Heating problems: move along, nothing of interest here.

[icarus]

Current temperature in the living room: 78 degrees.
Current temperature in the bedroom: 66 degrees.
450 square feet in all. You do the math.

wildernessguru and I have bought two thermometers.

To make a looooooong story short, the management of our apartment building decided a month ago to put our 1929 building on a thermostat, rather than running the heat at 'charbroil' and watching the tenants cool their apartments by opening all the windows. Yeah, pretty wasteful, I don't blame them.

But it doesn't work.


It's cold enough that we've been turning on our (electric) oven and cracking the door to heat our tiny overpriced apartment. It annoys the hell out of me because we're paying too much for our space already, are being gouged on a 'comp fee' for our heat and water, and now we're not even getting heat.

Now the 'heating guy' has brought in a little temperature gauge for the next two days. I assume they don't believe that we're really cold. "It can't be." They base the building temp on apartment 108 which is on the ground floor and the north side. A logical choice, but for some reason in this building the upper floors are colder than the lower floors, and the corner apartments are really cold.

But now, Mr Sneaky Heating Bastard (I'm open for new titles) has turned up the heat for the "test." He did the same thing when apartment 310 complained. So I'm going to maintain a record here of the apartment temperature. Sorry about boring you guys, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled entertainment shortly.

Comments

[dphearson.livejournal.com]

God, how annoying- especially if you paying the moon for rent.

Bastards.

Re:

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I like the new owners, but this is ridiculous. I want to move and not pay so much, but I really need wildernessguru to get a job first. Ahem. But the building's conveniently located a block from the school and near downtown so that's a big plus. I feel the landlady is working with us, but I'm not too sure about the property management firm. I'm certain the heating guy is covering his ass. When I talked to him I got the impression he's determined to be right about his methods for heating the building at any cost. He was more interested in schmoozing me than in answering my questions.

Icarus

[florahart]

Heh. I lived in a college dorm with one thermostat for each pod of three rooms. In one of the rooms. Not mine. The people whose room mine was in were incessant smokers who left their window wiiiide open at all times and thus the heat all the way on at all times.

And then in the spring they moved out, leaving the room vacant, so the maintenance people turned the heat off entirely (in March).

Shared heat sucks. :}

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I used to work for a property management firm, and I'm not unrealistic about heat. Every morning, my tenants would call and tell me they were too cold. Every afternoon they called to say they were too hot. The difference? The sun hitting the building. *rolls eyes* If I turned the heat up in the morning, then by afternoon everyone would fry.

But keeping the building as cold as they have been, because of the poor air circulation between our bedroom in the living room, the temperature in the bedroom drops below 64 degrees, which is illegal in the City of Seattle.

I know that because I've been in property management. *smirks*

They're fucked if they keep doing this, because if the city gets complaints, they don't just come down on the landlord for heating violations, they hunt around for every problem they can find with the building. I don't know if there are fines, that $$ is a fine motivator for a cash-strapped city.

Icarus

Re:

[ursulakohl.livejournal.com]

64 degrees? Why 64?

(I told my second-grade teacher that we kept our house at 60 degrees. She flat-out refused to believe me. It was true.)

Re:

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It's 65 degrees or above. That means once you hit 64 you've got a legal problem.

Icarus