we havent gotten our bill yet from Nstra which is weird. We keep our house at 70 when home and 64 when not home.

[siderea]

It's been really cold. I've got electric heat (also NStar) and my last month bill was more (in kWh) than the previous two bills combined. Also, according to the log, I used about half again as many kWh this Dec (05) as last Dec (04). Oy.

[turil.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, a toasty 58°...

We've been keeping our place at 52-54° when we're home during the day, and 48-50° at night or when not home. I pretty much always have a hat and scarf on, have a cup of hot tea nearby, and sleep with a hot water bottle. I never thought I could have done it, but I'm finding it not too bad.

We're preparing ourselves for when we finally are able to move out into the country and live in a yurt...

[turil.livejournal.com]

Did you know that a landlord has to give you a seperate written agreement if they expect you to pay for heat. Our landlady didn't write one up, and she didn't even check off the electric and gas bill sections on our lease, so technically we aren't legally required to pay for any of those bills, the landlady is. Though she freaked out when we let her know that we expected her to order oil for our tank. I'm not sure if we're going to bother trying to take her to court for it, though we might, since we pay a lot of money for rent, and we are really poor right now.

[protogeek.livejournal.com]

Ditto, ours went from $250 to $350. We now have a big sign inside the front door reminding us to turn down the heat when we leave for the day.

[denonymous.livejournal.com]

Let's hear it for 70°. The above comments about 52° made me cold just reading them. We are, however, now on the "turn it the hell down when at work all day" plan, though.