Heating your home

[Parsley]

I budget August-May. Flat monthly rate. It's amazing I fall within the same 50 gallons or so (of oil) each year. Usually use 450-500 gallons and have a surplus each year which I can carry over.

[NYR2711]

Right now I have no heat, my gas pipe has a leak. We had called Keyspan and they came to check everything after we smelled a little something. None of our detectors went off, so we thought maybe it was something with the burner. Out heat was working fine and so was everything else. They Keyspan worker checked to upstairs and his detector didn't go off, he went to the basement and it went off like crazy near the boiler. They shut off our gas, and because it's inside pipes, they won't touch them. We had to get a plumber to come in. So my plumber came, and he tried fixing the pipe, but the next one broke, so now he has to change all of my pipes, he said they weren't installed right by the previous owners. He also has to fix something on my boiler and can't get the parts until tomorrow. So now I have to do a double tonight at work so I can get off tomorrow for the to fix this. Luckily, when we had our basemet redone, we put electric baseboards in, so my wife and son can sleep down there with the dogs and have some heat, but this sucks and I am praying that they can get this done tomorrow. I have to have a bill with the plumbers license number on it to have Keyspan turn my gas back on. What a pain in the ass this is.

[The Dude]

Umm how does gas pipe break or get installed wrong? Do you trust your plumber? Sounds kinda scam like. Not sure how "the next pipe" broke.... What next pipe? How were pipes installed wrong?

[Parsley]

Right now I have no heat, my gas pipe has a leak. We had called Keyspan and they came to check everything after we smelled a little something. None of our detectors went off, so we thought maybe it was something with the burner. Out heat was working fine and so was everything else. They Keyspan worker checked to upstairs and his detector didn't go off, he went to the basement and it went off like crazy near the boiler. They shut off our gas, and because it's inside pipes, they won't touch them. We had to get a plumber to come in. So my plumber came, and he tried fixing the pipe, but the next one broke, so now he has to change all of my pipes, he said they weren't installed right by the previous owners. He also has to fix something on my boiler and can't get the parts until tomorrow. So now I have to do a double tonight at work so I can get off tomorrow for the to fix this. Luckily, when we had our basemet redone, we put electric baseboards in, so my wife and son can sleep down there with the dogs and have some heat, but this sucks and I am praying that they can get this done tomorrow. I have to have a bill with the plumbers license number on it to have Keyspan turn my gas back on. What a pain in the ass this is.

 

 

Ugh, that's awful. Coincides with this arctic blast too.

[NYR2711]

Umm how does gas pipe break or get installed wrong? Do you trust your plumber? Sounds kinda scam like. Not sure how "the next pipe" broke.... What next pipe? How were pipes installed wrong?

 

The people that had the house before me screwed around with everything. They had the wrong couplers on the pipes and used the wrong size pipes and never attached any braces to hold the pipes. My plumber was able to unscrew the pipes with just his hand. One of the couplers on the pipes was an old coupler for an industrial pipe from like Grumman. The people that had the house before me did a lot of stupid things in here, and this is just another one. I trust my plumber, we have been using him for a couple of years and was recommended to us from our old plumber. All the seals were wrong in my basement, and they dont know how long we had the leak actually for. What we were smelling actually wasnt the gas, but it was the fumes from the painting we did. The gas company said they get calls all winter on this smell, it just so happened that they found the leak while checking everything. When National Grid finally came back to turn the gas back on, they found a small leak in their pipes at the meter outside, and that was fixed quickly by them. They finally came back to turn my gas on yesterday at about 430, after I called them at noon to come back and turn it back on.

[NYR2711]

Ugh, that's awful. Coincides with this arctic blast too.

 

This is what had me really worried. My plumber told me to call the gas company at 10 to come in the early afternoon, and when I finally got through to them, they tried telling me they couldnt come yesterday. I flipped on them, she checked again, and said to call back when the plumber was done. And every time I called, because the call volume was so big, they were sending calls to Albany. The workers in Albany would ask why I was calling them, and I told them I called the number they gave, and they told me that when they get too many calls down here on LI, they get pushed up there, yet they cant help us. The first time I called, they sent me back to the gas company. When I had to call the second time in the afternoon the kept transfering me to the electric company, stupid dopes. Finally after 3 times, I gt fed up and just called the emergency number and got through quickly. They gave me a time frame from 1-7, but our issue was that it was getting cold and we had no heat or hot water, and we couldnt use the stove to cook because that is gas as well. Plus I had my son and my wife is 8 months pregnant, and they cant be in the cold either. The real kcker was that the guy from National Grid was here for about a half hour, and when he was done, he drove to the end of our block, about 2 houses down from me, and sat there. We went out food shopping real quick, came back about 45 minutes later, and he was still sitting in his truck in the same spot.

[phillyb]

gas heat. off at night unless it's like -10 which it has been, in which case it's set to 65ish over night.

as soon as i wake up, i crank that fucker to 80 (cause it takes 3 fucking hours to heat up) and then down to 70ish until we go to bed.

 

last gas bill was 150ish for a 1br in pa.

[Parsley]

This is what had me really worried. My plumber told me to call the gas company at 10 to come in the early afternoon, and when I finally got through to them, they tried telling me they couldnt come yesterday. I flipped on them, she checked again, and said to call back when the plumber was done. And every time I called, because the call volume was so big, they were sending calls to Albany. The workers in Albany would ask why I was calling them, and I told them I called the number they gave, and they told me that when they get too many calls down here on LI, they get pushed up there, yet they cant help us. The first time I called, they sent me back to the gas company. When I had to call the second time in the afternoon the kept transfering me to the electric company, stupid dopes. Finally after 3 times, I gt fed up and just called the emergency number and got through quickly. They gave me a time frame from 1-7, but our issue was that it was getting cold and we had no heat or hot water, and we couldnt use the stove to cook because that is gas as well. Plus I had my son and my wife is 8 months pregnant, and they cant be in the cold either. The real kcker was that the guy from National Grid was here for about a half hour, and when he was done, he drove to the end of our block, about 2 houses down from me, and sat there. We went out food shopping real quick, came back about 45 minutes later, and he was still sitting in his truck in the same spot.

 

 

Amazing you can keep your composure at all. Good luck man.

[NYR2711]

Amazing you can keep your composure at all. Good luck man.

 

Thanks its nice having heat and hot water again. I had done a double at work Sunday night so I could stay home yesterday and deal with this, and I figured I would take a warm shower at work before I went home, and at work we had no warm water. Just went along with the rest of how my weekend went, lol.