heating at night in two family house
I’m just wondering how others with tenants handle heating during different times of day. We have steam heat, and we had valves installed so we can (very crudely) control the heat on each radiator. We’re able to control the heat to some extent in each room but not completely. One issue is that our tenants are on the garden level, and their bedroom is right over the boiler. It gets really hot there even if the radiators are turned off. This month, we’ve been turning the heat off at night, and it works well. We turn it on at 6:30 am when we get up, and it’s been great for us and the tenants. But as the weather gets colder, it will become more challenging. Do others with fancier systems turn down or turn off the heat at night and back up in the morning? How low do you put it at night? I know this is basic stuff, but since we don’t have a nest system, or complete control over the temperature (it’s just a little better than all or nothing), I’m not sure how to make sur e our tenants don’t boil down there, and I also worry about the pipes freezing if we do turn off the heat. Any suggestions for an obvious home heating newbie?
WRPListings
in General Discussion 6 years ago
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Master Plvmber | 6 years ago
The problem with heating two spaces with vastly different heating requirements isn’t easily overcome. Since your tenants are on the Garden Level and access to the cellar is easy, consider removing them from the steam heating system and installing a few cheap baseboard finned-tube radiators in their space instead. The baseboards would be connected independently to your steam boiler with a small pump and their own thermostat which would probably never call for heat anyway since they’re getting heat up from the floor. Everybody wins.
hkapstein | 6 years ago
Well this issue has a natural limit.
If it gets hot, eventually your tenant will open the windows and make it your problem.
WRPListings | 6 years ago
Just to clarify on this- we would never turn off the heat and disregard the needs of the tenant. We have new tenants who have expressed that it gets very hot at night in their apartment, so we’re investigating ways to moderate the heat so they are comfortable. We’re ok being a little colder at night, but we’re mainly basing the decision to turn off or down the heat based on tenant’s needs. If there are only two parties living in the building, I would think it makes sense to control the heat based on their preferences rather than law or regulations. Interestingly, we’ve been turning it off at 11 and back on at 6 for two weeks and it’s been great. When the temps go down, I don’t think it’ll work to keep doing that, but maybe some version of it.
hkapstein | 6 years ago
I think the the rules require the same temperatures for market rate apartments. True, you live under the threat of non-renewal. But the tenant chose that apt because it was the best price in their budget. If an owner occupied brownstone landlord had to guarantee renewal or make expensive changes to the heating system, they would charge a lot more or occupy the unit themselves. The income is nice to have, but so is the space. In fact, already I think a lot of the new buyers don’t bother with the rental. Sprinklers, CofO, signs, leases, insurance, arranging access for repairs, the potential for a tenant to stop paying, or do damage, or cause a problem with the neighbors. If it’s 50 degrees outside and the boiler goes down on friday night, a single family owner probably just toughs it out until money, but if the tenant demands you call a 24 hour plumber, that takes a decent chunk out of your rental income for the year. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. For what, 10-20k a year of income maybe after expenses? I think if owners were required to renew the lease indefinitely, almost no one would offer the rental unit. In fact, we see that buildings with rent regulated units could easily have their value impaired by 25%-50%. It would be crazy to do that vs just converting to single family.
Personally I like the idea of having someone else living in the building. Another person to keep an eye on things, someone to keep a spare set of keys, and chat with on the stoop. But if you’re always fighting over a few degrees at night, that just doesn’t sound worth it.
stevecym | 6 years ago
correct bobjbkln, some people are shutting their units down for other reasons (and none of which appear to be driven by money) but i do not think that is the course of action the OP wants. they were looking for alternatives to such. and stan chaz, shutting the heat off at night in most of the brick and mortar structures (with modern windows) does not cool the house any lower than the 60’s. we do it here in our single family for a variety of reasons and we are all still alive and we prefer a cooler house at night. the problem with running a system this way is that if it cannot run on its own safely and reliably, the person who turns it off at 11 PM and back on at 6 AM cannot take a week off an go to the bahamas in February.
nope | 6 years ago
Jpb87: In effect the city heat regulations only fully protect those with regulated rents, since if a non-regulated renter complains too much he or she may find that the rent is doubled or tripled once the lease expires. My point was that these protections of guaranteed lease renewal and the security of predictable rent increases be extended to currently non-regulated tenants as well.
shahnandersen
in General Discussion 6 years ago
I think you missed the essence of the thread. The OP was asking about whether to set back the thermostat at night. Not to shut down the system.
Guest User | 6 years ago
Not sure where you’re getting your info Stan but heating laws apply to regulated and market-rate tenants alike.
We just moved into a renovated house with an un-renovated steam heating system. We have a programmable thermostat but be very careful where you put it! For us, it’s in the hall, and the hall radiator is much smaller than the bedrooms. So if you crank the heat up in the mornings and evenings you see a much bigger temparature swing than what you’ve set — if we turned it off all the way at night we would end up boiling once the heat kicks in. We have it at 68 at night and 69 in the mornings and that seems to work well.
And definitely insulate your boiler and steam mains — in addition to cooling down your cellar it will make your heat turn on faster so you can get better control.
nope | 6 years ago
It’s admirable that you don’t want “boiled tenants”.
However more than a few unscrupulous owners might find that a tasty delicacy.
No heat at night even in the dead of of a New York City winter? Scrooge would have loved that, especially in the many under-insulated structures in the city.
Your two-family home is of course not rent regulated, but during the October thru May heating season,rent regulated NYC apartments must maintain a temperature of at least 62 indoors betwem 10 pm and 6am no matter what the outdoor temp, and at least 68 indoors when the outside temp falls below 55 during the hours of 6am to 10 pm.
Of course non-regulated apartment house owners have extraordinary power over their tenants who might complain or demand proper services & habitable premises in exchange for their rent . This, since owners can retaliate with exorbitant rent increases once the lease is up and even refuse lease renewals. That inequity should be addressed in terms of regulations protecting such tenants.
NeoGrec | 6 years ago
Yes to maximizing weatherstripping and insulation, per slopefarm’s suggestion. We have different brands of replacement windows in the house (staggered renovation) but the Marvin’s we have in 3 rooms are easily the warmest and most draft free and were installed brick mold-to-brick mold, meaning the entire window frame was replaced and the wall cavity exposed thus allowing spray foam insulation to be blown in. High end windows are expensive but worth it in the long run for your comfort and lower fuel bills.
slopefarm | 6 years ago
Yes, I agree with the other comments about an inexpensive (not Nest) programmable thermostat. We set the heat at about 69 for mornings and late-afternoon-evening, we set it for about 65 midday because often no one is home, and 63 overnight. The house rarely cools all the way down to 63. Our post-reno insulation is mostly good, but if your house is super drafty you may need to set things a bit higher (and do some weatherproofing, it really helps stabilize the temps).
I am not sure why your boiler is throwing off so much radiant heat that it heats up the room above unbearably. Maybe have your boiler checked. You can also insulate heat risers with round insulation pads in any room with heat risers that heats up too much when the heat is on.
shahnandersen
in General Discussion 6 years ago
First of all, you don’t need a fancy NEST System to tirn down the heat at night (and during the day) there a several inexpensive ( < $30) programmable thermostats out there that will do that for you that connect using the same wires as your current thermostat. For example: https://www.lowes.com/pd/Honeywell-5-2-Day-Programmable-Thermostat/1000280901 . And yes, you should turn down the heat at night (and during the day if the tenants aren’t home).
stevecym | 6 years ago
what neo grec is saying is pretty much the way we live here, turning things all the way off at night and even during the day. the problem will arise when you find a last minute deal to Jamaica in the middle of the winter and you have to install a programmable thermostat and test it three days before you leave.
stevecym | 6 years ago
first, the tenants who get too hot. put a smaller vent on that radiator. or put a danfoss thermostatically controlled vent on that radiator and let them regulate it.
we turn the heat off in this house at night but most people would find that bizarre and the tenants might not like it.
In addition to a danfoss vent, look into a programmable thermostat. some of these programmable thermostats have many up and down settings per 24 hour period and different days can be set a little different, say if you want heat on a certain weekday because someone works from home that day. ours is called Rite Temp and we were happy with it when we bought it over 10 years ago. probably about $40 at the time. Prior to turning the heat off at night and when we are not home, we kept it at a base of 58 degrees, having it kick up to say 68 at 4 PM and back down to 64 at 10 PM and back to 58 at midnight. you can have it kick back to say 68 at 5 am and wake to a warm house.
if you feel the room where the thermostat is located is not warming quick enough to turn the heat off bef ore the rest of the house is getting too warm to fast, put a larger vent in that room. also very cold rooms should have larger vents put on them to heat them faster. you can play these vents any way you want to get things close to what you want, especially with the right thermostat.
in so far as your concern about freezing pipes, if you are in a brick and mortar construction, it would take a week of like 20 degree and below weather with no heat at all before the pipes would break; it happen next to me and the house was empty and we were counting the days.
NeoGrec | 6 years ago
We have the heat on in the mornings and evenings and off overnight and during the day. We rarely see the temperature fall more than 1 or 2 degrees between heating periods. We’ve also never had a complaint from our tenants (several different ones over the years). Not sure how your pipes would freeze unless they run smack up against an exterior wall.