So, much belatedly, the flip side diary to this SNLC from last summer about air conditioning, with this one about home heating. If you are interested in a home heating primer, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia has this page. You can read about tips for energy conservation in hard times at the Daily Home Renovation Tips page, 1/1/09 entry. I'd thought, somehow, that I seemed to be running the heating more this winter compared to last year, especially because of some killer cold spells this season. So....
....being a nerd as well as a loser, I dug out my old checkbook records from last winter to compare the bills with this winter so far. (Yes, 3CM still writes checks, yet another aspect of self's loserdom.) Thus, starting in November and rounding the values to the nearest $5, the crunching of #'s goes as follows:
Month |
Winter 07-08 |
Winter 08-09 |
% change |
December |
$105 |
$140 |
+33% |
January |
$210 |
$235 |
+12% |
February |
$225 |
$270 |
+20% |
March |
$220 |
(TBD) |
(TBD) |
Obviously the March bill will have to wait, but based on averaging the prior 3 months, for about a 20% increase, my guess is a March gas bill of around $264. Will report on that in a few weeks, not that you cared :) .
Since I don't do budget billing to average costs throughout the year, I go through the see-saw effect of the electric bill vs. the gas bill, i.e. high electric/low gas bills in summer, low electric/high gas bills in winter. Even with the tanking economy, I haven't really taken steps to try to save on central heating, because I set it at a temperature that most "ordinary" people would probably consider insanely low. Hence the poll down the line. It's not stupidly low as to risk my health, but it’s definitely lower than at work, for one. (OK, that's not hard.)
I wondered, in the American public's steps to cut back on spending, how much changing home utility (heating, water) would factor into it. Maybe families could lower the heating temperature by a degree or two in the winter, or in the summer, raise the cooling temperature a degree or two. While this NYT article is dated by a year, it may be that this isn't the case, at least overtly:
"American Express and the Consumer Federation of America say that consumers are buying just as many gallons as ever, but paying more for them, and that has forced cutbacks in other purchases. Gasoline prices usually drop after the summer driving season, but this year they shot up, from $2.85 a gallon on average in September to $3.07 in December and $3.15 in the first week of January.
A similar trend is evident in the cost of natural gas, electricity and home heating oil. 'We built these big houses in the suburbs, which need a lot of energy to stay warm and a car to go shopping,' said Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation. 'And we can't change that quickly.'"
Of course, being Mr. Single Loser, self lives in a condo, not a big house, a relatively short drive to work, and shops very little. Also, the Daily Home Renovation Tips page itself noted (1 year later):
"When money is tight, people's focus out of necessity is on the short term; the very short term. They tend to make spending decisions which require the least cash outflow in the very short term even if it will cost them more in the medium to long term.
Sadly, environmental issues do not go away during a recession. Sure, there may be less polluting emissions going into the atmosphere from cars during a recession with less people driving to jobs they no longer have, or because factories have shut down.
Yet, the ozone layer does not all of a sudden become fixed during an economic recession.
In fact, what tends to happen when cash is tight and people focus on extreme cash (not energy) conservation in the short term, is that they will buy what ever is the cheapest product.
Sadly, most times, the cheapest product is also the least energy efficient."
Anyway, just something to think about, with winter winding down slowly. But beyond that, of course, we must observe the usual SNLC protocol, with your stories of loserdom for the week welcome (nay, demanded) below. Have at it.....