Our first real winter gas bill arrived

We're on a "budget" payment plan. The "budget" more than doubled from eighty-seven a month to one hundred eighty. We have a high effeciency furnace, whole house insulation, and new windows. Our thermostat is set below 70 degrees and I wear layers of clothes. We've been Cheneyed.

Since you are on a budget plan, they may have scheduled your payments way too high!

Mazel tov! :puke:

and utility rates here are always in the sky. This is the worst yet, though.

I'm sick of being cold. We keep the thermostat set at 53. It's about 5 degress warmer upstairs but that's still 58 degrees or so. We supliment with electric in our bedroom, but it takes 4 hours to really heat the room up.

And of course it's 53 downstairs. Lots of microwave dinners for us these days, quickly popped in the microwave and eaten upstairs.

We keep the store at 64. Not too bad for the customers, who have their coats on. Still, the only place I've been warm for a month is in the car.

I got a letter from them today with a list of ways they are asking us to conserve. They also said they were cleaning and updating the HVAC systems to try to make them more efficient. I know that if it comes down to it they will ask for more rent, so I'm still doing what I can to conserve.

gonna be a friggin house payment, and no, we still arent warm. layered here too. have a little electric heater going in our bedroom just to help escalate that electric bill too

and using my furnace for the fan only. Check it out-

http://eheat.com/

Sounds like a great product, and at 425 watts, most applications won't overload your wireing.

We can only plug our 1200W heater into a couple of different outlets in the house.

and then looked about elsewhere for discussion of these heaters. Not to just be critical, but some folks are doing the math and showing these are not as economical as they appear. Comparing them to 4 100 watt lightbulbs producing the same heat. Pointing out that one heater is per a 10x10 foot room, so how many rooms do you need to heat? ie, at that 3 cent/hr avg, one would cost around $30/month, 2- $60 etc. And that is an average, ymmv.

check them out carefully.

dp

was young. Mom used to put a heater under the table with a long blanket over the top to keep the heat in. It kept our feet and legs warm. Makes a diff when your legs are warm.

when we closed off the kitchen with blankets hanging in the doors and used the stove for heat.

sacks that were the warmest blanket that I have ever slept under. We also slept with hats on. It was cold where we were, and the house leaked like a sieve.

doublewide here in New Hampshire...180 gallons @ 2.29 plus a can of anti-gel try 419 dollars.Yep/I'll survive but it means 2 more fills plus a top off this season or about 1500-1600 this year...and last year was about 900..say and guess what you will...

I was expecting more than a fifty percent increase in the gas bill, but not more than double. It will hit hardest this summer when we are paying for air conditioning and this lovely budget. My consolation is that republicans are also getting their bills. That warms my cold little heart.

Electric blankets create a magnetic field that penetrates about 6-7 inches into the body. Thus it is not surprising that an epidemiological study has linked electric blankets with miscarriages and childhood leukemia.

http://www.mercola.com/article/emf/emf_dangers.htm

http://www.naturodoc.com/library/lifestyle/emf.htm

This ones from the Minnesota Dept of Health -- they MUST be credible.

http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/radiation/emf/

Just try googling EMF radiation and electric blanket.

Just a little :sarcasm: -- enjoy!

i used an electric blanket for a couple years, but got uncomfortable using it, thinking maybe "Electric blankets create a magnetic field that penetrates about 6-7 inches into the body." so i had posted in another thread if anyone had heard anything on electric blankets. was kinda jazzed with your post, not chosing the blanket this year, only to see your sarcasm. i am bothered with lap top on my lap all the time, cell phone on hip and microwaves too, wink.

I always make enemies when I say this, but we have been living like kings for a long time.

It wasn't long ago that in order to get warm, we had to gather wood and light it on fire. Can you imagine having to light a fire every time you wanted a cup of tea? But we just push a button on a microwave oven.

Or how about the energy density in petroleum- One gallon of gas will move your car many miles. Try pushing it that far. How much would you pay for a gallon of gas if you were being chased by wolves?

Somewhere in between the extremes is reality. Most people do not have a sense of the value of energy. I was fortunate, or unfortunate, to have been raised by a very energy conscious father. Long before energy was a word people used, he was thinking and talking about how we would be fighting wars over it.

Our very very inflated lifestyle is not normal. But we take it for granted that it is the way we should live. It's nice. It's comfortable. And it's subsidized by wars, and other things.

Big subject. I cringe when I pay my bills too. But remember how life would be if we had to live like they did two hundred years ago, and beyond.

cold except the room that the family was using. After dinner the kitchen was cold. The bedroom was cold at night. The bathroom must have been heated. It wasn't because the family was low-income and had to save money--it was just the way life was conducted. Austerely. The baby was bundled up and put in a buggy on the front stoop to nap. No fear of kidnappers or child molesters. That innocence has probably changed,

when you think about the so called "progress" our civilization has made in even the last 70 years (from a technological standpoint and most of that technology predicated upon fossil fuels), that rapid advance has had to come back and bite us in the ass.

No thermostats above 65 degrees. No space heaters allowed.

Some employees are wearing gloves with the fingertips cut out so they can do their desk work.

No one wants to sit by the windows. W's America.

Last year, I kept the house (a very small house) at 65 degrees during the day and turned the heat way down at night, sleeping in sweats under two quilts when necessary. My January and February bills were about $180. This year, I've been keeping the house at about 60 during the day and I've bought another quilt.

mine was 80 last month...but it's all electric and 1000 sf. i'm in sacramento, which does get to freezing on occasion, but still, i FEEL for y'all! :(

plan. I started it around June so I could build up a decent credit before it started getting cold. I'm praying they don't adjust it up. I have the high eff furnace, insulation, etc. I even paid to have a whole house humidifier installed because they said that would help but I haven't really seen the benefit. Been keeping the thermostat at 65 during the day and 68 for a few hours in the evening before bed. I keep my electric space heater nearby, nowadays with the single digit temps, it's starting to suck. Ticks me off everytime my nose and feet get chilly. Wearing lots of sweaters and drinking plenty of tea. Thank you Dubya! Arggghhhh

first winter I remember being comfortably warm. Even with the initial investment of the stove, I think we'll be about equal to what our fuel bill would have been, so next year we'll be saving lots of money. My husband found out we can use a 50/50 mixture of wood pellets and cracked corn, which saves even more. He located a farmer who sells corn by the barrel. (A side benefit, we can feed the wild turkeys if they come around.) I live in New Hampshire and it's freezing out, but toasty inside. (Two more side benefits - the blower on the stove is perfect for drying hair and clothes. Some people actually dry their laundry on a rack in front of them to avoid using the dryer.) If anyone's interested, we bought a Harman stove and highly recommend the brand. If you live in corn country, I think there are stoves made specifically for burning just corn. (Apparently it has to have an agitator because it sticks together.)

I favor pellet stoves, my husband really wants a wood burner. Of course, I will be the one who has to bring in the wood and clean the stove. The pellet stoves seem so much easier to maintain.

You can find some really nice ones in the 400-700 dollar range. I can't afford a pellet stove yet but I'm saving for one. The cleaning of a woodburner isn't too bad, really, and I'm the first one to complain about something being messy. It's well worth any labor involved. Hell, I haven't even turned on my gas furnace this year. My gas bill this month was 38 dollars, and it's 76 degrees in my living room. :D