Natural Gas Factored Over Entire Heating Season

Yesterday I wrote about how energy and water conservation pays off (here). Wouldn't you know that this morning the notice that our gas bill was available online so I had to check to see if adding in the periods of April 22 to May 26, 2008 and April 24 to May 25, 2009 would affect the overall natural gas comparison. Including the 2009 month that was not available when I wrote the article, did make a significant difference although it did not change the final trend. Rather than re-write the entire article I will give the comparison with including the additional month's data.

Eight Month Comparison

The data being compared is for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 heating period. Specifically this is from Sep. 26, 2007 to May 26, 2008 and Sep. 24, 2008 to May 25, 2009 totaling 8 months in each heating period. Adding that extra month to each heating period changed the average monthly temperatures and total gas used for both periods. The average monthly temperature in the 2007-08 heating season was 3.5ºC. A total of 2055.856 cubic meters of natural gas was used. The average monthly temperature in the 2008-09 heating season was 2.625 ºC. A total of 1971.58 cubic meters of gas was used. We actually used 84.276 cubic meters less of natural gas in the 2008-09 heating season despite it being a colder period and with the suspected small gas leak. That is even more encouraging than when I first wrote the article. The important thing is even if we had used the same amount of gas it would have been an indication the house was sealed tighter than the year before. Actually being able to reduce our consumption showed the effectiveness of the sealing we have done to this point. Including the extra month showed that using the gas fireplace rather than the furnace as the weather warmed really did make a difference. If we use this method a bit more on each end of the 2009-10 heating season along with additional sealing, I expect to see a further reduction in cubic meters of natural gas used!

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