Sunday Special: The High Cost of Keeping Warm

        Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co. customers will see a new look to their electricity bills issued this month. The bills list separate charges for electricity generation, transmission and distribution.

        The separate charges aren't a rate increase: They simply break down into categories charges that had been lumped together under the old bill.

        The change is required by Ohio's electricity choice law, which makes electricity providers “unbundle” their rates into separate generation, transmission and distribution charges. Under the new law, consumers should eventually be able to shop for new suppliers that would provide the electricity-generation portion of the bill.

        The hope is that competition among generation providers will mean lower rates.

GOT QUESTIONS?

Send us your questions about energy bills and conservation, and we'll ask the experts. Use the convenient e-mail form at Cincinnati.com. Or:     Mail to Betty Barnett, Enquirer reader representative, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45202.     Call (513) 768-8299 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday.     Please include your name and phone number.

        Question: How long does it take to recoup the cost of a programmable thermostat?

        Answer: Kris Knochelmann, general manager of Knochelmann Service Experts, a Covington heating and cooling repair company, said a programmable thermostat should pay for itself in energy savings within a year, even adjusting temperature settings as little as five degrees daily.

        Unlike traditional electro-mechanical thermostats, programmable units contain computer chips that automatically make adjustments at predetermined times that the home occupant selects — such as when no one is at home.

        The units come in varying levels of sophistication, ranging from basic models costing around $100 installed, which permit two daily adjustments, to top-of-the-line models costing more than $400 installed, which permit several settings each day and allow settings for each day of the week, Mr. Knochelmann said.

        The actual savings depends on how much the thermostat is dialed down. One rule of thumb, he said, is that every one degree of temperature setback per eight-hour period represents about 1 percent reduction in energy use.

        Q: My house was built in 1937 with "true' brick walls. The inside has plasterboard, not drywall. Is it possible to insulate these walls? Is there any way to tell if they already have insulation?

        A: Most homes built before 1960 had little or no insulation in the side walls because energy costs were relatively low, says Tim Carter, a former local builder who writes the “Ask the Builder” syndicated column.

        Many older brick homes consist of two or three courses of brick with interior plasterboard applied directly to the inner course. In those type of homes, it's impossible to add insulation, Mr. Carter said.

        Some older brick homes have a small space of an inch or less between the brick and plasterboard created by thin wood strips used to attach the plasterboard to the brick. While it's possible to spray insulation into that small space, the payback in energy savings probably isn't worth it, Mr. Carter said.

        The best way to check if your walls have insulation is to tap a hole in the wall with a hammer in an inconspicuous place such as a closet on an exterior wall and look for insulation inside, he said. The hole can be patched with wall spackling afterward.

        Q: What's a “heating degree day,” and how is that number useful to me?

        A: The concept of degree days was developed to relate each day's temperatures to the demand for fuel. To find the number of heating degree days for a particular day, take the day's high and low temperature, add them and divide by two. If the number is higher than 65, there are no heating degree days for that day. If the number is less than 65, subtract it from 65 for the number of heating degree days.

        If, for example, the average daily temperature was 45 degrees, that's 20 degree days. The total for a month or week provides a means of showing how much colder or warmer one period is from another.

        In December, CG&E said the total heating degree days was 1,315. In December 1999, the total was 931. So December 2000 was 41 percent colder than the same month in 1999.

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