Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Natural Gas is skyrocketing in price, too!

This is topic Natural Gas is skyrocketing in price, too! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-17-2004, 09:18 AM:

For years and years, TV advertised "clean inexpensive natural gas" to heat your home, your water, dry your clothes, etc.

Since 4/2003 to now in '04, my monthly gas bill has doubled. I just paid my third $200+ gas bill this heating season.

I've clocked my meter, and all of my appliances are running at the correct BTU rates. The furnace is old, but has been updated so that it no longer has a constant burning 'standing pilot.' Same thing for the hot water heater and clothes dryer. I keep the house temperature at 60 at night, and 65 when I want to really heat things up when I'm doing stuff.

Gasoline is high, natural gas is skyrocketing, food... well, you know... How can the middle class take this much longer? We dont seem to get the giant pay raises that we need, much less a 'cost of living raise' which is never enough.

How bad is the costs of heating your homes this winter?

My house is 1000 square feet. New windows, gas furnace, water heater, kitchen oven, and range, and dryer. I rarely cook anything! Nothing has a standing pilot, either. When everything is turned OFF, the gas meter does not move at all.

Any other testimonials?

Posted by Floyd Justin Newton (Member # 1316) on 03-17-2004, 09:27 AM:

Yes....it's called GREED of the Powers That Be! The more these
monkeys make the more they have to have. Where's it going to
end... when we are all up to our scalp-tops in [bs]

!

fjn

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 03-17-2004, 09:56 AM:

My gas bill is well over double this year and I just installed new high efficiency burners in the furnace as well
Maybe we need to reinvestigate the recycling of methane from sewage treatment plants or the return to coal gas

Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 03-17-2004, 06:35 PM:

Need to investigate your insulation levels in your house's.
My motto, if the furance has to kick on, there's not enough insulation in the building.
2100sq ft, last months bill $105.00 total.
I have 8" of fiberglass in the walls and 30" in the attic.

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-17-2004, 10:17 PM:

My place, built in 1924, has new windows, as mentioned before. The walls are plaster on wood. There's blown fibreglass insulation in the wall cavities. Smoke from a candle used to move away from the old windows.

You should have been here for the blizzard of '93 with me. This was before the new windows. Furnace ran all night, cycling constantly.

Just replacing the windows really changed the noise levels that I hear on the street outside, too.

I can imagine what kind of gas bill I would have if I still had the old winders... Plastic sheeting on th' windows in the winter? Not ever again.

This house had a large original coal-fired furnace that I stoked for the first 2 winters after I got the place. Then, I replaced the whole heating system in 2 days, and added A/C and an electronic air cleaner. 1989, I think.

Posted by John Hegel (Member # 628) on 03-17-2004, 10:58 PM:

I have found with my house and its high efficiency furnace it cost me less to keep the temp at a steady 72 degrees rather then setting it back at night.

I do not know if turning the burner down is saving me any money, but I like to think it does. The air coming out of the floor vents is not hot but probably around 80-85 degrees. On a cold day when it is -10 outside the burner will cycle on for about 10 min. and then off for 15. I also keep the fan running all of the time to aid in keeping an even temp through out the house.

This winter my highest bill was $110 for 1000 square feet.

My parents 4500 square foot house is mostly heated by the in-floor heat on the lower level and there bills are always lower then mine... thats something to think about

They too also keep the furnace fan running on low speed(must be nice to have speed settings)

Hope that helps some.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 03-18-2004, 08:48 AM:

It's difficult to justify the assertion that you would not have a small savings by setting the stat back at night. All things being equal the need to pump the temperature back up in the morning versus simply leaving it constant would be a wash. In reality it's not equal because the amount of heat movement between two points is always directly related to the temperature difference. If the house is a few degrees cooler then the heat loss to the outside will be slightly less. And both while maintaining this temperature and while heating it back up in the morning the slightly lower room air temperature will increase the heat transferrence across the furnace heat exchanger giving a slight rise in efficiency. These things in practice may be very small especially if the house is very well insulated. But they should still be there at some level.

That said, I would rather keep the temperature constant and I'm annoyed that the thermostat I bought (a very simple digital version of the Honeywell Round One) insists on having two programmed temp/time cycles. A nice feature if you want to use it but I feel it should be optional and on this model it is not. You can walk up to the 'stat and raise or lower the current temp setting but next time the time hits the start of the next time period it reverts to its programmed setting. You can set the times each of the two periods is in effect and the temperature settings for both but you can't disable fact that it follows a programmed schedule and just have it sit at whatever temp you casually set it for and will always revert back to. It's not difficult to change the programmed settings but as I said it ought to be optional that it's following a program.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 03-18-2004, 02:03 PM:

I have a 2600 square foot home and kept it at a very comfy 75 degrees all winter long, and took long hot showers and washed all my dishes in hot hot water and my clothes too. I even washed my car in hot water.

Total heat bill each month was $145. Where the hell do you live man? They must be really jacking you guys! Totally not cool.

Dave

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 03-18-2004, 03:40 PM:

Living in the SOuth does have it's advantages I guess...

My highest power bill (electric heat pump here) was $140ish... I leave the thermostat set at 70 unless it was bone chilling cold. Our house is approx. 1250sq. ft' heated and is 8 years old.

The normal bill durung the summer is in the 90-110 range. I keep the thermostat set around 68/70 all summer... I dont' make chnages for teh day/night as the unit has to work even harder to get the interior back to the temperature chosen, like Steve mentioned.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-18-2004, 06:29 PM:

I have about 1500 sq ft and my biggest gas bill was about $120.00 this past winter. This palce does have new thermal pane windows but an older furnace and not too much insulation upstairs. All in all, not much higher than my old place near downtown SLC....which was about the same size.

Mark @ CLACO

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 03-18-2004, 07:20 PM:

I live a few thousand feet above Jason. [Smile]

I tend to agree with the idea of having to re-heat the inside of the house.

Honeywell makes "The Round" and its main model name is T87F. It has been a best seller thermostat for them since the 1950's.

I have a version of the Round that has a humidistat built-in. It's new old stock from 1976. The house maintains its temperature well.

I think I will clock my gas meter for awhile and just leave the thermostat at 65. The heating season is almost over here!

Posted by John Hegel (Member # 628) on 03-24-2004, 01:48 AM:

Does anyone know in general BTU for BTU, which fuel is less expensive for heating a building: natural gas or fuel oil.

If it turns out with my project I do not have the resources for new heating and cooling this year, what would you run?

The boiler has newer burners 10 years old and is set-up to run either fuel sources.

I do not know a lot about steam heat, but from what I have gathered (please correct me if I am wrong) steam is very efficient in its nature. I was told that the water retains its heat well enough in the boiler that having a huge system with very little demand (heat) will not cause me an efficiency problem (i.e. losing all my heat up the chimney).

My situation is: The boiler in the building has two 11 million BTU (high fire) burners on it, capable of heating 325K square feet. If I close all of the zone valves except for the auditorium (25K square feet)and only run one burner at low fire (3 million BTU) will I have any extreme inefficiencies running it this way?

This is what I have been told by people that have never actually tried it, so any advice will be greatly appreciated.