January 14th, 2009 - Electric/gas bill
I gasped a bit at our bill for the past month. It’s the first in quite some time over $200 ($229 to more precise). I’m so glad they have a little spot on the bottom that compares this year to last year: It was 21% colder this year! And the bill is just about 20% bigger than last year’s for the same month. That’s pretty decent considering gas price increases. For unknown reasons, our electric usage is lower, which may have helped. I can’t view the older bill online so can’t compare the cost breakdown between gas and electricity, just the usage.
Since I was home for two weeks over the holidays and never turned the heat down–including keeping it up higher some nights–I wouldn’t have been surprised by an even higher bill. Nice to know that some of our work at controlling costs has helped.
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January 14th, 2009 at 11:52 pm EST
We bought a programmable theromastat last year and that has saved us a lot of money. Our furnace is as old as I am and still going. I know, we should replace it for something more energy efficient - it’s on our list!
We keep the house about 65 at night and 72 when we are at home. Certain areas of the house are always cold - mainly our addition because it was not set up correctly for heat in the first place. I’m hoping we can address that when we put in the new furnace eventually. The room has a beautiful wood fireplace. The entire wall is brick and it has a brick hearth but we don’t burn wood very often. I don’t even think we used it once last year. We’re only home in the evenings and it can take several hours to get a good fire burning.
We have a second gas fireplace in our basement but we don’t run that very often (to save on fuel costs) but I prefer it to the wood mess!
Stay warm!