How Much Is The Average Gas Bill in Las Vegas? (See My Bill)
Believe it or not it gets cold in Las Vegas for a few months in the winter. Since most homes and apartments in the valley are heated with natural gas and many use gas appliances as well, you may want to know how much the average gas bill is in Las Vegas?
The average natural gas bill in Las Vegas is $45.31 a month with residents paying .308760 per therm plus delivery charges. Gas bills can be higher or lower depending on several factors including the energy efficiency of the home and temperature preferences. Gas usage in Las Vegas can fluctuate greatly depending on the season.
I wrote this article using my personal home information and actual gas bills, so that you can get a sense of just how much your natural gas bill will be in Las Vegas based on your living circumstances. Keep on reading to learn all the details about natural gas cost and usage in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Is Natural Gas Expensive in Las Vegas?
As with other utilities in Nevada, the cost of natural gas is substantially less expensive than in many other states. In fact, the state of Nevada has the tenth cheapest natural gas prices out of all fifty states. This, of course, extends to the Las Vegas Valley.
Natural gas prices for residential homes in Las Vegas average $13.66 (per thousand cubic feet) which is 22.3% less expensive than the U.S. average of $17.57 (per thousand cubic feet). In addition, the price of natural gas for residents of Las Vegas has fallen 5.73% over the last year.
Natural gas in southern Nevada is provided by Southwest Gas. Southwest Gas distributes gas to homes and apartments throughout the Las Vegas Valley.
Las Vegas Southwest Gas Rates
The following table shows the rate for natural gas and it’s delivery in Las Vegas. As you can see, the actual rate for gas is made up of two charges including the cost for the gas itself and a separate charge for delivery.
The delivery charge accounts for the gas pipes and infrastructure that deliver the gas to your home (Nobody’s driving up to your house delivering gas 🙂
| Gas Cost Per Therm | Delivery Charge Per Therm |
|---|---|
| .308760 | .354100 |
(This article may contain affiliate links, which means we might earn a small commission if you click and make a purchase. Thank you!)
The main thing you might have noticed when looking at this table is the difference in price per therm of the gas itself versus the cost per therm for delivery. My father-in-law, who also lives here in the valley, and I get a good laugh out the fact that the amount we each pay for the gas itself often costs less than the delivery charges per therm used.
The fact is that natural gas is a commodity and it’s market price changes frequently, so Southwest Gas adjusts their rates both up and down throughout the year to take that into account. Lately the cost of natural gas has gone down so much that the product costs less than the delivery. It’s just the way it is…but it’s still kinda funny!
Specifics Of My House That Affect Gas Usage
Before we take a look at my gas bill, I need to tell you a few things about my house that affects my households gas usage.
House
First, our house is a single family home occupied by my wife, myself and my young adult son. The house is considerably older (built in 1965) but was taken down to the studs and completely updated in 2010. As such, it is much more energy efficient than many other houses built around the same time but it’s still probably less efficient overall than a much newer home.
Windows and Insulation
At the time of the update, new double pane windows were installed throughout the house which makes a big difference in terms of keeping the cold out and the heat in during the winter. So does the newer insulation installed at the same time.
Uses of Natural Gas
Our house uses natural gas for central heating, the water heater and the range stove/oven. We also have a gas stub on our back patio that we use for barbecuing. When we moved here we purchased a BBQ Grill from Amazon like this one that is especially designed to use natural gas instead of propane. It gives us the benefit of never running out of gas when grilling.
Here’s a complete list of our natural gas uses and appliances:
- Furnace
- Water heater
- Stove/Oven
- Clothes dryer
- BBQ
As you’ll see later on in the analysis section, the water heater actually accounts for the majority of our natural gas usage most months of the year.
Work From Home
I also should note that my wife and I work from home. This comes into play in the winter as we need to keep the house comfortable all day as opposed to turning the heat down while we’re away at work. This without a doubt drives up our heating bill somewhat.
Our Southwest Gas Bills In Las Vegas
Now to the good stuff! Let’s check out our highest (January) and lowest (July) bills of the year. Then I’ll show you our gas bill totals on a month-to-month basis for the entire year.
Our Gas Bill in January
It comes as no surprise that January is our most expensive natural gas bill of the year as it’s also the coldest month we have here in Vegas. In a nutshell you can see both the cost of gas and the delivery charge plus the additional taxes and monthly fees.
January is one of the few months of the year that heating is our number one use of natural gas. For comparison’s sake, it’s important to note that in the colder months we keep our thermostat set at 70°F during the day and turn the temperature down to 65° at night.
At the bottom right hand corner of the bill you see a graph that shows our overall gas trends for the year. The only problem is that the graph isn’t very accurate. For instance, it shows that in March we used more gas than any other month and this was definitely not the case as you’ll see in the month-by-month table further below. The graph does, however, show our overall trend of gas usage throughout the year.
Note: This Southwest Gas bill is really busy, somewhat difficult to read and in terms of the graph, is not all that accurate. Fortunately, Southwest Gas redesigned their bill in the middle of the year and you’ll see the new design in our July bill up next.
Our Gas Bill in July
Here’s a look at our barely there July natural gas bill. Because home heating isn’t an issue in Las Vegas during summer the bill is just $16.24. Of that amount, only $2.16 was for the actual amount of natural gas we used.
In fact, if you look at the breakdown of the charges below, you’ll see that the “Basic Service Charge” of $10.80 is over 65% of the total bill! Also, note that for this month the delivery charge actually cost more than the gas itself.
The new format of the Southwest Gas bill is much easier to read and the graphs appear to be more accurate as well. At the top of the bill it shows the bill is eight pages long! I have no idea why the bill needs to be this long. There is a bunch of other information included but I just showed you the two sections that matter when it comes to the cost of the gas.
Our Natural Gas Bill For The Whole Year (Month-by-Month)
Now that you’ve taken a look at a couple of actual bills, it will probably be helpful to get a breakdown of our natural gas usage for every month of the year here in Las Vegas.
| Month | Terms Used | Bill Amount |
|---|---|---|
| January | 64 | $67.46 |
| February | 46 | $51.27 |
| March | 26 | $33.67 |
| April | 13 | $22.17 |
| May | 11 | $20.53 |
| June | 9 | $18.53 |
| July | 7 | $16.24 |
| August | 8 | $16.95 |
| September | 10 | $19.82 |
| October | 16 | $25.18 |
| November | 38 | $44.22 |
| December | 64 | $66.97 |
| Annual Total: | 248 | $403.01 |
Looking at this table, it quickly becomes apparent that the amount of natural gas used in a home in Vegas is highly dependent on the season. There are about 4 months when gas will be used regularly to heat a home and then the usage just tails off to almost nothing as we get further into the Spring and Summer months.
Southwest Gas Analysis Tools
Southwest Gas here in southern Nevada has some pretty interesting analysis tools on their OPOWER website that are helpful to gauge how a particular home is using natural gas and how it compares to similar homes in the area. Let’s take a look at a couple of the charts for our home.
This above chart shows how we use natural gas in our home on average throughout the year. It’s an even split between heating and hot water. Our other gas appliances (stove and clothes dryer) use very little gas.
The next chart is much more interesting to me. According to this analysis tool our home is considered energy efficient when it comes to using natural gas and uses 8% less gas than other similar energy efficient homes in the area.
The other thing that’s notable is that most similar homes in our area are using considerably more therms of gas on average. Since we live in an older area of town, I assume these homes are using more gas because they haven’t been updated as much as ours. It might also be the case that they set their thermostats higher in the winter than we do.
Final Thoughts
I think the major takeaway is that the average gas bill for a home here in Las Vegas is not overly expensive. Here in the valley we have the benefit of having inexpensive natural gas. This combined with the generally warm weather, keeps our overall natural gas bills very low.
I hope that my analysis and your getting to take a look at my Southwest Gas bills have given you a sense of what you can expect when it comes to the true cost of paying for natural gas in your home in Las Vegas.
Check Out These Related Articles
- The Average Electric Bill In Las Vegas (Sharing My Energy Bills)
- The Average Water Bill In Las Vegas (See My Water Bills)
- Living In Las Vegas: What’s It Like?
- Is it Expensive to Live in Las Vegas? (Average Costs To Live)
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