I had been dreading its arrival, and when the February utility bill arrived in the mail, I waited a couple of days before mustering up the courage to open it.

There it was -- $365, with gas accounting for $169 and electricity for $186. While it was not the most expensive utility bill I've ever paid, it ranked high on the list.

When I look at others' bills -- one colleague complained of a $475 gas and electric bill for February, mine, while pricey, could have been worse.

The furnace is a high-efficiency, condensing gas machine. The thermostat is set at 65 while we are home and awake, and 62 when we are gone or asleep. The previous owners added insulation in most of the right places, and, combined with energy-efficient windows properly installed, the first floor is very comfortable.

Except for the kitchen, part of which is over a crawlspace added to enlarge the room. Following recommendations established by the EnergyStar folks and CertainTeed, the fiberglass-insulation manufacturer, I wedged myself into the crawlspace in early November and added the required amount.

The goal was to get the temperature on the programmable thermostat's digital thermometer and one by the door leading from the kitchen to the patio within a couple of degrees of one another.

In the summer, the back of the kitchen tends to be slightly warmer because of the intensity of the afternoon sun. The difference is not the great, and drier air, not lower temperature, is the goal.

In the winter, the difference had been up to five degrees. On a morning below freezing, with the thermostat reading 65, the kitchen thermometer could be at 59.9 degrees. On that same morning, before the “wake” function of the thermostat begins bringing the temperature to 65, the back of the kitchen can fall to 56.9.

You may wonder why I'm so focused on these readings, but I'm searching for comfort within the context of reasonable energy bills, which is what everyone does or at least should be doing.

Cold weather has filtered into areas such as Southern California and Houston and the bitterest temperatures have been locked into the northern tier of states for almost six weeks, yet the unusual warmth of the first half of winter had few people prepared for what happened.

Global warming will not make Minneapolis Miami. There's considerable debate over whether climate change can be blamed for giving Malibu two inches of snow in mid-January and allowing the Mummers of Philadelphia to parade on a sunny, 75-degree day just about the same time.

When you scrape away the hype, most people only worry about energy costs when there is an immediate threat to their pocketbooks.

In the fall of 2005, in the confluence of the typically inaccurate, long-term weather forecasts and rising oil prices, American consumers were falling all over themselves, looking for a quick fix to threatened higher energy bills.

Once the winter warmed up and heating costs cooled, the grasshoppers chalked things up to another false alarm, confounding the media but not the energy experts, who have become quite used to it over the last couple of decades.

In the meantime, the ants among us got our houses and energy bills in order, and braced for the hotter summer we knew would follow.

The steps I took kept my bills under control. When gas prices were high, we kept the gas fireplace off and lowered the thermostat settings to the current levels.

I air-sealed the gaps where the floor joists meet the foundation, add a low-cost electric fireplace to our second-floor master bedroom where the ceiling won't permit much insulation, and experimented with insulated paint on the exterior walls -- an act on which the jury remains out.

The result was that 2005-2006 energy bills -- both heating and cooling -- remained between $200 and $275 a month for a 2,000 square foot house. I would have preferred lower bills, but they were affordable.

Within those limits, we have been able to live in relative comfort. I do wear a sweater on very cold days, but my basement office is the culprit, since the walls are concrete block and uninsulated.

The warmest part of the office is against the back wall, behind which is newly insulate crawlspace, where the sofa sits. The air temperature of the office remains at 62 almost the entire day, and since the floor joists above my head are insulated, the floors on the first floor above are warm to the feet.

The point of this exercise is that whether we believe that today's weather is evidence of global warming or the result of jet-stream location or a stubborn high pressure system over Greenland, we need to commit long-term to make our houses as energy efficient as possible.

That way, the utility bills will be easier to open when they arrive.

Published: March 8, 2007

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Al Heavens writes about real estate and home repair and improvement. He is the author of What No One Ever Tells You About Renovating Your Home: Real-Life Advice For Hassle-free, Cost-Effective Remodeling.