Even Heating
I am a renter in a beautiful 2 family brownstone. The landlord lives on the garden and parlor floors. My family lives on the 2nd and 3rd floor. My issue, is that the landlord has not installed zoned heating in the building. The thermostat is located in his unit. While his apartment reads: 72-75 degrees,…
I am a renter in a beautiful 2 family brownstone. The landlord lives on the garden and parlor floors. My family lives on the 2nd and 3rd floor. My issue, is that the landlord has not installed zoned heating in the building. The thermostat is located in his unit. While his apartment reads: 72-75 degrees, my unit is regularly below 65 degrees, especially on the 3rd floor where the bedrooms are. I have a 2 year old, and a newborn on the way, and need to resolve this heating issue with my landlord, who refuses to turn up the heat, given that there is no heating issues in his until.
Does anyone have any experience with a similar issue like this? How can we best resolve.
1. My landlord getting too hot?
2. My family getting too cold?
Another thing to note, heat is included in my lease. Expert advise from the community will be greatly appreciated!
it sounds like your system is poorly balanced… it may be able to be balanced by replacing the air vents on the radiators as well as the main vents in the basement…. for a free consultation email me at errol832000@yahoo.com
Has there even been a cold enough day to chill an apartment lately?
Also, check your heat loss. Are there drafts? Feel around windows and baseboards on a colder day. If you feel air, you will be cooling your hot radiator faster. Better insulation and sealing will do a lot. So will heavy drapes and rugs on the floor. Obama will give your LL a big tax rebate for installing new windows.
We have a one-pipe steam heating system and we experienced a similar situation in our first winter as brownstone owners, with our lower apartment toasty warm while the top floors were uncomfortably cool. The problem was easily fixed once our plumber made a small adjustment to our boiler.
Two things were extremely helpful in our situation:
(1) our tenants telling us that their apartments were cold (and the temperature readings in their units), rather than simply asking us to turn up the heat
(2) our reading a book called “We’ve Got Steam Heat” which is a fairly straightforward read for a homeowner that wants to understand the mechanics of a steam heating system
There are plenty of steps to take before calling 311. Best of luck!
There are lots of things that contribute to imbalance in steam heating systems:
NUMER0 UNO: a boiler that is the wrong size for the system it serves
2. venting
3. radiator sizes
4. air infiltration
5. the wrong near-boiler piping
6. pressure settings
7. thermostat location and settings
8. general health/cleanliness of the boiler and boiler water
9. bad main/branch piping
10. lotsa more stuff, believe me. I see it every day this time of year.
Me:
http://www.GatewayPlumbing.com
All good posts. One possibility overlooked though – just as the air valves on the top floor may be undersized, it is possible that there are D valves or something close on the lower floors choking off the flow of steam to the upper floor. There could also be a pitch issue with the lateral feeds on your floor, though not as likely. The radiators on the lower floor might be large vs yours too. Any good plumber who knows steam could spend some time balancing the system. It will never be perfect, but if I can get a four story four family on one zone to be reasonably balanced, so can he.
If he refuses, do refer him to the heat law, and let him roast or whatever it takes to bring your apartment to the required range. The money he will spend doing that will be MUCH more than the cost of balancing the system.
If you can’t work it out, find another place to rent and leave him with an empty apartment in december/january.
I would send a letter.
In the letter mention the following:
1. temp problem
2. previous complaints.
3. desire to resolve the situation amicably
4. arrange to inspect for him/herself.
5. In the event, you cant work it out amicably, you will seek other avenues or redress including 311.
PS If you arent rent control/stabilized, he/she may decide not to renew your lease.
“He is a new brownstone owner, who is more trusting of his thermostat reading than what my husband and I are telling him.”
How exactly are you going to convince him there is a problem? He already thinks you’re lying to him. He thinks so little of your complaint that he’s not even going to check for himself. Trying to snow him with newly acquired steam heat knowledge will do little to convince this clown.
Call 311.
“replace several Thermostatic valves on his radiators”…read Steam Vents
If there are actually thermostatic valves, they will be adjustable which is a big advantage. OP, Thermostatic valves are big clunky affairs with a large knob. You probably don’t have them. Landlord can put these on his radiators to reduce the heat in his level.
Balancing a steam system requires either expertise or a lot of research, tinkering and time.
Do NOT call 311.
First of all, if your apartment is at 65, and the landlord’s is at 72-75, then it sounds like there’s a problem that needs to be repaired.
B., as a landlord in the lower duplex, I lived in the exact same situation. Granted, I was a pushover as a landord, but I reasoned that my tenants were paying to live there, and that peace with the people who were sharing my house with me was important, so within an agreed upon temperature range, I left my parlor doors unlocked and let my tenants adjust the thermostat to suit them. They never abused it. When I was hot, I cracked a window. When I was cold, I wore a sweatshirt. There is no reason these situations have to escalate into nuclear stand-offs, especially in a 2-family house.