A pleasant surprise showed up in the mail today; a letter from Cascade Natural Gas. At first I didn’t think anything about it, as I was passing it off as something for our current residence and not the future one at Sandy Point. Not until my wife opened it up and asked if I was aware that Sandy Point is exploring the option to bring natural gas to the many residents. And to think, I was just imagining how wonderful it would be to have this option instead of propane. (I guess I should imagine how nice it would be to be allowed to actually fish in the waters around the point… wouldn’t that be nice)
The letter expressed interest from both parties in putting in a natural gas service, and requested signatures stating interest to proceed with plans. At first you may think the $7,000 is steep, though I believe that is a likely worst case scenario and the bare minimum to bring the service to SPIC residents. The key phrase was ‘up to’.
Every time I drive down Sucia and Salt Spring, I see propane tanks cuddling up to many of the homes, as the other properties have likely buried their tanks or may go with just electric. No matter, as this is HUGE for everybody.
What I know; Natural gas beats propane and electricity hand over fist. I included a graph below that shows the breakdown (general) of what fuels are expected to cost when compared to each other. Imagine a clean burning and cheap fuel to keep our winter heating costs down. I know quite a few people that would love to have natural gas instead of propane, as they spend so much money on a fuel that is so volatile in cost. Forget that nonsense. And conversion kits are available for most propane appliances, so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
I’m getting my signed document back as soon as I can, as we need to show a lot of interest in this. The deadline is April 30th, but hopefully we can get enough interest quickly to get this project moving forward. And remember, the more people involved, the cheaper it will be for everybody.
Let’s get this done!!!
Sandy Point, WA 
Any update on this? Is natural gas available at Sandy Point, and specifically Sandy Point Heights, as I’m in the process of purchasing a home there?
This was blocked because the gas company didn’t get enough buy-in from the community to run the lines. This was sad, bc having natural gas would have given massive savings to the community and the simple fear of a massive upfront payment blocked that. (Even though it would have dropped to a fraction of the cost as more people joined)
I think it should be looked at again, the area residents that are new to this area should be asked along with the remaining residents from when the survey was taken to see if the attitude has changed.
I missed this reply a bit ago. It would be incredibly beneficial for the community to have NG compared to propane. It would certainly create competition, but also give many people additional forms of fuel to use. Was unfortunate we lost this one.