Apartment too hot! Any laws I can quote to my landlord?

[MetroMan1000]

Hey guys,
I'm aware of a law that states that in Ontario, the temperature in a rental unit shall not be below 21ºC between the months of September and June.

However, I'm far from having that problem. Mine is the complete opposite. It is -10ºC outside but +30ºC inside! No matter how many windows I open, this place is plain boiling at all times of the day and the year. Is there a requierment by law that a unit can't be heated beyond a certain temperature?

I mean, what prevents a landlord from for example "smoking out" unwanted tenants by raising the heat to unsupportable levels?

 

[building babel]

As Julius Caesar used to say, if you can't stand the heat get out of the frigidarium.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

babel:

Isn't the caldarium the hot ones?

AoD

 

[building babel]

I read somewhere he was dyslexic.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

You mean lysdexic. Why not compromise with the tepidarium?

 

[building babel]

Julius Caesar's actual words were, "Veni, vidi, geli."

 

[EnviroTO]

You can quote the law of thermodynamics but I don't know how far that would get you.

 

[bizorky]

Particularly if your landlord is Roman.

 

[cassiusa]

I had a similar problem once. The heat was left on right up until June, by which point the temperature in my apartment didn't drop below 40C. Complained once, nothing changed so I spent a lot of time outdoors.

 

[Chuck100]

My guess is that you live in the top half of your building. Warm air rises to upper floors and escapes through leaky windows, while cold air is sucked into lower floors. When you open a window, this causes air to be sucked out of your appartment, with warm air from the hall drawn in through your front door, vents, etc.

The easy solution is to take a fan and put it infront of a window, pointing inside so that cold air is sucked in. The real solution is to overcome the mechanism I just mentioned. Place a towel underneath your door and if there is central heating, cover up the vents with cardboard. Then turn on the fans ontop of your stove and in your bathroom to lower the air pressure inside your appartment. Assuming that you've now accounted for most of the air leaks into your appartment, opening up windows will finally cause outside air to be drawn in.

Try this and let me know if it works. It should, as long as you've sealed off all the places where inside air can enter your apparment from the rest of the building.

 

[building babel]

Chuck100:

That is perhaps the strangest suggestion I've ever read on this forum, replete with bizarre imagery and the implication of a budding consultancy including a follow-up guarantee. I'm awarding it my first ever:

"ROTFLMFAO"

 

[EnviroTO]

It does read like a customer support call.

 

[MetroMan1000]

Chuck that's the most comprehensive, yet halariously put explanation of how my apartment is hot. You do know what you're talking about though: I indeed live on the very top floor of my building and rising heat from floors below makes perfect sense. This means that if they were to lower the central heating, the people in the lower floors would freeze.

I'll attempt to seal off my apartment from the hallway and ducts and see if this solves my problem without a fan. I think there should have been better isolation of the floor to prevent heat from rising to my unit.

If this phenomena wasn't enough, I also live facing South so the Sun is hitting my windows during the majority of the day. This would explain why my apartment feels like a greenhouse when I arrive home at night.

I'll follow your recommendations Chuck. Thanks for the suggestions.

P.S. By the way, this doesn't answer my question: Is a landlord legally obliged to maintain a comfortable maximum temperature as well as a minimum?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"my apartment feels like a greenhouse "

In that case, get growing on a solution

 

[Chuck100]

Hehe, I know that all sounds funny but the key to controlling the temperature in your appartment is isolating it from the rest of the building. Theoretically my solution will work, however it depends on how well you can seal off your appartment.