by Mj Ferruzza

Created on: December 18, 2007

We have a national natural gas line in place.
It has been paid for for years. Other than
maintenance it is literally cost-free.
Natural gas comes from the ground. It is not produced
by any corporation. It is not refined. Why does it
cost more and more each year? Because some idiot doesn't
order enough for his or her region months in advance.
This is the same for heating your home over the winter.

It isn't planned in advance. You can caulk a window
from the outside if you think about it before you
start raking leaves in the fall. You can buy furnace
filters in bulk from Sam's Club. You can put plastic
over windows the first sign of a late fall freeze.
These are conventional ways to make the long winter
months affordable.
I offer these unconventional ideas:
1. Why just close off the heat from seldom used rooms?
The more space that is taken up in a room, the less you
have to heat it. Example..does a school bus get cooler
or warmer when the windows are shut and it is filled to
capacity with kids? Of course, warmer. So why not fill
your seldom used rooms with space fillers? I suggest those
unused exercise balls that you tried to do sit-ups with
except you just kept rolling off and hurting yourself.
Get them from friends, neighbors, health club trash bins.
Fill your room with them and you'll have less space to heat.
2. Candles. Why not ask all your friends, family and even
prospective, current or soon to be ex boyfriends overload
your Xmas stocking with candles. Properly placed candles
can raise the temperature in just about any space.
3. Eskimos live very comfortably in igloos or so says the
National Geographic I read in 1966. Why not make you whole
house a non heat escaping igloo? When the temperature dips
way below freezing, hook a garden hose to some inside tap
and spray your house. All of it until it becomes an ice
cocoon. This will keep everything inside at least a nice and
toasty 55 degrees.
4. During the summer months, go camping to some state park
where people from Southern states also visit to get away from
their punishing heat. Become close friends. Then take an
extended winter stay with them leaving your winter energy
bills far behind.
5. Schnapps.

The best way to solve your own energy bill dilemma is to be
creative. And if do you find a real creative alternative,
please spread the word!

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