With the start of the home heating season just around the corner, the price of natural gas is on the decline for residential customers of Nipsco.

The good news is that the price of natural gas has dropped some 45-percent in the last two months.

The bad news is that today’s price is still higher than anything seen during the past two heating seasons.

The September price of Nipsco natural gas was set at 93-cents a therm. That’s down from a record high price of $1.72 set in July.

“We use natural gas, we’ve got three ovens,” said Frank Lacopo of Lacopo’s Pizza. “It’s gone up, natural gas has gone up.” In other words, the record high set in the summer month of July did not go unnoticed at Lacopo’s.

“I can hardly wait until the winter months, we’ll really be paying,” Lacopo said.

While Lacopo was worrying about winter heating costs, across town, one homeowner was doing something about it.

Rich Gadacz of Real Services was performing an energy audit.

The process involved attaching a large fan to the doorway and depressurizing the home. As air then leaks back into the home, Gadacz can tell where potential energy savings lie.

The idea is to reduce winter heating costs that threaten to be among the highest ever.

The September rate of 93-cents a therm is still some 33-percent higher than the price was in January of this year.

“They’re up 30-percent over last years rates at this time,” said Gadacz. “30-percent for somebody who has a thousand dollar gas bill is 300-dollars.”

The September price does end a string of four consecutive months of per therm prices that topped a dollar.

The last time that happened was in the fall of 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.