My gas bill tripled and the meter reader guy dropped this wild stat on me

So last Tuesday I opened my utility statement from PG&E and nearly choked. My bill jumped from like $87 to $261 for the same month as last year, nothing changed in the house. I called to complain and the meter reader who came out told me that over 30 percent of the homes in my neighborhood in Fresno still use vintage 1980s furnaces that run at maybe 55 percent efficiency. Apparently that means I'm literally burning cash into the sky, and the replacement rebate program only covers 400 bucks which is a joke. I had no idea old furnaces were this wasteful, I just thought they were slow to heat up. Has anyone else gotten hit with a random utility spike and then figured out it's the ancient appliance doing the damage?

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richardknight25d ago

Man, that stat would make me do a double take too. I always figured old furnaces were just slow or loud, not that they were basically a campfire with a blower on it. I remember defending my 1986 model to my wife like it was a classic car, told her it was built tough and they don't make em like that anymore. Turns out tough just means wasting 45 cents of every dollar I spend on gas. Now I'm eyeballing my own bill and wondering if I should start shopping for quotes before the next cold snap hits. That 400 dollar rebate does feel like a slap in the face though, like here's a bandaid for a broken leg.