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Are your ready?
Those Christmas bills will be coming, but the real blast this January will be the natural gas bill.
After a thirty percent increase last year, officials have increased natural gas rates another twenty percent.
State Consumer Advocate Billy Jack Gregg says no one is taking this increase lightly. "I've been getting swamped with calls from customers and I'm sure that the utilities have."
"We're not even into the worst part of the winter yet," he said.
"It's going to be pretty grim, especially for people who are on fixed incomes because it was tough enough to get people through the winter last year and it's going to be even more difficult this year."
"There is a federal subsidy program for low income heating assistance. Unfortunately West Virginia's allocation is the same this year as it was last year even though rates are twenty percent higher. The state gets about $12 million dollars a year to help with heating bills for low income customers and it's distributed through the Department of Health and Human Resources."
Gregg suggests closing off rooms that you don't use most of the day.
"Probably the best thing anybody can do is to put plastic over the outside of your windows to stop air infiltration. Still air is actually one of the best insulators."
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