Winter's chill: Utah families feel effects of rising fuel costs
The heating bill forecast — a 38 percent increase over last winter's prices — will affect 95 percent of Utah households, the 800,000 homes that use natural gas to keep warm.
For Amodt, that will mean an additional $30 or $40 a month. For homeowners like Jim and Tammy Engebretsen, the increase will probably be more than $100 a month, bringing their monthly winter bills up to as much as $500.
With snow on the ground in some places as well as the horizon, the Deseret Morning News today begins a periodic look at how Utahns cope with their heating bills. We'll follow three families throughout the winter to see how much they're paying, how anxious they're feeling and what they're doing to cut down on costs.
Natural gas prices have risen along with oil and gasoline prices in recent months.
"It's simple economics," Questar spokesman Chad Jones said. "Tight supply and high demand. And the hurricanes exacerbated that."
Other factors also affect prices, he says. "For natural gas, weather is the wild card."
When gas prices rise, Questar passes this increase along to customers, with no markup. Questar was granted a 14.4 percent rate increase effective in June and another 20.3 percent increase as of Nov. 1. To that add another 3.2 percent that reflects the expiration of a previous gas-processing refund offered to customers.
If Questar has overestimated the cost of natural gas for a 12-month period, prices are lowered in a subsequent rate period, Jones says.
In 2001, rates increased 40 percent, then fell 27.6 percent before rising again in 2003. Rates have fluctuated similarly since 1988, with a total increase of 137 percent, according to Questar data. That's an increase of 2.3 percent when heating bills are figured as percent of household income, according to the gas company.
So, how will all this affect individual Utahns?
• Elva Amodt lives in a trailer park on Redwood Road in Salt Lake City. It's only 12 feet from the north side to the south side of her trailer, 600 square feet from front to back. Still, during the coldest months last year, her heating bill was about $100 a month, she says.
The 72-year-old Amodt keeps the thermostat at 65 degrees, which she says is comfortable enough for herself and her three birds, including the yellow parakeet she rescued from the cold one recent winter. If her heating bill goes up this year, she plans on turning the thermostat down a few more degrees.
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