#1159 – BTU
Posted on November 19, 2010 at 12:00 am by Chris
Chapter: Comics
A few years ago natural gas prices got really crazy and winter got really chilly. This led to a gas bill that was over $1,000 for the 3 coldest months. I think that was right around the time we bought an electric blanket and a bunch of sweatshirts.
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That’s why he should be using propane.
Kinda defeats the point of getting your bill in small print, if you immediately magnify it again…
Ouch for heating bill. Here in the desert, in a full sized house, we had about the same for summer air conditioning bill. =(
If we didn’t have the AC on during the day, the inside of the house would get well over 130 F… even with windows open. I know this because I had the misfortune of having to stay in our house when the power was cut for several days.
Maybe that would cause my mom to turn the dam heat down to the point where I am not hot…
In a second effort to lower the level of shock a small image of a dancing patato was added to the back of the paper
How soon we forget the Enron’ing of many of us. Winter 2000-01, about $300/mo — in SoCal!
Kerosene furnace. 6 years ago is was cheaper than gas, back before the rise in prices. Now its more expensive. It’s cheaper to make, but sells for more…
Our heating bill used to be terrible too – we had an ancient oil heater that was literally so old that we had to have a technician come out to refill it. In the end the one business who sold the stuff for it and refilled it shut down, so we went and got a reverse-cycle heater/airconditioner. Our electricity bill is now the terrible one. The worst part is that because we have a strange L-shaped house, we can only ever get one half of it warmed/cooled.
(I still think we should have gotten a fireplace installed – firewood is at the most $5/kg around here, and if you go out further to where people are doing a lot of land clearing for housing you can get it for nothing if you ask the foreman nicely.)
Isolating is the key to reduce heating bills! I never understand why american houses are so poorly isolated. I live in central europe, all houses there have thight walls, and windows with two or even three layers of glass.
I think (hope?) you mean ‘insulation’, Guy. And yeah, when I lived in Main, we had thick multi paned windows, but, I don’t know how well the house itself was insulated, since it had been built in the late 1700’s originally.
Isolated, yeah, there, our nearest neighbor was a quarter mile down the road either way, so, yes, we were isolated as well. =D
We have an old house with a bathroom on an outside wall. If the temps went below 10 degrees, wet towels would freeze to the wall. Insulation rules!
Mmmh, a really good house is the one who barely needs heating or cooling. Anyway I guess that is only aplied on temperate zones like mine, there isnt any temperatures you couldnt avoid just getting more or less clothing.
Landlord pays the gas bill, but my electric bill this summer….
yeah, i’m from texas and our electric bill (even though we kept the house at a barely tolerable temperature) was always well over 400 bucks in the summer -__- but then i moved to colorado for a while with my husband, and our apartment only had a window thingie (kept the house nice and cool too) and, during the summer, the electric bill was about 25 bucks… TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS o.O i was so confused that i asked the landlord if that was really right, and it was ^__^ so crazy, but i guess that the heating bill would be pretty high in the winter, it sure isn’t high at all in texas, lol, it’s 70 degrees half the time in the winter ^^’
For the past three nights I have sat in my flat, my oven open at full blast, wrapped in blankets, reading the entire Biff archive. This comic is full of awesome and will now be added to my daily routine.
Thank you, that is all.
@Random Girl! – Congrats! (stay warm and safe!)
…Idaho. You people with your actual weather changes…
Propane is a monthly need and average yearly can sometimes exceed a family’s income.
I’m lucky. I have a US Military (Surplussed) Extreme Cold Weather sleeping bag.
Never….wake…the sleeping bag!!
I dont see peoples facination of its 60 degrees outside WE NEED IT TO BE 80-90 degrees inside the house,….
In the winter i sleep with my door shut and my windows wide open, even in 10 degree weather, i love the cold. i can always put my clothes on if im cold, not the same if im hot…public nudity isnt aloud
ooh yeah, electric heat. Terribly inefficient, and can triple your monthly electric bill. Especially here in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (Don’t know what part of Mich I’m taling bout, not suprised, look it up) Anyway, WOW, it took me a LONG time, but I have finally reached the most recent Biff! Started from the beginning a week ago, and read every night…….wait…NOW what am I supposed to do?!?!?!
I dont have this problem.
I have a SEVERE hate of heat.
I will willingly stand outside in freezing conditions in a t-shirt and shorts.
I just don’t FEEL the cold. Probably because all of my fat keeps me warm. Like a seal, but less furry.
@Joe Burke – Well Done!
You dont have to worry though, its a comic every day Mon-Fri (*or was, last time I checked*) So you wont get bored!
Then again, according to my memory, Chris re-reads the archives PERMANENTLY…
…I think he said that in a comment once? I dunno…
…crap, I’m wittering.
I’ll shut up now.
@Miles: Yes, I meant Insulation. Sorry for the error which comes from my german mother tongue. In this Language the word “Isolation” is used for insulation and isolation.
@Joe – Nice! See you on Monday!
Try growing up in cheaply built, military housing in northern Alberta. People would pile hay bales and pack snow around the foundation walls for insulation, and one of our neighbours had their living room window fall out of the wall, in January. Anything left against an outside wall would freeze to the wall, and snow would come in through cracks in the window frames.
I don’t really care about the heating bill. Namely because I still live with my parents. Our house was built in 2007 so we’ve been lucky to stay warm in winter.