April 2025 - Why Your Energy Bill Feels Wrong (And How to Actually Read It)

Jeff Flaherty opens with a client who spent months sending screenshots of bill graphs instead of actual usage data, and how the numbers told a completely different story once they finally arrived. From there he digs into why utility bills are so hard to read, why National Grid is the only local utility that puts 12-month usage right on the bill, and what it actually takes to disaggregate electric and gas costs to figure out where your money is going. He also covers a ranch home where the attic has been done wrong twice, cellulose on the floor and foam on the roof deck with no air sealing underneath either of them, and a bungalow in Rochester where the front bedroom is uncomfortable because it sits over an unheated porch with slopes nobody insulated. Plus why NYSERDA income program funding is starting to slow down, why procrastinating on these programs has a real cost, and how oversized furnaces make cold room problems worse instead of better.