National Greed. Criminal Organization.

[SwampSurvivor]

Got my NATIONAL GREED bill for the month of January.

I've been conserving energy quite a bit this winter. Heating one room at a time, etc. Short showers.

$166. This is about quadruple what I've been paying the rest of the year. What a criminal organization they are. I would love to call and give them a piece of my mind ... but did that last year and they didn't do anything.

Only thing to do is use as little as possible. So, turning off the heat like I did this time last year - made for a cold month - and I will be taking cold showers.

I refuse to give more than the absolute bare minimum support to these criminal organizations. Just like Time Warner.

I feel very bad for those who cannot afford the quadrupling of electricity rates, especially when it's cold out.

Of course, this is going to be the norm since the "green" folks managed to get hydrofracking banned in this state.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Get ready for more. All of us will see huge rate increases if the EPA gets its agenda rammed through...

 

[OneEyeJack]

What do you mean, if the EPA agenda gets rammed through. The EPA answers to no one.

 

[Brons2]

Natural gas or electric?

We have a municipal power utility here and I am happy for it. Not only that, you can have clean electricity if you want it - costs .08 per kwh extra for the windpower from West Texas and local solar from farms outside the exurbs.

In my case, I'd prefer to keep using good ole LCRA coal power, so I don't pay the extra price.

 

[bigt61]

The EPA will answer to a new President. Let's hope it's not a Democrat.

 

[DoiInthanon]

Time to invest in a Kill-a-Watt meter. I found all kinds of loads in my house that were unneeded. From your post, I estimate you used ~800 kWh. You only need to cut ~150kWh to pay for the meter. After that, it is all gravy. Don't get screwed, get ahead

 

[mrsilv04]

“Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

You figure out who said it. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds.

Every time I get a little extra money, I buy insulation for my house. I caught blow-in fiberglass Insulation on a Black Friday special at the local Home Improvement store for half price. I rented a blower for $45 and blew it in myself. I doubled the insulation in my attic for less than $350. I should pick that back up in energy savings rather quickly.

I'm also adding insulation in my crawlspace, and I'm planning on installing an attic fan this spring, to control how warm my attic gets in the summer. Problem is, that still uses electricity... but if it allows the a/c to run less, then it is worth it.

 

[Al]

Criminal orginization. That frankly is an ignorant statement.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: DoiInthanon
Time to invest in a Kill-a-Watt meter. I found all kinds of loads in my house that were unneeded. From your post, I estimate you used ~800 kWh. You only need to cut ~150kWh to pay for the meter. After that, it is all gravy. Don't get screwed, get ahead


I have one and use it quite a bit. Pretty neat to see how much stuff draws power when not in use. But when I leave for work in the morning, everything but the refrigerator gets flipped off. I used 600KWh this month


Originally Posted By: mrsilv04
“Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

You figure out who said it. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds.

Every time I get a little extra money, I buy insulation for my house. I caught blow-in fiberglass Insulation on a Black Friday special at the local Home Improvement store for half price. I rented a blower for $45 and blew it in myself. I doubled the insulation in my attic for less than $350. I should pick that back up in energy savings rather quickly.

I'm also adding insulation in my crawlspace, and I'm planning on installing an attic fan this spring, to control how warm my attic gets in the summer. Problem is, that still uses electricity... but if it allows the a/c to run less, then it is worth it.


I live in an apartment that appears to be well insulated. Plus, I'm surrounded by college students that run their heat at 100 all the time.

I only use AC one or two days a year.

 

[bubbatime]

Is this a gas or electric bill? So if $166 is quadruple your "normal" bill, then you regularly pay around $45? Seems pretty cheap to me. I'd rather fork out the extra $100 for a comfortable home with warm showers than be miserable, but that's me.

Do they do budget billing where they average out your bill for the year and you pay about the same every month? I do that here so for that very reason. I would rather get a bill for $5 more than a bill for $125 more, and that's precisely what happens with the budget billing.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: Al
Criminal organization. That frankly is an ignorant statement.

Why ignorant? These governments, state, federal, local are nothing nothing more than an organized criminal enterprise run by elected criminals for their own personal and political gain and it goes right to the top.

JHC the last 3 MA house speakers are all convicted felons as are some of the city councilors.
They are sitting right now behind bars.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: bubbatime
Is this a gas or electric bill? So if $166 is quadruple your "normal" bill, then you regularly pay around $45? Seems pretty cheap to me. I'd rather fork out the extra $100 for a comfortable home with warm showers than be miserable, but that's me.

Do they do budget billing where they average out your bill for the year and you pay about the same every month? I do that here so for that very reason. I would rather get a bill for $5 more than a bill for $125 more, and that's precisely what happens with the budget billing.


Budget billing just spreads these highs across the other 12 months for a bit extra. I don't see a point in it. I can afford the electric bill. I can afford to heat my apartment to 80 if I wanted.

Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: Al
Criminal organization. That frankly is an ignorant statement.

Why ignorant? These governments, state, federal, local are nothing nothing more than an organized criminal enterprise run by elected criminals for their own personal and political gain and it goes right to the top.

JHC the last 3 MA house speakers are all convicted felons as are some of the city councilors.
They are sitting right now behind bars.



It's pretty clear that National Greed pays off the PSC. They are always being indicted for it.

 

[MalfunctionProne]

I always chuckled at how my old friend, "L," (the large lady I shared that famous Volvo with, now deceased) liked Massachusetts more-corrupt-than-usual.. government. She even mentioned why a National Grid tower still stands in Dorchester, close to the Boston Globe building, visible from 93. I remember the commute. Both by car, and the Red line on the T.

 

[eljefino]

Originally Posted By: bubbatime
Is this a gas or electric bill? So if $166 is quadruple your "normal" bill, then you regularly pay around $45? Seems pretty cheap to me. I'd rather fork out the extra $100 for a comfortable home with warm showers than be miserable, but that's me.


Yeah I'm curious as well. Do you get an electric rate lock-in for a set time, say, 12 months, that got reset this month? So did that combine with higher use for heating? Is your unit price higher as well as your use?

My electric supply is semi-deregulated (several choices) and by a bizzarre coincidence the "standard offer" is based on fossil fuel prices and the PUC set the rates (effective March 1- Feb 28) during this period of temproarily beneficial pricing.

And if it includes natural gas, are they allowed month-to-month reflections of "spot pricing" in your bill? I always understood that residential heat got priority from gas piping, which lead to wholesale price shocks, but that also home pricing was supposed to be immune from this.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

I have electric heat. I've got it down so it doesen't really too much. My bill would be well above $300 if I heated the apartment like a "normal" person.


They play with the delivery fees. That's really the only part over which they have control.

 

[SteveSRT8]

^^^I am sure how they get there is no comfort to those stuck with a choice between the ONLY provider available and nothing...

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
^^^I am sure how they get there is no comfort to those stuck with a choice between the ONLY provider available and nothing...


I'm that person!

The only choice I have, and WILL be making to avoid supporting them is turn off the heat and take cold showers

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Miller88


It's pretty clear that National Greed pays off the PSC. They are always being indicted for it.

In case you didn't realize it. No matter where you live you have the option of multiple suppliers. Its a free market. "Public" utilities have to jump through many hoops to get rate relief. And with multiple providers there isn't much incentive to do so. The biggest problem is that when States allowed free competition the service went to [censored]. Companies could not afford to keep extra crews to attend to storm damage, tree cutting, etc.

Electricity prices since the 1940 have been way lower than inflatiion indexes.

 

[Vuflanovsky]

Originally Posted By: Al
Criminal orginization. That frankly is an ignorant statement.


Unfortunately, I think that "criminal organization" is closer to the truth than not. I only have to look at my local area where the regional utility had an unmaintained and unmapped gas line explode and kill five people and 30 homes. They lied and obfuscated about it, covered up their involvement with the Public Utility Commission in rubber stamping all kinds of deals and have since paid multi-million dollar fines and are about to pay more. They shoved "Smart" meters down the throats of municipalities whose cities rejected and banned them and installed them anyway. Decades of sweetheart deals with local counties have driven a push for public power where I am and you can understand why. You only need to listen to the saccharin sweet ads they push constantly on local media about how they're "part of the community too" and "we live here" and every bit of tripe without specifics a PR agency can come up with to know they're full of s***. They should be thought of and called out as such in my mind as it's usually only death or people screaming that will change their status quo.

 

[refaller]

Are we expecting free electricity? Not sure what the problem is with a product that you pay to use and are charged by use. And my bills are way lower than most people- because I use less. Weird.

ref