We've feared gas bills more than any other utility when we moved into this place, nigh onto six months ago. Gas usage seems to vary wildly in this town, with some reporting bimonthly gas bills in the neighborhood of $5000 or more. Never having paid for our own gas before (aside from nominal cooking gas fees), it seemed like a real crap shoot.
We're all pretty frugal in our household, we kept the thermostat at reasonable levels, didn't linger in the shower, kept laundry to a minimum. This seemed to pay off, as our bills have been modest in comparison to the horror stories we had heard. Then last month our gas bill was $24.
The flat "gas delivery charge" fee is $23; we had used no 'therms' of gas between February and March. It wasn't an estimated reading or anything, our meter just recorded no usage for those two months. Now, those of you who were in the city during this time may recall that it was not exactly pleasant for much of this time, so obviously we were using a lot of gas during that time. We received a letter from Keyspan a few days later, voicing their doubts about the meter's efficacy. Somebody would have to inspect the meter.
So last night, some guys came over and replaced the meter outright. The odd thing was that the meter appeared to be working when they arrived. They swapped it anyway, just to be safe. The guys seemed incredulous, asking if we were out of town for those months, or renovating or something. One of the guys advised us to say "You know, we just moved in here, the place needed a lot of renovation, so that's what we were doing." When he said this, I realized finally that Keyspan might continue to ask probing questions about the meter and why they're not getting paid, even the problem is now 'fixed.'
I hope they don't press us on the issue; after all, we did schedule to have the guys come and fix the problem, really we could have had them over a barrel (think of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer keeps making the cable guy wait). And they had better not charge us to have that meter replaced! But that does sound like just the sort of thing they might pull. If so, I hope that meter has been bilking them from the get-go!
