No More Black Gold In The Basement
Keith | 4 November 08 | Add your comment
So after ranting about Peak Oil, I suppose I should explain my efforts to curb my oil use. I’ll save the transportation discussion for another day. With gas prices dipping, people aren’t in freak-out mode right now (so we’ll wait a month or so when they start to rise again…there will be more interest in bicycling and bio fuels at that time).
Up until a month ago, my home was heated by oil. My big oil drum in the basement supplied the energy to both heat my home, and heat my hot water. I, like so many others, received my first oil bill of the new billing cycle this past August. I pay the oil company a monthly rate, so I can spread the payments out over 12 months rather than paying in lump sums throughout the winter. When I moved into my home 5 years ago, the monthly oil bill was $105. This year, it was $469 per month. Quick math: my home heating and hot water went from $1260/yr to $5628/yr in a matter of 5 years. The price may have dipped a bit in the last month or so, but let’s be honest, from here on out, it will rise significantly before it ever decreases significantly. So it was time to make a decision.
I decided to tell the oil company to never send a truck back to my house ever again. So now I’m NOT spending $5628 this year on oil. I’ve got to be able to use that money to keep my family warm AND continue to take hot showers without burning oil, right?
What say you?
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