For me, the winter bill is 3 times as high as the summer one, although for those who use electric heating the difference is much less, how much is your difference?
My gas bill is about 3 times as high in the Winter, because I have gas heat, but electric cooling. Still, I use the heat much less than the A/C, so I can handle the tripled bills ($24/$72) a couple of months a year much more easily than the tripled electric bills ($80/$240) in the Summer, which lasts about 5-6 months here in Texas.
I spend around three times as much on gas during the winter than I do in the summer too. I'm on a pre-payment meter so I spend an absolute fortune during the colder months. Still, I suppose at least it is all spread out and I must admit that it helps me to keep an eye on my consumption.
I, along with many of the other posters on this particular thread, have gas heat, which makes my gas bill skyrocket throughout the winter. I would say that it is definitely somewhere around the double or triple range. It sucks, to say the very least.
Since we use gas heating our gas bill is a lot higher in the winter indeed. In the summer the only uses for gas are cooking and water heating which isn't much, within the winter our heating is on almost every day and constantly so we are warm so the bills are much higher. I paid almost quadruple what I paid in the summer for our winter payment this year.
Since the beginning of November, we have spent nearly $600 keeping our home heated with propane. Now mind you, I cook with an electric stove, so the gas is only used for heating purposes. We have a gas fireplace in the living room and a gas wall heater at the back of our home. This is an average size 3 bedroom and one bath home (see it in my profile pic) and I normally keep the temperature at 65 degrees throughout the house. I simply cannot wait until the weather gets warm so we will not have a gas bill at all.
We have the opposite since we live in a tropical country. However, our electric bill is more than double during summer because of the air conditioning. To minimize a bit, we open the windows in the early morning and use the electric fan. But at about 10 am, the heat becomes unbearable so we turn on the air conditioner in the living room. During the cold months, our electric bill is at the lowest.
I just received my first billing for the winter season after I signed up with a new gas distributor. We've been keeping a steady temp of 68 degrees no matter how cold it has gotten outside. I have to say the bill was $100 less than this time last year. Also I did a lot of weatherizing with Great Stuff. Granted I would still like to get it lower but $100 savings is acceptable. Yea!
My electric bill is often fairly disgusting because my whole house is electric and my roommate is always running electrical appliances. I wish I would have had the foresight to negotiate he pay part of the bill when I brought him in here. However, even though I minimize the use of heat and have double glazed windows...it is still high most of the time,and I keep my heat on 65!
In the Summer my gas bill is really low as we tend to cook on the barbecue more often and don't heat the water so much either. In the Winter though it can often double. We don't tend to use the heating as much as we probably should, but since we got a new boiler that's been better. With our old boiler it would cost us around £5 an hour to heat the house. We eventually got the boiler changed and now that £5 will last a couple of days.
We have an all electric house, I have tried to keep the temperature at 68 degrees but a few of the really cold days I had to raise the temperature to be comfortable in the house. I would turn the heat down to 65 once we go to bed to be more comfortable while sleeping. I am in the lower level which is always cold even with the little heater I run. Some times I have to wrap my legs in a blanket to stay warm.
It should be expected that gas bill would be higher than in the winter, because of the requirement for an uptick in heating activity to counteract the cold weather. When it comes to the requirement for the extra gas usage the winter would be at a disadvantage. There would be a higher demand for air conditioning in the summer which is fuelled by electricity instead of gas, however, the demand for a higher level of heating in the winter may probably be fuelled by gas.
I hail from the tropics where the weather doesn't fluctuate drastically. There isn't a pressing need for heating during the cold months meaning the gas bill remains more or less the same save for contingencies in delivery during the colder months. When it is hot (we have no summer or winter) the gas bill may reduce due to usage of alternative fuel like firewood.
To be honest, there's not too much of a difference for me. We use electricity and because our weather is pretty much the same all year round, the winter's a short 2 months and even then, it's quite mild, we use heaters in the winter and fans in the summer; it all basically balances out and the difference is negligible. We probably use slightly more in the summer because the fans are on 24/7, but that's about it really. We're also lucky because our utilities don't cost that much, anyway
