Outrageous National Grid gas bill

[shadwell10201]

I was actually able to get a run down of "therms" from my last apartment. EVERYTHING was gas, even the dryer...and we were a family of 6.The most used in a month was March, at 150 therms. Zero insulation in the apartment and super drafty.

So if it says I'm using 56 therms in 4 days, that's what ? 3 or 4 times the amount of gas used ? Makes no sense at all and it's so outrageous that there has to be some type of meter or billing issue, IMO.

The windows in this place are really not that old or drafty! And it's not drafty at all. The furnace does kick on and off alot, especially at night but still..56 therms in 4 days is like paying for the entire building!!

Thanks for all the replies! I truly appreciate it. I'll let you know how I make out on this.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by shadwell10201

Does anyone know if all the gas companies charge for "delivery" by the therm? Because if you look at the bill, the delivery costs more than the actual gas used. So the more gas used, the higher the delivery charge. Doesn't make sense to me as they have to delivery the gas regardless.

That's not really a "fixed" rate right ? Or am I misunderstanding?

I haven't looked at a gas bill in years, as my last apartment we had paperless billing and my ex wife paid everything. But just seems odd to charge delivery by the therm.

Southern New England is held hostage by the pipeline companies. There is a pipeline capacity problem provoked by electric power generation shifting from coal and nukes to natural gas. Any time a pipeline company tries to expand capacity, they get sued by the NIMBY people falsely waving the carbon footprint flag. It's not like we're ever going to add nukes and solar/wind are only a partial solution. The NIMBY people also sue to slow down running power lines down from Quebec Hydro since they're "dangerous" so there's no choice but to use natural gas to generate electricity. We all pay. The energy costs in most of New England are outrageous and far more than most of the rest of the country pays. With all the fracking just to the west of New England, natural gas should be dirt cheap.

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Southern New England is held hostage by the pipeline companies. There is a pipeline capacity problem provoked by electric power generation shifting from coal and nukes to natural gas. Any time a pipeline company tries to expand capacity, they get sued by the NIMBY people falsely waving the carbon footprint flag. It's not like we're ever going to add nukes and solar/wind are only a partial solution. The NIMBY people also sue to slow down running power lines down from Quebec Hydro since they're "dangerous" so there's no choice but to use natural gas to generate electricity. We all pay. The energy costs in most of New England are outrageous and far more than most of the rest of the country pays. With all the fracking just to the west of New England, natural gas should be dirt cheap.

This isn't a price issue. Its a amount of use, or meter, issue. But hey, rant on about awesome fossil fuels.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by timberline742

This isn't a price issue. Its a amount of use, or meter, issue. But hey, rant on about awesome fossil fuels.

Let's see how long your heat and lights stay on without fossil fuels or am I mistaken and you have a panel on the roof of your apartment? The United States will never build another nuke. Northern New England sues any time someone wants to run high tension lines from Quebec to Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The question was "what is a delivery charge"? It's how the energy cartel holds us all hostage and doubles our natural gas and electric bills.

[robr2]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Southern New England is held hostage by the pipeline companies. There is a pipeline capacity problem provoked by electric power generation shifting from coal and nukes to natural gas. Any time a pipeline company tries to expand capacity, they get sued by the NIMBY people falsely waving the carbon footprint flag. It's not like we're ever going to add nukes and solar/wind are only a partial solution. The NIMBY people also sue to slow down running power lines down from Quebec Hydro since they're "dangerous" so there's no choice but to use natural gas to generate electricity. We all pay. The energy costs in most of New England are outrageous and far more than most of the rest of the country pays. With all the fracking just to the west of New England, natural gas should be dirt cheap.

Geoff - I will respectfully disagree. The issue isn't a pipeline capacity, it's storage capacity. IIRC, all the pipelines proposed are in order to export the gas overseas, not supply the Northeast. If we had capacity to store gas that was purchased in the warmer months, we could lower winter costs - maybe.

Here's a graphic from wiki showing where and how natural gas is stored:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natura...sStorage_5.gif

We don't have natural caverns or empty aquifers to store much and we would still have a NIMBY reaction if we tried to build hundreds/thousands of these all over New England:

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

Let's see how long your heat and lights stay on without fossil fuels or am I mistaken and you have a panel on the roof of your apartment? The United States will never build another nuke. Northern New England sues any time someone wants to run high tension lines from Quebec to Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The question was "what is a delivery charge"? It's how the energy cartel holds us all hostage and doubles our natural gas and electric bills.

Nope. That really wasn't the question. It was about using 50+ therms in 4 days. Good try though.


And yes, we have solar on our building. Its great.