heating bills

[Martha]

Well winter is coming and Greg is complaining about the new budget payment for the heating bill for natural gas. He says it is Chevy engine size- $396 a month.

Anyone else affected by higher heating bills?

 

[brewer12345]

I filled my heating oil tank last month. $2.599 a gallon, and it may be the cheapest I pay all winter. Bear in mind that 2 years ago I was paying around $1.30 and last year was mostly around $1.80. Guess what this is going to do to retail sales and consumer spending?

 

[LovesLife]

My kids are already complaining about the chill in the house. Outside temp is around 37 degrees. I just tell them to put some socks on their feet and toughen up. I am really cheap when it comes to heating the house.

We are installing a new heating and cooling system this fall. Still checking into bids and types. This should really help with our LP usage as our current system is 25 years old.

LL

 

[LovesLife]

We locked in on our LP at 1.22 the day before Katrina hit.

 

[Cut-Throat]

Well winter is coming and Greg is complaining about the new budget payment for the heating bill for natural gas.  He says it is Chevy engine size- $396 a month. 

Anyone else affected by higher heating bills? 

$396 a month! - Yikes!  -- I think the highest Bill I've ever had one month was $240.  But I live in a newer well insulated house. Most of my heating Bills last winter were around $125 a month.- It's supposed to go up about 70% this year. We'll see.

I'm surprised Greg goes for the budget plan. I've looked at it, and you basically pre-pay up front, and they get to use your money for free.

 

[Calgary_Girl]

Nope, I'm Canadian so we like it cold in the house. The thermostat is set at 60. If I feel a bit chilly I'll let it run for 10 minutes to warm up the house a few degrees and then it's back down to 60

 

[maddythebeagle]

We locked in on our LP at 1.30/gallon (also before katrina) and will burn more wood this year.

 

[Outtahere]

Yikes is right on the $396 a month. We have natural gas and our budget is $117 a month, I expect it to go a little higher though. We've remodeled every room in the house and insulated it very well but there are still problem areas since we have a stone foundation and the house was built in the 1800's. Replacement windows and doors helped a lot but other than what we've done I guess it's just conserve and put on sweaters. Has anyone here tried the new programable thermostats? They say they help a lot but I'm not sure it would in my case since we always turn down the heat at night and when we're not home.

C___

 

[Andre1969]

I'm not looking forward to the heating season. So far I've only had to fire up the furnace 2 or 3 times, but I know it's a'comin. Just checking my records, I paid about $500 for heating oil in the 2003-2004 winter, at $1.19 per gallon. For 2004-2005 it shot up to around $830, at $1.74 per gallon. I'm still locked in at $1.74 per gallon until the end of October, so I think I'll have 'em come out and top me off before the new prices kick in.

Around here, we can usually get by without running the furnace until early October, and at that point it's only a bit at night/first thing in the morning. By the end of April it usually swallows its last gulp of oil until the following fall.

 

[Dawg52]

I live in an old 1200 sq ft home that is poorly insulated. I think my highest gas bill(natural) last year was $140/mo  which is a lot for that size of a house. I had the darn thing set on 60. Of course living here in MS I only have a couple of months of winter so I guess I shouldn't complain. It's 62 right now at 8:10am.  

 

[Outtahere]

That's kind of what it's like here Andre, I've only had to turn on the heat a couple of mornings just to take the chill off so I can shower. They say this weekend though our heatwave is coming to and end here in New England..

C___

 

[SteveR]

We have natural gas at the house and LP at the cabin.  I already filled up the cabin tank before Katrina so ducked that one.    However, no way to do much on the natural gas except keep it off as much as possible.  I use programmable thermastats since no one is home all day.  I think it helps but I have never run without one so don' t know how much it saves.  The house is way too big so I am closed off several rooms we don't use much and shut off the vents to direct the air to rooms we use.  But it still will cost more than a car payment each month this winter.  The good thing is that even though it gets cold here it is nothing like the upper midwest.  Brrrrrrrrrrrrr  I remember those mornings when it was -30 and never got above 0 all day.  At least here the average winter temp is more in the low 30's so that is not so bad.  

The budgets will have to be adjusted by many on fixed incomes to address not only heating costs but also the inflation in everything else due to higher energy costs.  Hang on to your hat!

 

[Sheryl]

$396!   Holy Cow.   The joys of Minnesota, eh?   My gas bill for all of last year was $515.  I'm sure this year will be worse, but no comparison.  Still we keep it cold when we're gone or asleep which pretty much covers 23 hours a day!

 

[greg]

I think we can beat everybody's story (so far): In '86 we bought our first house at 14% mortgage interest, plus we had a $140/mo. heating bill. Plus we were on the equivalent of a fixed income (no reserves after purchasing the house). Any hot flashes by anyone would have been welcome.

--Greg

 

[yakers]

Maybe one of the small offsets for Southern Cal house prices. It was 95 here yesterday. Cool at night. Our gas bills most months were <$100 last year. The challenge here is to limit AC in the summer.

 

[73ss454]

Florida is looking better and better. Hopefully this is the last winter in NY.
Not only will the oil and nat gas prices be high but electric is going crazy also.

Martha,

I think it's cool that you remember the 396 chevy motor. Bought one new at 17 in High School when I was young and handsome.

Regards,
JOE

 

[greg]

We have mostly purchased older houses w/ radiator heat, so we can't really use a programable thermostat. But we had one once. I turned the heat down to 60 degrees at night, and one night I woke up with something on my head. A dang bat had squeezed under the attic door, and then tried to crawl into bed with us. Not a pleasant experience. I closed the door, DW went for a broom, and the thing got whacked. No threesomes for us. --until we got the wiener dogs.


--Greg

 

[uncledrz]

Our budget has not yet increased, and from what I read the power company has to get a rate increase approval (most of the gas is purchased by them on forward contract).
DW has informed me, however, that she does expect a significant increase, and that I need to be ready for 65 during the day, and 60 at night.
Looks like I'll need a stocking cap!
Uncledrz

 

[TromboneAl]

$1.30 per gallon for propane!  You are so lucky, Maddy.

We got some propane in August at $2.12/gallon, figuring to DCA it and fill up the tank the rest of the way in September.  But of course, prices didn't come down, so we didn't buy any more.

The good news is that we're only using 11 gallons per month (we've kept the furnace off, using wood heating exclusively), so we should be able to make it until next summer before buying more.

 

[Dawg52]

Our budget has not yet increased, and from what I read the power company has to get a rate increase approval (most of the gas is purchased by them on forward contract).
DW has informed me, however, that she does expect a significant  increase, and that I need to be ready for 65 during the day, and 60 at night.
Looks like I'll need a  stocking cap!
Uncledrz

Might need a tube size one too. 

 

[Andre1969]

I'm thinking about trying to keep the heat turned down this winter too, and just trying to dress a bit warmer. I might try to do a little insulating, too. Guess I'd better call the oil company too, to see what kind of rate I'm going to lock into for the winter. I'm almost afraid to, though!

 

[bosco]

Nope, I'm Canadian so we like it cold in the house. The thermostat is set at 60. If I feel a bit chilly I'll let it run for 10 minutes to warm up the house a few degrees and then it's back down to 60

course what she isn't telling you is that 60 degrees in Canada is really 140 degrees F

 

[Nords]

Has anyone here tried the new programable thermostats? They say they help a lot but I'm not sure it would in my case since we always turn down the heat at night and when we're not home.

The programmable thermostat remembers even if you forget, and it can do it many times per day.  Depending on your interest in fiddling with it, it could pay for itself in a couple months.

We used to use a programmable thermostat on the Mainland.  Buy one with a battery backup (power outages) and it's a no-brainer.  You can have it heat the house a few degrees in the morning before you crawl out from under the electric blanket and turn it back down when you're out of the house.  It can have the house warming up for you when you come back home and it's one less thing to deal with.

I try to automate as many home chores as possible.  A neighbor enjoys his "zen" of watering his grass every few days with a hose, but I'd rather let the sprinkler timer take care of that while I'm surfing.  Now if I could just get the trees & hedge to trim themselves...

 

[justin]

We have an electronic thermostat with timer. I love it. No more twice daily trips to the thermostat to change the temperature setting. In the winter, we have it set cooler at night, and then it warms up as we are waking up. I figure it might save us $10-20 per month at the most.

 

[grumpy]

We moved into our new home last January. The natural gas heating bills for Feb. and March averaged $160 (1800 sq. ft. one level house). Since then I have had additional insulation put in the attic, installed a storm door and put up window blinds and low emissivity film on the windows. We have a programmable thermostat which sets back at night to 60 but we are retired and home most of the day so the heat stays set at 70 during the day. I'm hoping these measures will somewhat offset the expected whopping increase in natural gas prices.

Grumpy