They say it's around 15 cents per KWH in my end of the state... it varies wildly by the area, state, & energy taxes/tarrifs or other hidden charges, & by the month.
When I do the math including all those taxes, & other charges per what I actually use, it's about 18-20 cents per KWH... varying a little month to month. Although they claim they haven't changed their rates in a long time, all those countless little charges & taxes change all the time.
It's like our $50-$70 phone bills shows half the charges are just taxes/tarrifs, state connection fees, emergency services fees... etc. But if you check with the FCC, local government, state, & federal offices you find they're not charging nowhere near that much as it shows they're charging on our bills. It's all a corporate ploy under the disguise of taxes, & government charges to steal more money out of us.
Most people around here heat with clean burning plentiful cheap natural gas. Most states are sitting on top of tons of it. If you pump enough O2 deep underground most states would explode the state off the map because there's so much natural gas underground. Gas is also a natural by-product of refining oil into other products like gasoline/petrol. But you wouldn't know it was plentiful & cheap around here by how much they actually charge for it.
Here in America they don't charge by how much it costs or how plentiful it is, they charge by how much we need it. They don't charge a lot for water though because it's everywhere. If they charged too much, people would collect it in barrels when it rains, or get some by just digging a whole in the ground. But it's a lot most work & money for your average person & resources to create & get their own (preferrably clean) energy.
It's like an injection to treat people with severe allergic reactions, & prevent them from dieing, costs the drug companies a couple bucks to make per injection. But if you or your child need it, you have to pay $250-$450 for it.
I don't use my gas fired furnace too much. In my small apartment, it's a through-the-wall mounted unit on one side of the apartment in a room I use to mostly just store my stuff. I live in the middle of the place, the kitchen is also near the middle, & the bathroom is on the other end from the furnace.
So on a cold night like last night, I would have to have the heat on high enough in the storage room for it to get real hot in there, & leave the door open with a fan at the door, to get it just warm enough where I actually live, eat, & sleep -- while the bathroom would still be freezing. So I leave the heat on the main furnace off on just on low to help out on the coldest nights while I use an electric heater in the main area to keep things bearable.
It's not normally cheaper to heat with electricity. But it's cheaper for me rather than heat one room that I don't use to uncomfortably hot temperatures, to get the middle of the place just bearable, & still not get enough heat to the bathroom.
I keep a heater in the very cold bathroom too, but as long as it's warm enough for the pipes not to freeze I don't use it just to go to the bathroom. I used to do a lot of camping & hiking year-round, so am used to going poo or pee with no heat. I just use the bathroom heater to warm it up enough to wash up, take a bath, or shower. It would be way too cold in there naked or wet.
I was fortunate the last 2 months though. It was unusually warm for winter most days. We just had the warmest Feb. on record for my town (had the coldest just a couple years ago). My heat costs are down a bit. My hot water is free with the apartment, so I save a little on that too. It's a small place, so it's cheaper to heat than any place I lived before.
On milder days when there's not too much wind & it's above 40F(4C) outside, I may need no heat on at all. Just doing a normal amount of cooking for meals, making coffee, running a computer or 2 seems to generate enough heat on those milder days to be comfy. My old 1970s refrigerator also gives of a lot of heat off the back when running.
When sleeping, I'm not cooking or running computers, & the fridge don't kick on much. But under warm blankets, I'm cozy even when I let it get down to 45F(7C) inside. The kitties can cuddle each other or me if they get cold. But most of the time, they like the cold. They don't like much heat. We're so used to a cooler climate, many of us born here may not bother putting on a coat at 40-50F(4-10C)
This small place has a bad effect in the summer though. An 80F(27C) day outside would make it over 90F(32C) inside with the few small windows I have open, & fans running in them. If it got to the upper 80s, it could get over 100F(38C) in here & be uninhabitable for most used to the colder climate around here.
I can't take the high humidity Buffalo summer heat -- I literally show signs of heat stroke if it gets too hot & humid. With COPD I can't breathe in high humidity. I also can't breathe unfiltered dirty air well anymore.
So running AC with a couple air filters also running, my energy bills are higher in the summer than in a "normal" winter. But we never have a normal winter anymore. We had a couple rough extra cold winters, with winter-sized heating bills right through cold winter-like springs.
St. Patricks day just a couple years ago was 20 degrees colder than Alaska at the same time. It was snowing in April. There was a snow mound so big at the local train station that didn't fully melt until the middle of July. That is not normal for us.
Betty's Pub 20.1
Topic: Sissy stuff to keep warm with during the "VORTEX"? (Read 98924 times)
