Heating bills set to rise -- for different reasons
| Tuesday, Dec 01 2009 06:48 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Dec 01 2009 06:48 PM
Energy saving tips from The Utility Reform Network
KEEP THE HEAT IN
* Weatherize your home by caulking and weather-stripping all doors and windows. Also use locks on your windows to make them tighter and draft resistant.
* Insulate or increase the amount of insulation in your attic, basement and outside walls. Also cover wall air conditioners to prevent cold air from leaking into your home.
* Reducing air leaks could cut 10 percent from an average household's monthly energy bill. The most common places where air escapes homes are: floors, walls, ceilings, ducts, fireplaces, plumbing penetrations, doors, windows, fans, vents and electrical outlets.
* Keep shades and curtains open during the day on the south side of your home to allow solar heating. Close them at night to retain heat.
MAXIMIZE EFFICIENCY
* Don't block your radiators or heating vents with furniture or draperies. Keep your radiators, registers and baseboard heaters dirt and dust free. Close vents and doors in unused rooms.
* Have your heating system serviced once a year and regularly replace furnace filters. During the heating season, change or clean furnace filters once a month.
TURN DOWN THE HEAT
* Set your thermostat no higher than 68 degrees when you are home and lower the temperature when you go to bed or when you are not at home. For every degree you lower your thermostat you save about 2 percent off your heating bill.
* Turn your water heater down to 120 degrees Fahrenheit to save money on your energy bill. If you have children in the house, this is also a safety measure.
Call TURN at 800-355-8876 for more information.
Customers of PG&E and The Gas Co. can learn about the various programs offering discounted natural gas service by attending a workshop later this month in Bakersfield. It is scheduled to take place from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Dec. 18 at Kern County Superintendent of Schools, 1300 17th St., Bakersfield. More information is available online at www.cpuc.ca.gov.
If there's any money left to squirrel away, you might want to stash a few bucks. The latest forecasts call for slightly higher winter heating bills around Kern County.
The increases aren't steep -- Southern California Gas Co. calls for a roughly 4 percent rise in the average bill paid by its residential customers in November through March. That's the same size bump Pacific Gas and Electric Co. forecasts for this month's average bill.
But talk of higher winter heating bills comes as something of a surprise in light of national expectations for lower wholesale prices for natural gas, Kern's primary fuel for keeping homes toasty.
The Gas Co. and PG&E emphasize that their forecasts are rough estimates that can vary depending on the weather, individual customer usage and actual market prices. Also, their predictions are systemwide, irrespective of local conditions and usage patterns. They further note that the prices are "pass-through," meaning customers pay higher or lower prices according to the utilities' own costs.
An interesting aspect of all this is that the two utilities -- Kern's two main providers of natural gas for home heating -- on Tuesday provided very different explanations for their forecasts of higher bills ahead.
For The Gas Co., the higher prices ($73 predicted for this winter's average gas bill as compared with $70 last winter) stem from having more non-Western U.S. buyers going to the same low-price suppliers that have for years provided the company and its customers with bargain prices, spokeswoman Denise King said. She also noted that natural gas production is dropping, which tends to push up prices across the country.
The forecast could easily change, she said, adding that the utility purchases its gas according to complex, proprietary mix of strategies including storing gas in the summer and buying some gas under contract for future delivery.
"As we move through the winter and we know what our actual purchase costs are, (average bills) could possibly go lower, and (they) could possibly go slightly higher," King said.
PG&E, on the other hand, said its predictions for higher bills are based on cost increases for transportation and social programs that include discounts for poorer customers.
Company spokesman David Eisenhauer said PG&E's average residential gas bill this month would be $62.28, up from $59.84 a year before. He provided data showing that January's forecast -- $90.92 for an average bill -- would be about 6 percent lower than that of January 2009.
Those figures are also based on an expectation that temperatures will be colder this winter than last.
"If it turns out that it is warmer and customers don't use as much," he said, "then their bills will be lower -- their total bill will go down accordingly."
A meteorologist with the National Weather Service said there's no guarantee of that. The outlook as of Tuesday, he said, called for a 40 percent chance of above-normal rain for the season, which could mean lower overall temperatures.
"It's still kind of up in the air," said the meteorologist, Michael Bingham.
For those who depend more on firewood, heating prices may not go up at all.
The owner of Niles Firewood in Bakersfield said he's keeping the price of a cord of almond at $258, not including a delivery charge. He said that does not include the higher sales tax rate this year over last.
"We just kind of ate the price that went up" as a result of the higher tax, he said.
