Tenant Controlled Heating
In renovating my garden floor to be a rental I am thinking about providing the tenant with his own thermostat to control the heat in his apartment. (I have a hot water system.) The tenant would be responsible for paying for his heat instead of me as the landlord (I would have a separate gas…
In renovating my garden floor to be a rental I am thinking about providing the tenant with his own thermostat to control the heat in his apartment. (I have a hot water system.) The tenant would be responsible for paying for his heat instead of me as the landlord (I would have a separate gas meter put in as with the separate electric meter that will be put in), but would be able to control how much heat he wants. I figure this will avoid the likely conversation when he requests additional heat because his ground floor rental is colder than the upper floors – which it is. This arrangement saves me from having to heat the whole house to keep him warmer and gives the tenant flexibility. I would lower the rent by some amount to reflect the fact that as the landlord I am not paying for heating.
Thoughts/comments from both renters and landlords would be appreciated!
Thx.
Yeah, but giving someone unlimited access to as much heat as they want is going to be much more expensive over time, eman…
unless you install a second boiler on the tenants upgraded meter…as mp pointed out, a bit of a pricey option
there is the rub….it will not be on a seperate meter (one of the reasons it is far cheaper), hence you cannot have the tenant pay for the heat as i stated in my prior post..you just give him control of his floor, without having to run your own heat too high for his comfort level
Eman,
How do you get that zone split off onto a separate meter? Is that possible?
an alternate, and way cheaper option that will allow your renter to control his heat, but not allow him to pay separately for it, is to split out an additional zone in the basement that would only service the garden apartment..you would basically pipe a loop in the basement and pop up at the location of the radiation, controlling it with a thermostat wired to a simple pump relay, which you may or may not already have in your system
As a renter, I personally wish my landlord had your thought process. We have a great cordial relationship but it is maddening to constantly deal with an apt that ranges from 59 – 65 degrees in the heart of winter. I know thats below the legal minimum but he is cool with other aspects (like letting us have a dog) . I would gladly pay my own heat bill if it meant controlling the temp in our pad.
you might consider a high efficiency condensing boiler with a direct vent and an additional indirect hot water zone…this will allow you to get around the chimney issue, given that your site conditions allow this option..
I don’t entirely agree with MP’s price but a big unknown that I came across when doing the same thing last year was chimney size. There is no guarantee that the existing chimney is big enough to accommodate an additional flue.
I don’t entirely agree with MP’s price but a big unknown that I came across when doing the same thing last year was chimney size. There is no guarantee that the existing chimney is big enough to accommodate another additional flue.