Household heating costs set to soar this winter (CNN)

Household heating costs set to soar this winter

Heating bills for all fuel types will cost Americans about one-third more this winter on average, a new report estimates. A colder-than-normal winter could lift energy prices nearly 50 percent, the U.S. Energy Information Administration warns. High oil prices, slightly colder weather and devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita all are to blame for the soaring costs, according to the report.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/12/news/economy/energy_outlook/index.htm?cnn=yes

condt...

Just in time for the mid terms :). Nothing better than a heating energy crisis that socks it to poor and middle calls folks to remind people if what happens when you install a couple of oiled up oilmen in the WH.

To quote the late great rocker J. Giels: "Serves you right to suffer baby, Serves you right"

thats the legacy of this admin. I live in a poor rural area. People cannot cut back anymore, theres nothing left to cut back on except food.nothing. Its going to get ugly. a lot of people are going to die.I had to send my 79 yr old mother some money to pay her bills this month, and its going to get worse.

It's happening in the big cities and suburbs too. It's going to be a very bad winter. Yes and a lot of people simply can't cut back anymore. can't squeeze blood out of a turnip

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0510120177oct12,1,1247171.story?coll=chi-business-hed

Many without gas service
Up to 30,000 homes disconnected in city

By Robert Manor
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 12, 2005


Many thousands of Chicago households are disconnected from Peoples Gas just as high natural gas costs almost guarantee an expensive winter heating season.

Peoples spokesman Rod Sierra, speaking at a hearing Tuesday before four Chicago-area members of Congress, said as many as 30,000 city households are disconnected from the utility, and another 14,000 households are so far behind on their gas bills that they are eligible for disconnection. He said those numbers include people who have simply walked away from their utility bills.

"We are doing all we can to reach out to those customers," Sierra said. But he and other industry officials conceded there is not enough money to help low-income gas customers through the winter.

snip
"We know this crisis is coming," Schakowsky said, while Lipinski predicted that "seniors will be forced to choose between heat and medication."

snip

I am on disability as of very recently. My wife works for Lowes foods at a whopping 7hr, and gets maybe 30hrs a week(just enough not to be full time).

Due to rise in fuel costs i saw my power bill go up 25% from the previous month, and that was using 1 LESS air conditioner!?!?!?!
Went to the grocery store today for the 1st time in a bit over a month. I noticed many items are 20-30% more tan my last visit! Example, a box of crackers i normally get for .99 is now $1.29. With all this and the increase in gas prices i had to get really cheap on the grocery shopping.

When it comes time to start buying heating oil in the next few weeks, i really don't see how we are going to make it finacially as there is not much fat to cut out.

Ya gotta love the repuke war on poverty! :grr:

Oops it hiccuped!:shrug:

I'm afraid this is just the beginning. I honestly don't know how some will be able to survive this.

peace.

Luckily I live in a small heavily insulated house. Bill during the summer months was ~$30.00 a month. Last bill was $45. :(

I suspect this winter will be horrible. I'm glad I live in a house with double pane windows that is small. It will cost a fortune to heat a McMansion this winter! Look out below you fools!

:kick:

$1.60/gal, and probably going to climb some more. Not for me though. I picked up a Bajaj scooter to do my commute on(26 miles one way). It gets 100mpg, goes 55mph. With the gas money I'm saving on those fuel bills, I will be able to buy an external woodstove next summer, and thus tell the gas company to go shove it next fall. And in the next couple of years I will take my heating savings and purchase a 3Kw windmill, along with a couple of kilowatts of solar panels, and I can tell the electric company to go shove it also.

I'm sick and tired of being strapped over a barrel with energy prices. My wife and I make aprox $60,000 between us, and while fuel prices are soaring this year, I got a whopping two percent raise, and she got about the same. Thus, something has to give and soon, and this is our plan for saving money.

But the folks I feel most for are the poor and those on fixed incomes. They simply can't afford this shit, and sadly there are going to be people making some hard choices this winter, to starve or freeze. In this once great nation called the United States:grr:

Through the nose for heating fuel, Big Oil is going to be shipping a lot of heating fuel overseas in order to perpetuate an artifically low supply here in the US, thus justifying their obsene increase in prices. This is much the same methodology they have used with gasoline, refusing to build new refineries in order to keep supplies tight and increase their profit margins.

Time to start cutting these bastards off at the knees. Do what you can to reduce your fossil fuel consumption. Public transport, scooters, woodstoves, all of these and more can easily be done by a lot of people nationwide, and when our fuel consumption drops, and stays down, we will start driving these bastards out of business.

Where I live here in Calif., few are driving as it is a rural area and lots of poor folks around here. I was out the other night; a Saturday night. There was no one on the freeway and I had to drive with my brights on to see the road.

Hence time, the price of gasoline went from $3.27 to now $2.87 ... hit the bastards where it hurts and drive as little as possible and do all you can to use less fuel.

I've been driving at 55 mph. It is good really - far less assholes you encounter on the road as they don't tailgate someone driving 55 mph, they race by you doing 80 mph in the left lane. Then they get THE SPEEDING TICKET FROM HELL for it! :bounce: :D

:kick:

I live in the midwest and already have purchased a new electric stove from Menards and have a space heater setup right near the thermostat. I want to use as little gas as possible this year. Pathetic to have to choose between being warm and eating...this is America 2005?

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

We're getting a wood pellet/corn stove and turning the furnace off (or really low to keep the air moving). If natural gas prices go up as predicted then we could pay it off in a couple of years which isn't too bad. Plus with an annoyingly large supply of hickory nuts from the trees in our back yard, we could probably supplement with a free source of energy. The wood pellets and corn are suppose to burn much cleaner and more efficient than natural gas.

They're selling like hot cakes this year and are running out of stock.

I was able to use only about 43% of what I used this time last year. For example, Sept-0ct04 I used 30 therms and Sept-Oct05 I managed to use only 13 therms. I actually used less gas than I used in July-August and this is the fourth month in a row that I've used less than 20 therms. I've never had usage that low before.

YAY me!

I am in IL also. Did you turn down the thermostat from last year? I think we will be turning the thing down again

I also have it set to 65 when we are at work and I believe 67 when we are sleeping. I've been using a tower heater/space heater to put in the room we are occupying.

I used to keep the thermostat at about 72ish, so it's taking some getting used to, but it's nothing that some slipper socks and a sweater can't handle.

This winter, they will be stacking bodies in piles, after the big freeze around January. It will be people who could not afford to pay their heating bill. Mostly older folks who are on a fixed income.

Just watch.

A cardboard box is little protection against winter cold, and there are only so many warm air grates and subways tunnels in which to take shelter.

So I'll add to your humble prediction and added body count of newly homeless victims, stabbed or strangled by someone more street savvy who wanted their coat, their shoes or the alley cubbyhole that kept them warm.

My apartment has baseboard electric heat. I already am enrolled in a budget program where I pay a fixed amount every month, even if I use less electricity. It will come in handy this coming winter when my usage will exceed the actual amount I pay.

The problem I will have is my cooking gas bill. I might have to forego holiday turkey to cut back on my gas usage. You know how long it takes for a turkey to cook? Anywhere from 4 to 6 hours--and that uses quite a bit of gas!

I tried it once before and it came out pretty well.

How many hours on the grill? Do you use propane or what

a thermometer to check the internal temp.

http://greenvilleonline.com/news/2003/11/18/2003111819355.htm

This is the recipe I used, it's from Steve Raichlen the BBQ University guy on PBS.

I used a propane bbq grill to accomplish this. Now that I'm thinking about it, you could probably smoke it as well. Just need a smoker and plenty of time, probably talking closer to 6 hours to smoke it.

and bake it(I think for about 3 hours), then put it back together on a platter.

What is UP with the MSM? EVERY WEEK they're telling us how most of us are gonna get raped up the butt for heat this winter..

40%, 50%, 73%, 2/3, 1/2, 3/4, 245/957 more.....

The only thing that changes in this story is the flimsy-assed excuse and the numbers.

So what, Big Oil (who also controls Big Gas) is going to tell us "Hey, don't say we didn't warn you! It was in the News almost every day!" as they shut us off in February?

I'm going to town to buy weatherstripping and a saran-wrap kit for the big front window. The smaller windows in the rooms that I don't use in the daytime are getting styrofoam shutters on them, and if there's any money left, a set-back thermo...

What else can I do besides spend all day sitting over a coffee can with a junk-shop 50-cent candle in it?
I'm having trouble keeping up with the bills NOW and I haven't EVEN fired the furnace yet.....

Well, that was a shock!

Kerosene is going for just under $2.70 a gallon.

I'm just going to have to clean up the woodstove and split a whole lot of ash. Oil heat is great, because it's convenient and dependable, and there's no stoking and tending -- you can set it and forget it. But $2.70 a gallon is just too much for a sole heat source for the entire winter.