[Jodi]

I knew natural gas prices were going to be high, but had no idea! In the town we live in, all utilites are on one bill. Gas, electric, water. Three bills ago our total bill was under a hundred dollars. Two bills ago it was 160.00 with 120.00 of that being for gas. The recent bill was 450.00 with 330.00 of it being for gas. I about had a heart attack! We do live in a big old house, but we have replaced all the windows. Of course, it doesn't help that 95 year old homes are not insulated.

So, I've taken a few more steps to reduce our gas usage. Bought and hung insulated drapes as our two front picture windows are still original and single pain. Also, I've strung clothes line in the basement and have not used my dryer in 3 weeks. And right now I'm currently cooking my dinner in an electric skillet. My electric portion of the bill went from 20.00 to 40.00 so I'm not worried about using electric appliances.

We have also turned down the thermostat to about 65 degrees and I hung a curtain going upstairs to keep more of the heat evenly distributed. There is an addition on the back of our old house that isn't heated, but instead has a gas fireplace. We used it three times over the holidays and will not using it ever again. It's a gas hog. Instead, bought an electric oil space heater for that room.

Any other suggestions? Our home is boiler heat so closing off rooms doesn't work. Did anyone else get a horrible gas bill like we did?


Jodi

[Jodi]

Mods, if I put this in the wrong room....can you please move it?


Thanks.

[H2O]

My advice..

Sell out, move to country and get a wood stove.
MY heat bill $3. for gas for chain saw
My electric bill $ 0. they turned it off, I went solar
MY land payment $200.

MY food, mostly free, chickens,garden, dumpster..

Laugh if you want, but I aint nobody's slave anymore....

Peace be with you Jodi

[SmartAZ]

One quick way to improve an old house is insulation. You can put styrofoam sheets on the outside of the house. If you do that you'll want a Tyvek layer to keep drafts out. Then you can put stucco or siding over the foam. Almost everything out here gets stucco, but I don't know about your area. Bugs can eat through styrofoam, and that affects your insurance, so be sure the "ground" (where one surface material meets another) is sealed, and be sure it's done right. Usually a metal ground is used. Oh, and styrofoam burns, but the fire rating is the same as whatever it's covered with. Just be sure it's entirely covered. This is better than tearing the walls apart to put insulation inside them, although you lose the original outside appearance. You pays your money and you takes your pick.

For a quick fix, be sure all air leaks are plugged. This probably means packing tape (or glue or putty) all the way around all window and door casings. While you're at it, fit styrofoam sheets to cover the glass. Check all electrical outlets and light fixtures for drafts. The local hardware store sells covers for that purpose. Make snakes for the doors: fabric tubes filled with sand. Just throw them down to block drafts when the door is closed.

[rb.]

Jodi, SmartAZ's suggestion of the snakes have worked well for us. Not only at the bottom of doors, but also on window sills. 3M makes a window kit where you tape a transparent plastic around and across the window with two sided tape, and use a blow dryer to shrink it. Works well, but tape can be a pain to get off. Also works on things like attic openings, little attic cubby-hole doors, etc.

We just found the vapour barrier in our house was originally a paper backing on the thin insulation. 60 yr old house. We just re-drywalled one room on the south west corner of the house. DH also used a modern vapour barrier (a roll of plastic), over top of the insulation, including behind the electrical boxes. What a difference in that room! You probably don't want to re-drywall, so the other option is as suggested above, styro sheets on the exterior. Also, you can buy little foam thing that go in behind your plug and light switch plates to stop the drafts there.

We were in your position last year, until we installed a little woodstove in our livingroom. Now it heats our whole house from about 7 am until about 2 am. That's with a windchill of about -30 C. We've gone through about 3 face cords of wood since mid October. It's usually warm enough for a bathing suit in here.

Good luck.

[SammiP]

To get that double sided tape off, just get out the blow dryer again and heat the tape. It softens up the glue and peels off nicely. Found this out by accident one year when I was putting up plastic again and found last year's tape still around the window.

Sammi

[Disaster Cat]

See if you are allowed to have wood or pellet stoves in your area. If so, convert a fire place in your favorite room (or kitchen if large enough for family seating) and use this room for as many daily activities as possible. We put a "Franklin" stove in our 200 year old farmhouse (and we have a turf stove in the kitchen) it helps a lot when the heating bills are too high. You can even shut off rooms you are not using (people used to do this in the "old" days during the winter). Though stone buildings (like ours) do better in a wet climate (like our) if they get a least a little heat several times a week to keep the stones from cracking.

Hope this helps,
Disaster Cat

[FrmlyZ]

Jodi:

Don't know what to say that hasn't already been said.

Our house has 2 x 6 framing stuffed with insulation. It has insulation board, a wrap and plywood outside of that. The windows are all double paned, argon filled. We have no gas available here in a rural area. It is a warm day for us. It got up to 11 F today. It is trying very hard to snow. At 11 F we start the insert in the fireplace on the upper floor. It handles it. When it drops to an air temperature below -20F, we start the wood stove on the first floor. It will heat the whole house. Seems to work. It is harder when you have an old house.

When I retire, I am going to move to a "warm" state like Vermont. :)

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

[Meg]

The recent bill was 450.00 with 330.00 of it being for gas.

I would make a call and question this charge. :eek:

[Aleph Null]

Going to move this to the Safe Room as it is somewhat a prep-related issue.

a0

[Jodi]

I would have questioned it to, Meg, but I compared our bill to several others. And they are all reporting high jumps as well. I pay the bills in my office. Our gas went from 45.00, to 105.00 to 300.00 for the current bill. The price of natural gas has more then doubled from one month to the next.

We are going to be residing this old house come summer. With that we will be putting in the insulation. And we are also going to look into a wood stove for the addition that was put on the back. The additional was originally built with a wood stove in mind. We found this out from the people who built it. They just never put the wood stove in, then the next owners put in the gas stove. It's a ventless gas stove so cannot be changed to wood.

Thanks for the advice everyone!

Jodi

[Potemkin]

Well, you can't do it in the dead of winter but in the spring try finding and caulking/plugging every joint on the exterior of your house.

Joints around windows, joints around trim, joints everywhere. You will use a lot of caulk but caulk is cheap.

Cut construction foam board for every window in your house. Take the edges to keep the foam from getting everywhere. Put them in your window. In advanced situations tip the top and fill the whole window with foam packing peanuts. (If you live without outside beauty restrictions.

If you want light to come through those windows use clear 3M window film mentioned but don't do the top few inches. Fill it with white foam packing peanuts. You will get a warm glow, people can't see in, and you get insulation. See scanned picture attached.

Mother earth news has some good articles. Have you tried the "Heat Grabber"? Cheap becauses it uses foam board (I got mine scrap). I use a cheap, small solar cell and small CPU fan to push it along but is NOT required.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/4238/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/457/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/2460/

http://www.motherearthnews.com/menarch/archive/issues/047/047_images/047-101-03.jpg http://www.motherearthnews.com/menarch/archive/issues/078/078_images/078-118-01i1.jpg http://www.motherearthnews.com/menarch/archive/issues/047/047_images/047-101-02.jpg


Average billing for electricity $55/month, average for natural gas $24/month, 2000 sq.ft. home. :D

[SmartAZ]

If you want light to come through those windows use clear 3M window film mentioned but don't do the top few inches. Fill it with white foam packing peanuts. You will get a warm glow, people can't see in, and you get insulation.
Remember, styrofoam burns like gasoline, although it takes a couple minutes to get started. You have to see this stuff go up to believe it. Be careful.

[north runner]

That was neat the way the window was being stuffed with insulation. I've thought about doing that if the temperature here is predicted to go below -30f for any length of time. Our heating system /wood couldn't keep up. We've got to many windows and they are cold. Just closing the drapes makes a noticable difference in temp. Our old house design though has doors and sliding doors that were meant to be closed when the temps drop. You find yourself being compressed into a smaller living space to keep warm and putting more blankets on the bed. :lol:

50f isn't so bad and you do get used to it :)