Question about natural gas-serious help only please!!?

Question

I live in an apartment with my husband and 2 small children. We have natural gas, which runs our hot water, heat, and stove. I need some tips on lowering my bill. i know shorter showers, keep thermostat lower, use stove less. I s there anything else I should know? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Only other thing is insulation....covering windows with plastic, sealing outside doors. Biggest saving will be lowering thermostat.

Answer 2

A couple things can perhaps help. One involves the thermostat. You can get a fancy one that will let you (laboriously) program it for higher and lower temperatures. So you could have it lower at, say, 11pm if you go to bed at midnight and stay lower until 6am if you get up at, say, 6:30am. Then lower again before you leave the house empty for work. That kind of thing can work well if you set the lowering for a while before the time it is "needed" - like an hour before bedtime, not right at or after bedtime. That way, the system will not fire up that one last time to the higher temperature. Another thought on the thermostat is to put it in the space that you most typically use or at least in a well-ventilated spot. At night, for instance, what do you care if the living room is 70 F — you're in the bedrooms! If you were getting a new system, you could have it zoned while they do the ductwork (lol, yeah, while they do the ductwork — you ain't getting away with just buying a furnace from anyone!) to take advantage of that fact.

Second, determine when the readings are taken. Almost every gas comapny makes a guess every other month or two of every three months rather than taking an actual reading. Most offer a customer the opportunity to take readings and enter them on a web-site. Do so a day or two before the "next reading date" and you might find your bills smoother over time, more to your expectations. For instance, instead of an estimate in April that is wild beyond belief, giving you a credit that carries over until August, you would pay only for reality and then have smallish bills rather than a running credit as you use the gas in the summer. This pattern on their part is an OLD dodge used by gas companies for a century but stopped by no PUC anywhere. So stop it yourself and pay only as you use the gas.

Answer 3

Here are some basics that work for me:

1) Set back thermostat: This lowers your thermostat at night and turns it back up just before you get up in the morning. You can also program it for different days and, if no one is there during the day, shut off the heat then too.

2) Heat the rooms you are in... not the house. If you are spending most of your time in just a few rooms, then shut down the gas heat for the house and just warm the few rooms with an electric heater. Save the house heat for the weekends

3) Electric blankets for the cold nights..not a warm room. Electric blankets cost about 2 cents a night and unless you or your kids are sick (or nightmares - yeah I remember my kids and those) they will not be getting out of bed.

4) If you can afford it by an instant hot water heater. There is no pilot. It only comes on when you need hot water so it does not run all day keeping the stored water hot.

5) Fireplace? Get a fireplace insert and you can damn near warm the whole house for a couple of logs a night.

6) Shorter showers vs. flow restrictors. Get a new shower head that puts out less water.. that saves you on hot water.

7) A microwave cooks faster and better on frozen food and prepackaged stuff.. use that and you will save energy on the oven (and it can re-nuke a cup of cold coffee really fast)

8) Again, if you can afford it, replace the stove with a pilotless ignition. That will save a bit.

Lastly.... check with your local utility company. Sometimes they have programs on rebates, low or zero interest loans for insulatio or appliances, and even a free service that will come to your house to help you identify where you can save money on energy use.

Good luck...

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Answer 4

Your biggest use of natural gas is probably your heating bill. So anything you do to reduce that will give you the most bang for your buck. Lowering the thermostat to 68 will save, especially lowering it when no one is at home. Insulating the house, storm windows on the windows (or if you don't have those, get the plastic ones that shrink to fit with blow dryer heat) are some of the typical ways to conserve heat. Get some throw blankets so you can lower the thermostat even more and keep everyone warm under a blanket.

Answer 5

Insulating the water heater and pipes insulation and putting up blinds and plastic over the windows will help with that. the blinds would probably be more expensive than the cost of your rising heating bill. Change the air filter, the cheapo ones they put in cost around 59 cents and need to be changed every 30 days, yearly cost about 7 or 8 bucks. The filter gets clogged and you heater has to work harder and use up more gas. You will probably save around 4 or 5 dollars a month. Also keep the lights off when you aren't using them. Even plan a family night just using candles and board games where nothing electrical, if your children are old enough they might even think it is fun (act like you are having a pioneer night) I know that when we had 4 "pioneer" nights a month (fridays for us) we saved like $10 on the electric bill that month

Answer 6

I used to be a gas service technician for a gas utility company. I would recommend calling your gas supplier and explain to them of your high bills and request a leak check. I have seen in apartment buildings where the pipes go to other apartments. You could be paying for someone else's gas usage. They can do a shut in test of the system and tell you if there are any leaks on the system.

Other ways to save is use a programmable thermostat. Don't turn it above 68. At night and when your gone to work turn way down. Also turn your thermostat down on your water tank. For every degree or two you turn it down you can save 2-3%. Cook stoves generally do not use that much gas as they are only rated at about 44,000 btu's on average. Your big savings will come on your furnace and water tank.

Also ask your apartment manager to have your furnace serviced. Depending on the age of the unit this could be costing you big. Most older units are 80% efficiency unit. That means for every dollar you spent to heat your home 20 cents of that dollar is going up the flue.

But start with getting a leak check first.

Answer 7

Check the seals around the windows. This is where you lose the most heat.

Get a programmable thermostat. There are $50-$100 but well worth it. You can program it to go off in the morning and come back on when you get home, or go down at night.
We used to set ours to 60 at 10 pm (of course it wouldn't actually get to 60 until 2-3 am) and 68 at 5 am, then 60 at 6 am, 68 at 3 pm. So it's colder when we are sleeping and not in the house.

Saves a LOT of money. Worth it.

Answer 8

You can get a insulation blanket for your hot water heater and for the pipes. We keep our house set on 58, dress warm and use space heaters in the bed rooms at night. We're saving over $20 a month heating this way.

Answer 9

get really good honeycomb blinds for all of your windows and keep them closed unless the sunshine is comming in the window. Most of your homes heat escapes from your windows.

Answer 10

NOPE-THAT'S PRETTY MUCH IT-SOUNDS LIKE YOU FIGURED IT OUT-NATURAL GAS IS CHEAPER THAN ELECTRICITY-AT LEAST WHERE I LIVE-YOU MIGHT WANT TO CAULK ANY CRACKS OR GAPS YOU MAY HAVE AROUND YOUR FLOORS, DOORS AND WINDOWS-THAT'S WHAT I DID -I HAVE NATURAL GAS ALSO-ONLY I HAVE A 2 BDRM HOUSE-MAKE SURE YOU CAULK UNDER YOUR WINDOW SILLS ALSO AND USE PAINTABLE CAULK.