Energy efficiency gone wild

It was time to open up the bills and pay them. The Ohio Edison bill fell out of its envelope and into my astonished hands. I gripped the bill and drew it closer to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. My bill for the month of December came to $174.47. Holy jumping kilowatts!

In November, I had achieved my lowest kilowatt reading ever -- only 344 for the entire month. My highest reading of the year since Dec 06 was 549 in Sept 07. Suddenly, the bill read 1,514. Surely, there must be a mistake.

My house is small and I have been assiduous in conserving energy. All the bulbs are CFLs and I regularly turn off a power strip that supplies my computer, router, printer after I am done with them.

So a call to Ohio Edison was in order. Indeed, the meter reader had added an extra 1000 to my reading. The very professional customer service operator fixed it right away and I'll get a new bill soon for much less. My monthly electric bills have been reaching down toward the mid 40s per month this year.

November's gas bill, now that the heat is on full time, has risen to $86.97 and it is not going to drop any time soon. Brrrrr.