Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
Why do some of you seem to think it costs nothing to maintain the electric & gas lines coming in to your house? Or would you rather have them charge a couple of thousand or so to fix your line the one time a windstorm or something takes it out?
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I can see your point but with the right hat you could cover it.
The fees on electicity and gas have gone up by a factor of 3x over the last 15 years. My wages have not gone up by a factor of 3x in the last 15 years, nor has the incidence of natural disasters gone up by a factor of 3 either.
There is more to this. Some of which is the low income heat fund which I do not disagree with but that fee is the much smaller of the two.
I used to live at a 16 plex, the landlord paid one single monthy fee plus the cost of gas and electric because heat / utilities were included.
At another 16 plex each person paid separate fees and paid for utilities.
The cost of a single commercial hookup versus several meters is significantly cheaper, but in reality costs the utility a minimal amount to maintain separate meters off the same pipe.
So although I agree with you to a point the trend has been for utilities to favor high volume users, the company I sit at right now pays 1/2 - 1/3 the amount per kwhr than I do and their fees are a small fraction of their electric cost.
There has been talk for a long time to charge graduated additional fees to low usage users and as of yet has not passed.
I do not think penalizing "Savers" is the right way of handling utlities.
Much the same way I strongly disagree in electric cars and hybrids paying an extra $50 for plates along with thousands of dollars extra during purchase.
Much the same way I strongly oppose people being fined for having and using a water barrel that the county encouraged them to purchase years ago.
Alas, I digress.