{"id":889,"date":"2019-12-26T06:30:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T12:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/?p=889"},"modified":"2021-01-29T15:47:06","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T21:47:06","slug":"how-many-therms-does-a-typical-household-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/how-many-therms-does-a-typical-household-use\/","title":{"rendered":"How Many Therms Does A Typical Household Use?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Getting
Staying toasty warm in wintertime might be awfully nice but not if you’re getting burned by high priced natural gas therms. Learn about the typical household therm usage in Georgia and how it affects your monthly bill in AGL.<\/em><\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What\u2019s The Average Natural Gas Consumption Of A Georgia Household?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Saving money on natural gas means working out <\/span>which natural gas plan is cheapest<\/span><\/a>. This isn\u2019t always easy to do. Natural gas providers give you a price \u201cper therm\u201d of natural gas you use. The cheaper a therm is, the less you pay. But how many therms do you use? Will switching to a cheap natural gas plan save you hundreds of dollars, or just a few pennies? Here\u2019s what you need to know about typical natural gas consumption in different households.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Is A Therm, Anyway?<\/span><\/h3>\n

Before we dive into therm consumption, let\u2019s quickly cover <\/span>what a therm actually is<\/span><\/a>. It\u2019s used to represent the energy you consume at home. It takes burning around 100 cubic feet of natural gas to produce 1 therm of energy. However, natural gas burns hotter or cooler depending on its precise chemical makeup. As a result, natural gas providers use an adjustment called the \u201ctherm factor\u201d to calculate how much energy you\u2019re using.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Your natural gas meter will tell them how much gas you\u2019ve used, and they\u2019ll know how much energy this gas releases when it\u2019s burned. Therefore, you could burn a lot of natural gas but if it burns relatively cold, you\u2019ll release fewer therms. That means you\u2019re only paying for the energy you use, not just the amount of natural gas you burn.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Typical Household Therm Consumption\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

In Georgia, residential\u00a0 natural gas consumption rises during winter. This is because Georgia homes <\/span>use more natural gas to heat their homes<\/span><\/a> than other states do. You can see this effect in the data the Georgia Public Services Commission provides. Annual <\/span>natural gas consumption in Georgia<\/span> is around 717 therms per household. However, the typical number of therms consumed in December is 134; more than a sixth of the annual amount.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How Many Therms Does Your Household Use?<\/span><\/h3>\n

The average annual therm consumption figure of 717 hides a huge range of variance. About 48% of Georgia homes use electric heating. As we\u2019ve seen, heating contributes about 30% of your total annual energy usage. That means if you have a natural gas stove but you don\u2019t have a gas furnace, you probably use less than the average amount of therms. Heating is such a huge contributor to household natural gas consumption, that if you <\/span>do<\/span><\/i> have a gas furnace, you probably use more than the average and have to pay high natural gas bills in AGL<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The size of your home also plays a large part in therm consumption. If you have more space to heat, then it\u2019ll take more therms to keep warm. Georgia homes are some of the largest in the USA; Atlanta homes are, on average, <\/span>larger than any other city\u2019s<\/span><\/a> except Houston, TX. New homes are also much larger, too. The median home size in Atlanta is 1,914 square feet, but the typical new home in 2018 <\/span>covered 2,318 square feet<\/span><\/a>. This continues a trend of <\/span>American homes growing much larger<\/span><\/a> in the past few decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

How Can I Use Fewer Natural Gas Therms?<\/span><\/h3>\n

We\u2019ve seen that the biggest factor driving natural gas consumption in Georgia is heating. So, to use fewer therms, you need to heat your home more efficiently. That means investing in thermal insulation for your home. <\/span>Sealing and insulating your attic<\/span><\/a> are extremely effective at reducing heat loss. Check the recommended insulation for Georgia homes, which is expressed in \u201cR Values\u201d. EnergyStar <\/span>recommends insulation between R30 and R60<\/span><\/a> for Georgia properties. By keeping warm air in you can burn fewer therms to stay warm. That means lower natural gas bills. Combine this with a deal on cheap natural gas in Georgia<\/a>, and you save plenty of money every year.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s The Average Natural Gas Consumption Of A Georgia Household? Saving money […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false},"categories":[153,161,210,160,169,152,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1274,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.georgiagassavings.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}