Winter Heating Bills

[jay]

My recent home heating bill was $76.00

[Billy Mumphrey]

Thanks TownTalk!

[Towntalk]

Billy: Here's the link to the Ohio H.E.A.P. program. It will answer all your questions for you.
https://development.ohio.gov/is/is_heap.htm

[Billy Mumphrey]

Allan-Thank you for the information.

[AllanY2525]

Billy - Dominion East Ohio has a budget payment plan, like most gas companies.  They
look at your bills for the last 12 months, take an average and set up a fixed monthly
budget payment amount.

Once a year, in the summer, they make adjustments to your budget payment if
your actual usage/bills are or more or less than projected the previous year.

My property on Illinois Ave by Wick park had a monthly budget payment of
over $400 when I bought the place several years ago.  My gas bills are now
down by almost 60% due to decreases in the price of natural gas in Y-Town
since that time.  Supply is much higher, thanks to shale plays and fracking.

Here in MD, we have H.E.A.P. - or Home Energy Assistance Program.  Help
is given proportionate  to your income, and our local laws here prohibit gas
companies from stopping service for non-payment during the coldest parts of winter. 

Youngstown area has home weatherization programs for low income
people - this helps to permanently reduce their fuel expenses,  versus
financial assistance with huge heating bills caused by older, poorly
insulated homes with drafty windows and doors, and inefficient heating
systems.

There are also local charities through the Catholic church(es) in Youngstown.
I have a friend who used to get help with his gas bills because because
he is retired, and low income.

[Youngstownshrimp]

Dennis,
Always have been a simple man, science has not yet enabled solar, wind or anything else to service mankinds guzzle for energy.  Natural gas and oil is it for now.

[Billy Mumphrey]

What assistance programs are out there if people have trouble making ends meet with this year's high heating bills?

[jay]

Irishbobcat,

Your comment made me think back to an article that was on the internet yesterday.
www.greencarreports.com/news/1089876_electric-cars-solar-will-they-make-gasoline-utilities-obsolete

[Towntalk]

When I was a child lo those many years gone by, weather like this was the norm, and folks heated their homes with coal. We were as snug as a bug in our homes, and as happy as Blue Birds singing their hearts out in the trees outside. We children didn't get any snow days off, nor did the schools close down because it was too chilly. We bundled up and went to school and had a jolly good time doing it.
Today's youth are spoiled silly and we wonder why we can't say that this is the greatest generation, while we heap more benefits on our children that they either need or deserve.
The only school bus service was to bring rural children into town and back home. Our lunch? We went home for lunch.
Oh and yes, people back then didn't need to be shamed into shoveling their sidewalks either.

[Irishbobcat]

Ron, we get it....gas makes more sense in the winter for heating....

but why are you so hell bent against solar and wind energy to help power America in the summer and reduce our need for fossil fuel then?

Are you so afraid that once wind or solar is more widely used scientists and engineers will eventually make alternative energy much more

energy efficient than fossil fuels and you'll no longer get a paycheck from grabbing land for fracking?

[jay]

and the water from the oceans and lakes vaporized, thanks to the sun

when cooled, the moisture falls to the earth as rain or snow

and the snow will melt thanks to the sun

[Towntalk]

By simple conservation and the fact that I'm on the budget plan, my little pile of moola inches upward, and it's no thanks to the "Anties", but then being the skin-flint miser that I am, I don't run around throwing my stash willy nilly at every new business that opens up around town.
Arther Godfry rightfully observed "For free, take; for buy, waste time."
I'm no expert on the topic of environmental issues, and don't pretend to be, but I learned a great many lessons on economics from my beloved Father and Mother who did come out of the Great Depression, and those lessons have served me well these many years, so I don't go off in a panic over the results of weather like we're having this month.
Look at it this way ... come spring the water supply will be greater thanks to the snow ... good clean water that Mother Nature has provided us with no intervention from the "Anties".

[Youngstownshrimp]

Notice how you don't hear or see any FrackPots detesting fracking as their as#%s freeze. 
I believe the animalistic part of their biology kicks in as they turn to self survival.
BG, Billy, Dennis and IWT are most likely saying "Damn its COLD, they need to FRACK more, I'm freezing my As# off 
It is because of Fracking that WE LOCALLY pay $4 while China and Europe pay $14

[Rick Rowlands]

Our nat gas budget is $60 a month.

[AllanY2525]

We got the arctic cold snap here in MD also.... my gas bill was about $240 for
end of December and first three weeks of January.