Home heating prices surging for this winter. When do you turn your heat on? Take our poll.

With colder temperatures arriving across the region, the annual conversation of when residents should turn on the heat in their homes has begun. 

And this year, thermostat-monitoring folks have even more reason to pay attention with household heating costs rising sharply. New Englanders who wait to turn on the heat each year as a source of pride might find waiting this year to be more important financially.

The United States Energy Information Administration advised this month that households utilizing propane, heating oil, natural gas and electrical heating are all slated to see spikes in their heating bills.

In comparison to last winter, those increases are steep. Propane users will see their bills jump by 54%, heating oil users will see a 43% increase, natural gas users will see a 30% hike and electrically heated households will pay 6% more.

“We expect that households across the United States will spend more on energy this winter compared with the past several winters because of these higher energy prices and because we assume a slightly colder winter than last year in much of the United States,” the USEIA wrote in its report.

Seacoast residents debate when it’s time to turn on the heat

When do locals decide it’s time to bite the bullet and turn on their heat? That depends on who you ask.

One Portsmouth Facebook user asked that very question online on Sept. 30, receiving an onslaught of comments, observations and, in some cases, witty responses. 

One user, Heather Grace, said that day usually comes when the interior temperature of her residence dips below 60 degrees. “Usually November,” she commented.

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Matthew Bradd, however, remarked that he hadn’t even taken out his air conditioning unit yet. Others, like Lyndsey Bouzakine, said that the heat goes on whenever she simply gets cold.

Steve De Trolio, on the other hand, humorously said he’d be all set to go without touching the heating dial on until November. “I turned the toilet seat heat on.”

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Facebook user Jane Tyska remembered how she used to gauge when it was appropriate to turn her heat on for the season.

“When I lived in town, it used to be the day that former Press Room owner, musician, journalist and philanthropist Jay Smith would stop wearing shorts,” she remembered. “And when the shorts finally returned, we would proclaim it spring no matter what the date!”

When do you turn your heat on for the winter? Vote below to tell us.

How much will American households pay this winter for heating?

Almost half of United States households are heated using natural gas, and each one is expected to have to pay $746 in heating this year. Alongside homes in the midwestern and western regions, every household in the northeast region of the country is predicted to have a 3% average increase in natural gas consumption this winter.

Winter heating bills:Prices set to jump as much as 54% as inflation rises

A lot of the nation’s natural gas is produced in the northeast, the report states, and the region will see the smallest residential price increase for natural gas heating of the four American regions, with an average household cost increase of 14%.

Electricity users, the second-highest used heating source across the country, will spend an average of $1,268 this winter for heating.

Heating oil users make up roughly 4% of all American households, and their bills are expected to total $1,734. 

Five percent of American homes use propane for heating, and northeast region homes using propane for heating are expected to pay a whopping $2,012, a 47% increase from last winter.

“This increase in expenditures for propane-fueled heating is a result of our forecast of 42% higher propane prices and 3% more household consumption on average, compared with last winter,” the USEIA said of northeast region homes who use propane for heating.

Information on average anticipated household heating costs per energy source this winter are outlined in the USEIA's "Winter Fuels Outlook."

Why are heating prices increasing this year?

Changes to energy supply and the demand for them as a result of the pandemic are to blame for increased prices in energy sources, the USEIA says. Prices for all fuels are expected to be higher this winter than in seasons past.

“Rising wholesale commodity prices for natural gas, crude oil, and petroleum products are being passed through to retail prices,” the report states. “Although we attribute price increases over the past year to several factors, the main reason wholesale prices of natural gas, crude oil, and petroleum products have risen is that fuel demand has increased from recent lows faster than production. This dynamic has led to falling inventories, as in the case of crude oil and several petroleum products, and inventories increasing by less during the summer than historical averages, as in the case of natural gas and propane.”

The USEIA expects this winter season to be colder than last and more aligned with the winter average of the previous decade. On the contrary, NOAA released their "2021-22 Winter Outlook" on Thursday, saying that "warmer-than-average" temperatures will most likely occur across much of the southern and eastern United States.