Gas vs. Electric

[skybluepink02]

My hubby and I are looking into moving when our lease is up at the end of may. We came across a great old house that is for rent. It is 5 miles from downtown atlanta, and down the street from Emory University. This is an excellent neighborhood and the price she is giving us is well below what she could rent it for. She is willing to give us a couple months off of rent if we will help her fix it up a bit. It is just little things like moving some of her mother's stuff to the attic, and painting the outside a bit. I think this is a great opertunity, but am worried about one thing......


It is heated by gas. We haven't had any experiance with gas heat and, frankly, it scares us. Gas seems so expensive right now and we are worried that even though the rent is awesome, the price of gas will put us up over our budget. Here are the considerations

It is a 1950's house
Gas heat
It does have 2 fireplaces that could be used for heat
She is not opposed to us making the house more efficient (caulking windows and such)
It is solid brick.


What are ya'll's (is that a word? I'm so country) thoughts on the situation.

TIA
Chloe

[rabbithorns]

You can call the gas company and ask for usage during the past year. Give them the address and they will let you know the peak costs (like during the coldest months) or at least the annual average.

Some utility companies will let you pay a monthly average cost, but it often starts after your first year there so everyone knows what your average is. The at least you can budget the same amount each month. We used to do that in our house and when we moved into a smaller place (and it's an apartment), they said we could do the monthly average but it would be based on the previous tenant. They wanted me to pay $200 a month for our electric ON AVERAGE! OMG - We only paid $68 a month average in a house! (gas heat was separate, but even if you added heat as a cost it still wasn't nearly up to $200 a month ave.)

[Sharlla]

The only thing in my house that is gas is the water heater (which is turned down low and I don't have a dishwasher or washing machine) and the gas bill is the same as the electric bill every month. Outrageous. I can't imagine how much the bill would be if I were using gas for heating too.

[skybluepink02]

: anyone else have an opinion?

[kerc]

I have gas heat. I live in northern Minnesota and frankly I'd never have electric heat here (well, I might consider that radiant floor stuff)...I think gas heat *feels* warmer than electric, dunno why. I've lived in central NC in winter and the darn heat pump was never as warm as the gas here.

I second the notion to call and ask for a previous utility estimate. I pay my gas bill on a budget -- I pay the same every month based on last year's useage.

[root*children]

I would rent it, if I were you! The fireplaces are a big boon!

We have gas heat, and it does suck! I don't know how anyone can pay an average or whatever. We just pay for the guy to come out and fill up our tank. it can be as little or as much as we need. It costs an insane amount (like 1K for a long winter) for us. Our house is also VERY poorly insulated/efficient, the south-facing windows are completely shaded (no natural heat), etc. If we had fireplaces, we'd def. mostly use those.... but we don't (well, they are in the walls, but have been borded over!)

Another pro in your situation is you are in atlanta, not exactly a cold state, KWIM? I'm guessing your Winters are not usually very intense, so you wouldn't actually need more than a fireplace most of the time, right?

[skybluepink02]

That's right, root*children. In atlanta, the coldest part of winter is usually at or above freezing. I was thinking that we could use the fireplace for the majority of our heat. Also, winter doesn't start until after thanksgiving most years and it's warm again by march at the latest. I'm still on the fence about it, but thank you for the good opinions.

[kerc]

Originally Posted by root*children

We have gas heat, and it does suck! I don't know how anyone can pay an average or whatever. We just pay for the guy to come out and fill up our tank.

average for us: we don't have a tank, it comes via a natural gas line from the city. so they have a meter and bill us via meter, same as electric and water.

[caeden&connersmom]

Hi,

If you are talking natural gas, it is rather expensive. We had a small house, maybe 1000 square feet, with a forced hot air furnace and gas hot water heater (In PA). We had put in a brand new furnace and central A/C a couple of years ago. Our gas bill in the dead of winter went as high as $400.00 for ONE month. Right now we are paying the gas bill on the house still (We dont live there, we bought a new house and moved, but the old house has not sold yet so we are carrying that too) is about $170.00 and thats with the thermostat set at 50 and the house unoccupied!

Our current house is hot water baseboard heat and our electric bill at the highest so far was $155.00. No gas anything in the new house. Of course we now have to pay for oil to run the furnance and that set us back about $1000.00 for 3 months.

I think its a losing battle, but I think electric is cheaper.

Good luck with your decision!

[skybluepink02]

Just wanted to say welcome to caden&conners mom. It's her first post!!! I'm honored

[skybluepink02]

I also wanted to say that we decided to rent the house, mainly cause it's 500 dollars cheaper per month than anything else we can get in atlanta. We figure that for the price, it will more than make up for the cost of gas.

[Throkmorton]

Maybe in Atlanta your gas bills won't be as outrageous. Heh.

What we ended up doing was turning our gas waaay down, and putting electric baseboard heaters in the kid-free rooms for the coldest part of the winter here. Now that spring is here, we had a new furnace installed which is much more efficient so it might actually be cheaper for us to run the gas in the winter now.

[root*children]

thanks kerc That makes sense, in fact, we actually have oil heat, I was getting the two confused. We are new to it, this was our first winter with oil heat, ever. We moved here from CO, with my favorite form of heat which is a woodstove and south-facing windows! warm 'n cozy

[kewb]

You should invest in a programable thermostat, too. This way you can program it to a lower temp. when you are out of the house or for when you are sleeping.

[rachelmarie]

We have gas heat in a 1200 sq. ft. house in KY and our highest natural gas bills have been about $150 in the middle of winter. But we haven't had very cold winters the last couple of years so that has helped a lot.