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Grim outlook
Globe: Report warns that average 2009 oil bill for Mass. household could top $3,000.
Read the report the Globe story is based on.
Perhaps my landlord can turn down the heat? I can't
I live in one of those 1920s apartment buildings with radiators, where heat and hot water are included in the rent, but there are no thermostats. The apartments are often uncomfortably hot in the winter, to the point where tenants sometimes open windows.
Maybe this will be the winter when the landlord finally has a financial incentive to fix this wasteful problem?
We used to live in a building like that
It was especially bad because we were on the first floor, right above the furnace, but, yes, we'd be sitting there in t-shirts in the middle of January with the windows open to keep from being roasted alive.
The answer, of course, was to move to a 1920s house with radiators - and a thermostat.
"In units that are heated by
"In units that are heated by the landlord the heat must be on from September 15th through June 15th. The temperature must not be less than 68 degrees Fahrenheit between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. and 64 degrees Fahrenheit between 11:01 p.m. and 6:59 a.m. There is a maximum allowable temperature of 78 degrees."
from here
That's for Boston, but I'm pretty sure you're in Somerville, right? Maybe see what the applicable law is there.
no happy medium
I used to live on the first floor of a recently-renovated brownstone with the thermostat in the landlord's apartment on the third floor. The first winter it was hot; then the landlord left and the new landlady kept the thermostat at 57 all winter. Heat rises. I froze.
Therefore, I voted for heat. (I eat too much anyway.)
Where's the fifth option?
Stop living in New England. :-)
food
if you use your oven, it can make at least one room warmer
saving
I started putting away extra cash from every check back in late spring so I'll hopefully be ready to keep up with the heating. For all the talk going on about this, I hope others are planning ahead as well.