How did that happen?

Saturday, 2:48 pm

By Kate

Dec

16

2006

The gas bill arrived yesterday and didn’t raise my blood pressure for once. But it does make me a little puzzled. I used exactly the same amount of gas this past month as I did during the same cycle last year—42 therms. If I remember correctly, we had much colder weather last year at this time and I burned the wood stove almost non-stop. This past month, it has been too warm outside to use the wood stove more than a few times. I think perhaps I’ve had a fire in the stove about 6 times in the past month. The rest of the time I’ve depended on my furnace with the thermostat set between 60° and 64°, depending on just how warm it has been outside.

Most days have been in the 40°-50° range with a few bursts of upper 50s. Not too much wind and several sunny days—enough to keep the house fairly warm without much furnace use. But still, I have used the furnace this year and I didn’t last year. And I’ve still used the same number of therms as the same cycle last year. So how come I used so much gas last year if I wasn’t using the furnace?

Of course, the lad was home taking a couple of showers a day and I was doing a lot more laundry. Maybe the difference is in hot water use. Guess I’ll find out in the coming month just what happens when the water heater is given a good workout. I *hope* it gets cold so I can use the wood stove or the next bill will undoubtedly send my blood pressure soaring. I kind of doubt most other people are complaining very much about the unusual warmth, though. Nevertheless, it’s a little aggravating to have a huge pile of prepaid heat sitting out back that I can’t use without roasting household inhabitants to a nice medium rare.