I live in an old concrete building. If it's 20C outside, it's 25C in my apartment. If it's 30C outside, it's likely 36+ in my apartment. There's no ventilation/air flow, aside from keeping windows open. I would probably die without an AC. New building owners said we can't have window ACs, only the indoor ACs with a tube to the window, that are super inefficient. :/
they can be more efficient! the issue is you need to get a two tube system so it can pull fresh air and exhaust hot air separately. the one tube is nearly pointless indeed.
I spent a little more on one of those and it definitely works great. I can program it to turn on off at different times, set and change the temperatures, controll it from my phone app. I would never go back to a window one. Knowing I could be away the weekend and program it to turn on and cool my apartment before I come home, or do the same when I'm away for the day...it's definitely added to quality of life.
I found out the key is to get a variable speed DC motor. I bought a U shaped window unit (and then another) both app controlled and they are damn near silent and do exactly as you say with the programming etc. Got an app controlled through the wall that is the old style compressor and it’s noisy. DC inverter like a mini-split, even in a window or portable, that’s the way to go.
Oh, fun stuff, I thought they might but I hadn't come across any when I did my shopping around. That and my building charges a fee to have window units put in so obviously will opt for something I don't have to pay a fee on... Buuuuuut.... Anyone looking at buying a new AC and has the money to spend, I highly recommend getting a fancier one that can be programmed. It's a game changed and it will pay for itself in the long run if you pay electricity (ie. It doesn't have to cool when you're not home)
You should sell tickets to it like a hot sauna room. Set up a little bench hand out towels... You got a side gig at work and you don't even have to leave the office. 😂
The unfortunate thing is how hard it is to find two-tube models now. Check Home Depot... Canadian Tire... Rona... they're all one-tubers.
I'm forever shocked by the really basic things I have to shop online to get... usually from Scamazon.
The air is drawn from inside the apartment, cooled by the unit and then returned to the inside of the apartment . It wouldn't be very efficient to try and cool down 36C air from outside.
The hot air being exhausted is simply waste heat being dropped by the freon, and blown away by a fan
I understand why buildings don't allow window ACs anymore. To many people installing them that don't do it correctly and they end up falling out onto whatever is below.
Two years ago I waited the entire summer for the landlord to install the AC. When he eventually showed up he used duct tape to do it. I was fucking livid. My gf and I were wearing ice packs day and night to keep from keeling over.
When they walked in too they said “WOW it is very hot, can I have some water?” No fuck you fix my shit, I have to live in this tropical climate apartment, you’re just visiting
Imagine if incompetent landlords could be fired? It's really inhumane how negatively they can effect our lives and it also boggles my mind how so many of them don't even give a shit about their 'investment'/buildings. They will really let a building fall apart before doing any small renovations or upkeep because they can still bleed us dry for rent because people have so few options to rent from and so much competition and price gouging.
Anyway hearing this story makes me really angry for you and your gf.
Uhh ok? Then I guess windows shouldn’t be the managers responsibility either since people won’t wait for the building to come install it and do it themselves. Lighting fixtures and plumbing too.
To say something is a bad idea because of incompetent landlords is missing the point completely.
“This makes zero sense”
“I’m not even going to try to pretend to understand”
I’m saying that something shouldn’t be disallowed sinply because landlords are too incompetent to install them in a timely manner, by this logic we’d disallow anything else a landlord is responsible for installing since they can be equally lazy about installing those too
Who determines timely manner? You expect to call your landlord and them be there same day or next day with a fix for non urgent items?
The difference is also lighting, plumbing issues are sporadic, AC installation will all be done within a few weeks of each other. Average person will not attempt to repair their own electrical or plumbing but they will mickey mouse some bullshit to get their AC in the window.
Yes. I am paying them to fix things in a timely manner. If I pay for an apartment with plumbing then they should be there to fix it the next day. I’m not shitting in a bucket so they can find the best price over a week later. Ac would be on the urgent list also
And how many people are paying someone to come install their window unit?
We build things that are dangerous and fall BUT they are designed/engineering by qualified individuals that carry insurance.
If you make it a requirement, people will do it.
You can't seem to be able to separate issues inherent to a solution from the issues that occur due to the current process.
For example, If you cheap out on cement, concrete will not be strong and the building may collapse. Does it mean we should not build anything? No. you just make the rule that concrete needs to follow a certain standard. And not following it will lead to lawsuits/jailtime.
It appears that this is not a big concern with window ACs. If it were, you would have had many cases of ACs falling over and a rule would be made. In reality, this is not a common occurrence at all.
Good lord you're really reaching trying to make windows ACs seem like a be all end all with no other option.
Even if AC becomes mandatory landlords can still ban window units and only approve portable units.
This is the most recent one I remember too. Im sure it happens more often but its probably just property damage most of the time so it doesn't get media coverage.
I used an indoor A/C to cool my 3 bedroom townhouse and it did a pretty good job. I put a fan at the bottom of the stairs pointed up and along with a ceiling fan in the master bedroom it kept the whole house reasonably cool.
If it's not in your lease that you can't have one, tell your landlord to pound sand. If it is in your lease they're not allowed, tell them to pound sound because there's nothing they can do about it to make you stop using it. The LTB will not care and have in the past found using a window air conditioner to be part of the right to normal and reasonable use of a rented premises. There isn't even really an LTB form they can file against you, they could try an N5 or an N7 but as long as you're not damaging the unit, creating a major safety problem (Window ACs are not a "major" safety concern if installed properly) or interfering with the rights of other tenants to enjoy their apartments, it won't get them very far.
Not only that but there's a provincial law (still awaiting proclamation) that explicitly gives the right to tenants to have an air conditioner.
I think everyone agrees we should the problem lies in who would cover the cost.
I would presume the tenant would be foot the bill due to increased rent and hydro costs.
Not sure how popular tax increases are and the city cant issue bonds so we would need an agreement with at least the province or triple with federal too.
All in all yes we should but we can't agree on how
Nah, it’s a cost of doing business thing. If you run a building that manages the cost itself, you pay just like with heat. If units have their own utility readers, they do and can manage it directly. Those cases already have this handled though. The problem cases are where landlords would have to foot the bill and refuse to provide cooling.
The next problem is, if tenants foot the electricity and installation bill then the landlord has a negative incentive to provide efficient cooling options or get things properly installed
They might not want to spend the money to vent a portable unit outside and instead vent it back into the unit
The tenant now needs to spend significantly more in utility costs in order to run the unit to hit the max temp
Don't think it will happen like this?
This is what happened after Bill 97 was proposed.
Why would a tenant foot the installation bill. It maintenance and running it should be on the tenant and if the landlord does a dirt cheap option then the cost to meet the minimum temp will simply make there unit less desirable, which may still sell anyway, without putting people in a spot without having a decent living space.
Landlords aren't stupid.
Right now you have a choice: rent a place with hydro included or rent a place where you pay your own utilities. This would just push all of them to lease without included hydro.
you're paying for the electricity one way or another whether it's in the rent or you pay the utility. they only include it in the rent when it would be too expensive not to, i.e., they would need to pay for a second meter with separate billing to be installed.
I'm in Alberta but so local laws could be different for you but a retrofit isn't needed here. At least in condominiums you're allowed to divide the total building utilities by the unit share and bill that to the units. I don't see why this couldn't be applied to rentals if its outlined in the lease.
For example, if there is 100,000 sq ft of living space in a building, a unit with 1000 square feet would pay 1% of the bill, 900 sq ft would pay 0.9% and 1100 sq ft 1.1%.
You're already doing that in a utilities included building either through higher rent or condo fees if an owner. Retrofits for meters are expensive and all it does is allow you to divide by actual usage. The utility cost is the same so there really is no ROI for the retrofit.
False. They factor in the average cost of electricity, sure, but if you have a dozen people mining Bitcoin and driving the electric bill through the roof, you will never see the added cost latched onto your monthly rent.
You can do that for rentals in Ontario too, but only for buildings with six or fewer units. In larger buildings the only options are suite meters or including utilities in the rent.
Yupp. I rented those older apartments from 2010-2013. It had central AC and utilities included. During the hot summers, that AC was blasted all day.
Sometime around 2012 or maybe 2011, every new lease was metered separately for electricity.
Looking back, I wish I kept it and just sub leased it out.
All units should be separately metered with the tenant paying their own usage. That would be a good start.
Then you have no disagreements about energy usage as each person is paying their own way here.
If a tenant wants to run the A/C all day or mine bitcoin they can. The landlord isn't paying so they have no say and the tenant gets the freedom to use as much power as they want.
If they skip out on paying then the landlord is protected.
This is a rare win/win where there is an obvious solution.
"Landlords aren't stupid" 
That's a good one. Have you met 90% of landlords? I guarantee you that's an overstatement.
>I think everyone agrees we should the problem lies in who would cover the cost.
I mean, we already have a minimum temp with clear rules about who is responsible for what, and how costs can or cannot be shared.
I know it's kind of cliche but I think it's actually worse being hot than cold. If you're cold, you can put more layers on but if you're swelteringly hot, there's not much you can do.
I hear you but it's a matter of (cough) degrees --- that's true about comfort, but when we start to talk about life threatening it's about the same...
Aside from the fact that we have the infrastructure and local understanding of how to deal with cold, it's an annual occurrence... life threatening heat is rather new...
Agree!!! We keep the heat super lower in the winter, and often sleep with the window cracked, but I cannot sleep if too hot. I had the bedroom set at 70 last night and was cuddled up under a duvet lol
Pretty sure the only reason they would do heat if they had the choice is because the cold can freeze the pipes & cause damage to the building that the landlord is responsible for.
They wont do this..... otherwise someone might make this apply to High Schools - and most of them in Ontario do NOT have air conditioning. They are constantly asking students to spend a whole day in 30+ degree classrooms....
I went to a school with a uniform and often times in June and sometimes even September they would make exceptions for us to wear our gym shorts and tees all day because it was so hot with no AC. That was basically the best it got for fighting the heat
Right now the provincial heat pump rebate only applies to houses. Anyone landlord or not in a condo doesn't get the same sort of rebate. Changing those rules would go a long way to help get single units set up with coolant
That’s not necessarily true. There’s very large incentives for reducing the costs of installing ptac systems and some others in each unit of a condo/apartment building. But unfortunately the economics of it all still don’t make it too feasible. A landlord has to shell out a lot of unplanned capital and it’s a massive project.
I know this because I met someone who works for a company that started doing this exact thing in the last 2-3 years.
There's incentives for free hold homeworkers. There's incentives for converting entire buildings. But as far as I can tell, there are no incentives for individual unit owners to install heat pumps
That seems reasonable to me. As a society we should be incentivizing the economically and environmentally efficient option not piecemeal infrastructure that will do a worse job and would overall cost more to fix the whole problem.
Incentivizing the piecemeal solution wouldn't just be throwing money into a poor investment, it would also be disincentivizing the better solution as you swallow up a fraction of the economic potential.
What's inefficient about installing a heat pump in an individual condo unit? The status quo is just using much more inefficient window units, and how is it efficient to offer incentives for single family homes, but not multi family condos?
> What's inefficient about installing a heat pump in an individual condo unit
Because the alternative is a building system which as I understand it is both more efficient in terms of coefficient of performance and more efficient in terms of $/unit.
> how is it efficient to offer incentives for single family homes
Because single family homes don't have a more efficient alternative...
My condo building had residents install units on their own, but organized it so that contractors would come in and install multiple units at once (turns out having a better AC and heating is actually very popular), so I hardly see the loss in efficiency considering we had multiple dozens of heat pumps installed. What "more efficient" alternative is there for old condos without central AC than this? Its more efficient to get the condo board to organize a group install than to give SFH rebates to do individual installs but we still do that. It's just laziness we don't make it possible.
Install central air conditioning via a 3 pipe VRF system (which allows for independent heating/cooling of each unit, automatically re-uses waste heat from cooling a unit to heat other units, and like all building-wide unit allows for larger more complex more efficient heat pumps).
And yes, in some particular building the construction might make it prohibitively expensive to retrofit a building wide system. The way to guarantee that's the case in *every* building though is to have half the units install their own less efficient private heat pumps first (that would then become waste if a building wide system was installed). Having the purchase be done at the condo board level is the only way to ensure that the otherwise better options are being ruled out because poor construction has made the retrofit not worthwhile, not because it's the wrong entity doing the purchase.
It would be basically impossible for a condo so switch its existing individually vented units to a whole system unit, particularly assuming the majority of the building is made of concrete. I'm not sure why this would ever be considered a good idea?
Bought Fujitsu heat pump system; came with seven year warranty.
It failed at seven years, six months. Fujitsu quoted me on the part that failed around $8000; the quote to install a new unit was $16000
So I paid $1500 for them to rip it out and haul it to the dump, and installed window ACs
This is correct as someone who did it and wasn't eligible for any of the incentive programs - felt ridiculous that someone owning a 2M home was and yet I wasn't...
I hope so. The folks beneath me keep turning the AC off. It was 29 in here yesterday. Emailed the landlord to let them know the AC keeps repeatedly being shut off by other tenant. No response yet
often in old houses the hvac is not engineered properly and some areas get way cooler than others. talk to your landlord and downstairs neighbors and get the owner to buy them some magnetic vent register covers so the downstairs won't freeze in the effort to cool the upstairs.
This place is a recent gut job and was newly renovated about three years ago. Vents have dampers in them to force the cold air upstairs and avoid certain floors. They just haven't switched them to summer settings yet. Downstairs tenants absolutely could just shut their vents but instead they're just turning it off entirely. During a heat wave.
I've scheduled the Nest thermostat to force it to reset to a comfortable temperature every hour now, as a workaround. Thermostat-obsessed dad stereotype fulfilled ✅
The schools bit has always felt ridiculous to me. Our education was so important that we needed to absolutely be miserable in the last chunk of the school year. Even worse were those portables; friggin' getting slow cooked while I'm trying to learn calculus
But if you ask the wrong person, their reasoning is that they survived, so kids these days should be able to as well. And the parents that want changes are raising a generation of soft, entitled brats.
Somehow as a society we collectively agreed that the days of lying down in the backseat of dads car was unsafe, so car seats and seatbelts were normalised and even made part of the law. On the other hand, children having to deal with a few weeks (if they're lucky) of sweltering heat that's been scientifically proven to be linked to poor performance in class is something not worth taking seriously.
The pandemic really taught me that children are simply collateral damage, because the adults tasked with protecting them are too lazy and ignorant to do the work. And if something happens everyone just shrugs their shoulders and says it's always been this way.
While we're at it, can we please also change the heating bylaw period to something like between October 1 and May 15?
It's currently between September 15 and June 1, and I'd argue there are more instances of September and May being too warm than being too cold. Landlords and property managers often wait until the very end of May before they turn off the heating (vice versa, turn off the AC too soon) because they want to play it safe with the bylaw.
It's an insane song and dance that a lot of us do every year!
Yes. Canada recognizes adequate and safe housing as a fundamental right and this imo falls within that. I would go further and say the government of Canada should legislate that (if it’s possible? I don’t know how that works exactly).
I remember living in a place without air and it was unbearable. At least my electricity was included in the rent so at least I could keep a fan running 24/7. I wouldn’t be able to budget that otherwise. That’s how people die. I would also go for long grocery store runs and to the library to get some relief.
Years ago, my grandmother lived alone in her condo after my grandfather passed away. She would always have a fan on instead of the air-con box in the window because she said it aggravated her alllergies. That’s what she said but I also know she was thrifty with stuff like that because ‘why waste it when I don’t need it?’ mentality. Anyways, I went over one day during a heat wave and she was slumped in her chair and I called 911. She recovered but she still didn’t like the air-con box on. After that, we discussed as a family the reality of her living alone and she went to a retirement home, with central air, and enjoyed it for her last 10 yrs. She wanted the retirement home btw.
Basically what I’m saying is that it will save lives. Our weather is more extreme than I ever remember and the heat is crazy. Some people can’t control their own living temperature either because they aren’t cognitively capable or financially able to.
> it will save lives
TBH I don't think our governments care about saving lives, if the last five years are anything to go by. Dead people don't need health care or pensions or housing. It saves money and partially solves a few problems if some people pass.
As another HVAC/R party member, I agree. It would take 15 years of very steady work to pipe the chilled water or install heat pumps. We could write our own paycheque
Some units I think this is close to impossible in. Specifically some buildings in last 30ish years where they have tons of floor to ceiling windows+tiny bs windows not conducive to airflow+no building wide chiller (this is different than AC in building/units) you just can't live normally in. Specifically, you can't cook any meals, have blinds open at all, there is no reprieve it's awful if you get afternoon sun.
It would be a massive engineering and technical challenge to put AC in a lot of Torontos buildings. It would also likely take 15 years even if it was law tomorrow.
That's really the whole issue. We already have a by-law that requires landlords to keep homes below 26 degrees if there's A/C available. But a lot of older buildings don't have that, and a lot of buildings are banning window units because of [the potential hazards if they fall out](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/girl-air-conditioner-struck-dies-scarborough-1.5356152).
I think its more reasonable to grandfather multi unit buildings with central systems in.
Almost no buildings built in the last couple decades though don't have a building wide chiller though. It's much older buildings that lack central cooling systems
It's only going to continue to get hotter. Today's high is 32 feels like 41 degrees.
How hot will august be? July? Only God knows.
And year after year we only expect it to get hotter.
Absolutely. This is a disability/health & safety issue. 600 people died in BC in 2021 due to the “heat dome”. Air conditioning should be mandated by law.
Never going to happen because the cost to retrofit AC on 70 year old buildings would be insane.
Buildings would have to file for massive rent increases via AGI and everyone would literally be priced out of their homes...
Buy a portable AC unit, it's not that complicated 😉
Yes, but there are huge logistical challenges with this. Most newer condo buildings for example operate on a two-pump system where they can run heating or AC, but not both. I don’t think it would even be possible to retrofit them to a four-pump system since the physical space to double the piping wouldn’t exist. Similarly, many older buildings don’t have the electrical infrastructure to support AC in every unit.
I like the idea of mandating it for all new builds going forward, but trying to enforce it with existing high-density buildings would be an absolute nightmare and bordering on logistically impossible in many cases.
Yes 100000 percent yes. It’s reached nearly 30+ degrees in my condo. I can semi handle it because I’m 26 and in good health. But I think how the fuck do young children and babies survive or even animals???? I swear it’s going to take a death or two for someone to actually legislate something.
Yes, absolutely.
Minimums and maximums in both winter and summer based on typical human physiological comfort levels, maybe something like 19°c low and 26°c high year round?
Minimum is 21⁰C all winter for apartments (18⁰C for the Building Code)
There is no maximum, not even in the OBC for new construction. That's right, new condos, office buildings, etc, can be built currently without any provision for cooling.
First step would be to bring this to the attention of your MPPs, City Councillors etc and get the regulations changed.
Absolutely. Just like there's a minimum temperature for apartments there should be a maximum one as well. It's completely nonsensical that we've had one for decades but not the other. And while we're at it, there should also generally be minimum ventilation requirements for all apartments as well.
All of these basic health and safety regulations should be applied to all buildings, regardless of age.
Rather than try and do everything through more regulation (notice the regulation on windows is part of the issue here) I think the tenant advocacy should build a database/website where they potential tenants can look up a building and get some visibility on these sorts of issues. Part of the problem with units that have poor cooling is that for 80% of the year you'll never notice it, and for another 15% of the year it's somewhat tolerable. It's only in the rare cases that you learn your unit is terribly equipped to deal with the temperature, and it's hard to have that knowledge when you're signing a lease
This is very building dependent. Installing AC in an old building from the 1960s running 208V is a huge undertaking. Main electrical feed needs to be upsized to accommodate the cooling load. If the next route is heat pumps, the building chases need to be upsized too. If a chiller is installed, the roof needs to take the load or it's going on the ground and generating enough noise to annoy at least a few tenants. Pipes need to be resized for cooling and radiators need to be upgraded to fan coil units. This is millions of dollars the landlord likely does not have, on top of the tens of thousands in additional hydro costs for summer cooling. A rental built in 2022 has all these features built in, but renting a shoebox costs $2,800 a month plus utilities.
100% yes. Before my landlord installed a decent AC unit last year, my place (3rd floor converted attic/bachelor) was easily getting between 35°C-40°C on hot days. There has to be hundreds of others in the same situation, so I would definitely say yes, Toronto should legislate a maximum temperature in apartments.
How could that even be possible? There are tons of old buildings that would need major upgrades that would cost big bucks in order to provide A/C. Then the tenants would be looking a BIG rent increases when the LTB approves the landlords application for an above guideline increase. And the LTB for sure would approve it. So, then there would be a cascade of evictions when people can no longer afford their rent. As it it weren't already enough of a problem.
Yes.
Every year when our building switches over from AC to hear or vice versa, there’s about a 1 month or more period where the building is 28 degrees (either because outside still isn’t cold enough for heat, or because it’s getting too hot but the heat is still on).
I don't know how this will go but if I owned an apartment and got slapped with hundreds of thousands of repair orders I'd just sell the building to a developer and exit the game. This could displace people living in older buildings which are generally low rent.
So pick your poison, be hot in the summer or be potentially homeless.
With no one to enforce anything and backlogs left right and center, i dont see how it will make a difference. Especially when people are desperate for apartments. You're half lucky the landlord doesnt set the unit on fire with you in it.
The upside of this means you can go ahead and install an AC even if your landlord tells you that you aren't allowed. What are they gonna do, take you to the ltb?
I hope this maximum also applies in winter. When the central building heat is on it all rises to the higher floor units, and for those without balconies it’s impossible to get below the maximum summer temperature with all the windows open despite the heat switched off in the unit. With all these warm winters we’ve been having it’s been a total nightmare.
To play devil's advocate, what is the realistic option for older (40-50+ year-old) buildings that do not have the infrastructure (power, forced air system, etc) to equip each unit with A/C? Giving each unit a portable/in-window A/C seems like the easiest option, but is the electrical wiring in the older buildings able to handle several hundred A/C units running simultaneously? Who pays for the power use of these units? Monthly rents generally only include heat (via radiators) but if summer temperatures are now being regulated who will bear the additional cost?
If this requires the province to sign off then no, absolutely not.
I'm not normally one of those people that think we can't do two things at the same time. However this is a little bit different.
The province hasn't been doing their job. We can't give them token victories before we force them to address the lack of funding for the LTB
Without a functioning LTB, it's not like this law would mean anything
Did over 600 people die in BC’s heatwaves in 2021?
If housing conditions cause masses of people to die, then yes - this is something that needs to be legislated.
I know the common person thinks AC works like magic and there’s zero cost to it. It’s not so easy to just retrofit a whole building with AC. There are electrical limitations and the cost would be so high. They would be able to raise rent more than the minimum with doing the extra capital work. They could also pass all of the electrical bill onto the tenant which would be the next thing they cry about.
Absolutely. Sweltering temps aren't going away. Year after year it seems things just get hotter and hotter. Having elderly and kids in apartments that absolutely BAKE in the summer sucks. Having lived through that my childhood; we did everything from sticking box fans into the windows, to walking around with cool wet towels. And back then the temps really never got that high as they do now.
In apartments, the amount of thermal mass that can suck up the heat during the day and bake you at night is absurd!
Yes!!! This is a no brainer.
And people are going to want to talk about who cover cost of implementation and that’s easy and common sense… the same as the heat. The landlords own the system and tenets pay for the utilities or not depending on the lease. They can do a special rent increase of an extra 1% or whatever if they add AC and mandatory add within however many months. People who have AC and are renting are already paying extra for that in higher rents and utilities.
Heat related illness can be just as serious as cold related illness. It’s a no brainer. There should be a max heat and mandatory AC. To not have it in Toronto now is a health risk for too many people.
For us the problem was high temps in the winter. When the AC would be turned off for the winter, our south facing lake view unit would get bombarded by the sun all day and heat up my bedroom to temps as high as 94F with no way of cooling. I remember waking up one afternoon after a night out covered in sweat and all my bedsheets soaked from sweating all night and the thermostat read 94. I couldn’t help but imagine if there was a child stuck in that room….
Just reading the comments and there is absolutly no reason to retrofit a whole build for AC when a simply mini split for each unit will work. Almost every Asian country has them installed on the outside of the apartment and they can both heat and cool.
There are 220 and 115 versions, 220 is cheaper since the current draw is lower and could be added to the fuse panel.
I've been looking at getting one and they are finally coming down below $1000 but of course all the HVAC companies mark them up like crazy.
Yeah i would love this. My apartment is so hot Im pretty much confined to my room because we dont have a built in a/c and windows are only in the bedrooms. I have to rely on window a/cs that can only do the bedrooms but the living room and kitchen and stuff are screwed as they were already about 30+ degrees back in May. Im the top floor of a low rise so I get all the heat. I feel like I have a right to be able to enjoy my entire unit but I just cant due to heat.
yes, protect the poor, old, the animals and the babies. its insane there is no maximum already. do you know how many seniors get sent to the hospital during heat waves???
Ifmy unit isn't actively cooled or ventilated it gets up to 28c on average.even hotter in direct sunlight so yes cooling should be regulated for safety
Ugh, as a tenant, who purchased an AC, pays additional on hydro for it, I can’t imagine what my landlord could do to help… except help with cost. It’s 40 degrees in here today with the ac, cuz it’s an attic unit with no ventilation. While it’s sucks, I can’t see this as being fixable. I think landlords should have to live in their units it for a year
Absolutely, but wait until sustainability herd will find this out and start screaming AC = CO2 !!! PLANET IS BURNING, NO AC FOR YOU!!! 
My condo's fancoil unit gave out at the final stretch of last summer and needed to be fully replaced. My apartment got up to 40c if I had to cook or do laundry. The afternoon sun hits all my windows directly, making the heat worse as the day goes on. I have a brand new fancoil this year, but with the way temperatures are getting, these units are only gonna last half as long as they're meant to.
It is a great idea, but like all great ideas the politicians will say that any building older then 30 years is exempt.
I say bunk to that, all apartments buildings not only in Toronto but the entire province should be forced to install air conditioning.
Of course that will never happen because the owners of those buildings will come up with millions of excuses not to do it.
At the very least, tenants should be allowed to purchase small form factor AC units. If a building can't support AC units, then that'll just have to be a risk factor of living there. Sucks, but retrofitting old concrete buildings isn't practical or possible without disrupting the lives of the tenants.
I live in an old concrete building. If it's 20C outside, it's 25C in my apartment. If it's 30C outside, it's likely 36+ in my apartment. There's no ventilation/air flow, aside from keeping windows open. I would probably die without an AC. New building owners said we can't have window ACs, only the indoor ACs with a tube to the window, that are super inefficient. :/
they can be more efficient! the issue is you need to get a two tube system so it can pull fresh air and exhaust hot air separately. the one tube is nearly pointless indeed.
I spent a little more on one of those and it definitely works great. I can program it to turn on off at different times, set and change the temperatures, controll it from my phone app. I would never go back to a window one. Knowing I could be away the weekend and program it to turn on and cool my apartment before I come home, or do the same when I'm away for the day...it's definitely added to quality of life.
Which one is this?
I found out the key is to get a variable speed DC motor. I bought a U shaped window unit (and then another) both app controlled and they are damn near silent and do exactly as you say with the programming etc. Got an app controlled through the wall that is the old style compressor and it’s noisy. DC inverter like a mini-split, even in a window or portable, that’s the way to go.
Many newer window units have all the same tricks.
Oh, fun stuff, I thought they might but I hadn't come across any when I did my shopping around. That and my building charges a fee to have window units put in so obviously will opt for something I don't have to pay a fee on... Buuuuuut.... Anyone looking at buying a new AC and has the money to spend, I highly recommend getting a fancier one that can be programmed. It's a game changed and it will pay for itself in the long run if you pay electricity (ie. It doesn't have to cool when you're not home)
Which one do you have?
I'm sure there are window units available that also have a phone app.
Obligatory [Technology Connections video on portable A/C units.](https://youtu.be/_-mBeYC2KGc?si=FFm_ZKDZI8yB-42L)
Love that man's tech breakdowns. Just watched his new dishwasher video even tho it was basically just a condensed version of all his other ones lol
> the one tube is nearly pointless indeed. I wouldn't call them nearly pointless, they definitely work. Very inefficiently, but they work.
I have one of these in a network closet at work. It keeps the room at 19 while the room it exhausts into is like 34 lol.
You should sell tickets to it like a hot sauna room. Set up a little bench hand out towels... You got a side gig at work and you don't even have to leave the office. 😂
Window
The unfortunate thing is how hard it is to find two-tube models now. Check Home Depot... Canadian Tire... Rona... they're all one-tubers. I'm forever shocked by the really basic things I have to shop online to get... usually from Scamazon.
The air is drawn from inside the apartment, cooled by the unit and then returned to the inside of the apartment . It wouldn't be very efficient to try and cool down 36C air from outside. The hot air being exhausted is simply waste heat being dropped by the freon, and blown away by a fan
I understand why buildings don't allow window ACs anymore. To many people installing them that don't do it correctly and they end up falling out onto whatever is below.
It should be the building owners/managers responsibility to instal them correctly.
Two years ago I waited the entire summer for the landlord to install the AC. When he eventually showed up he used duct tape to do it. I was fucking livid. My gf and I were wearing ice packs day and night to keep from keeling over. When they walked in too they said “WOW it is very hot, can I have some water?” No fuck you fix my shit, I have to live in this tropical climate apartment, you’re just visiting
Imagine if incompetent landlords could be fired? It's really inhumane how negatively they can effect our lives and it also boggles my mind how so many of them don't even give a shit about their 'investment'/buildings. They will really let a building fall apart before doing any small renovations or upkeep because they can still bleed us dry for rent because people have so few options to rent from and so much competition and price gouging. Anyway hearing this story makes me really angry for you and your gf.
You're right it should be but most people won't wait for the building to come install it they'll just do it themselves.
Uhh ok? Then I guess windows shouldn’t be the managers responsibility either since people won’t wait for the building to come install it and do it themselves. Lighting fixtures and plumbing too. To say something is a bad idea because of incompetent landlords is missing the point completely.
Lol what are you even on about this makes zero sense. Im not even going to try to pretend to understand what point you're trying to make.
“This makes zero sense” “I’m not even going to try to pretend to understand” I’m saying that something shouldn’t be disallowed sinply because landlords are too incompetent to install them in a timely manner, by this logic we’d disallow anything else a landlord is responsible for installing since they can be equally lazy about installing those too
Who determines timely manner? You expect to call your landlord and them be there same day or next day with a fix for non urgent items? The difference is also lighting, plumbing issues are sporadic, AC installation will all be done within a few weeks of each other. Average person will not attempt to repair their own electrical or plumbing but they will mickey mouse some bullshit to get their AC in the window.
Yes. I am paying them to fix things in a timely manner. If I pay for an apartment with plumbing then they should be there to fix it the next day. I’m not shitting in a bucket so they can find the best price over a week later. Ac would be on the urgent list also
Toilet is urgent matter, leaky faucet is not. AC is not urgent.
If the apartment doesn't come with ac the landlord has no obligation to install a window unit for you.
That is not the reason. Certified technicians exist. We build much more dangerous things that could also fall.
And how many people are paying someone to come install their window unit? We build things that are dangerous and fall BUT they are designed/engineering by qualified individuals that carry insurance.
If you make it a requirement, people will do it. You can't seem to be able to separate issues inherent to a solution from the issues that occur due to the current process. For example, If you cheap out on cement, concrete will not be strong and the building may collapse. Does it mean we should not build anything? No. you just make the rule that concrete needs to follow a certain standard. And not following it will lead to lawsuits/jailtime. It appears that this is not a big concern with window ACs. If it were, you would have had many cases of ACs falling over and a rule would be made. In reality, this is not a common occurrence at all.
Good lord you're really reaching trying to make windows ACs seem like a be all end all with no other option. Even if AC becomes mandatory landlords can still ban window units and only approve portable units.
How many times has it happened?
Unsure. In 2019 or 2020, one killed a 2 year old. Probably a big part of the change in policy
This is the most recent one I remember too. Im sure it happens more often but its probably just property damage most of the time so it doesn't get media coverage.
I used an indoor A/C to cool my 3 bedroom townhouse and it did a pretty good job. I put a fan at the bottom of the stairs pointed up and along with a ceiling fan in the master bedroom it kept the whole house reasonably cool.
If it's not in your lease that you can't have one, tell your landlord to pound sand. If it is in your lease they're not allowed, tell them to pound sound because there's nothing they can do about it to make you stop using it. The LTB will not care and have in the past found using a window air conditioner to be part of the right to normal and reasonable use of a rented premises. There isn't even really an LTB form they can file against you, they could try an N5 or an N7 but as long as you're not damaging the unit, creating a major safety problem (Window ACs are not a "major" safety concern if installed properly) or interfering with the rights of other tenants to enjoy their apartments, it won't get them very far. Not only that but there's a provincial law (still awaiting proclamation) that explicitly gives the right to tenants to have an air conditioner.
Portable ACs can work great if you get one that's actually rated for the size of your home. Yours sounds undersized for the job.
Yes. It’s insane that they haven’t already with the level of heat we’ve experienced the last decade.
I think everyone agrees we should the problem lies in who would cover the cost. I would presume the tenant would be foot the bill due to increased rent and hydro costs. Not sure how popular tax increases are and the city cant issue bonds so we would need an agreement with at least the province or triple with federal too. All in all yes we should but we can't agree on how
Nah, it’s a cost of doing business thing. If you run a building that manages the cost itself, you pay just like with heat. If units have their own utility readers, they do and can manage it directly. Those cases already have this handled though. The problem cases are where landlords would have to foot the bill and refuse to provide cooling.
The next problem is, if tenants foot the electricity and installation bill then the landlord has a negative incentive to provide efficient cooling options or get things properly installed They might not want to spend the money to vent a portable unit outside and instead vent it back into the unit The tenant now needs to spend significantly more in utility costs in order to run the unit to hit the max temp Don't think it will happen like this? This is what happened after Bill 97 was proposed.
Why would a tenant foot the installation bill. It maintenance and running it should be on the tenant and if the landlord does a dirt cheap option then the cost to meet the minimum temp will simply make there unit less desirable, which may still sell anyway, without putting people in a spot without having a decent living space.
Landlords aren't stupid. Right now you have a choice: rent a place with hydro included or rent a place where you pay your own utilities. This would just push all of them to lease without included hydro.
you're paying for the electricity one way or another whether it's in the rent or you pay the utility. they only include it in the rent when it would be too expensive not to, i.e., they would need to pay for a second meter with separate billing to be installed.
Very rarely is hydro included anymore
More and more places are individually metered. Likely the older buildings don't have this capability without an expensive retrofit.
I'm in Alberta but so local laws could be different for you but a retrofit isn't needed here. At least in condominiums you're allowed to divide the total building utilities by the unit share and bill that to the units. I don't see why this couldn't be applied to rentals if its outlined in the lease. For example, if there is 100,000 sq ft of living space in a building, a unit with 1000 square feet would pay 1% of the bill, 900 sq ft would pay 0.9% and 1100 sq ft 1.1%.
Eggsalad, everyone pays for my Bitcoin miners
You're already doing that in a utilities included building either through higher rent or condo fees if an owner. Retrofits for meters are expensive and all it does is allow you to divide by actual usage. The utility cost is the same so there really is no ROI for the retrofit.
The issue with that is you are not paying the true cost of your usage. The situation that ends up happening is essentially "Tragedy of the Commons".
False. They factor in the average cost of electricity, sure, but if you have a dozen people mining Bitcoin and driving the electric bill through the roof, you will never see the added cost latched onto your monthly rent.
You can do that for rentals in Ontario too, but only for buildings with six or fewer units. In larger buildings the only options are suite meters or including utilities in the rent.
Its not a *huge* expense. Sadly, the main company that does it is utter shite. Avoid buildings with "Carma" service and not Toronto Hydro.
Yupp. I rented those older apartments from 2010-2013. It had central AC and utilities included. During the hot summers, that AC was blasted all day. Sometime around 2012 or maybe 2011, every new lease was metered separately for electricity. Looking back, I wish I kept it and just sub leased it out.
Mine includes hydro but AC's are extra. They charge $25 extra per month per AC which is fine.
Landlords aren't stupid. Only, they kind of are.
All units should be separately metered with the tenant paying their own usage. That would be a good start. Then you have no disagreements about energy usage as each person is paying their own way here. If a tenant wants to run the A/C all day or mine bitcoin they can. The landlord isn't paying so they have no say and the tenant gets the freedom to use as much power as they want. If they skip out on paying then the landlord is protected. This is a rare win/win where there is an obvious solution.
Does not change all of the existing Leases
"Landlords aren't stupid"  That's a good one. Have you met 90% of landlords? I guarantee you that's an overstatement.
Come on now, that's not fair. They're also greedy.
Impossible for the ones that don't run a seperate metre
it's really not a cost of doing business. The landlords will pass the cost onto the renter somehow.
Oh, and at 5x, but there's no reason to put this entirely on the tenant directly if they don't have control over it.
>I think everyone agrees we should the problem lies in who would cover the cost. I mean, we already have a minimum temp with clear rules about who is responsible for what, and how costs can or cannot be shared.
They really should. You can’t freeze your tenants to death in the winter, shouldn’t be allowed to cook them in the summer either
I know it's kind of cliche but I think it's actually worse being hot than cold. If you're cold, you can put more layers on but if you're swelteringly hot, there's not much you can do.
And electric blankets are warming pads work well if needed. No equivalent for cooling that I’m aware of.
I say this allll the time. You can’t take off your skin at some point lol
As an easily-burned redhead, I have come close a couple of times.
I hear you but it's a matter of (cough) degrees --- that's true about comfort, but when we start to talk about life threatening it's about the same... Aside from the fact that we have the infrastructure and local understanding of how to deal with cold, it's an annual occurrence... life threatening heat is rather new...
Agree!!! We keep the heat super lower in the winter, and often sleep with the window cracked, but I cannot sleep if too hot. I had the bedroom set at 70 last night and was cuddled up under a duvet lol
Heat waves actually are more deadly than cold.
Pretty sure the only reason they would do heat if they had the choice is because the cold can freeze the pipes & cause damage to the building that the landlord is responsible for.
That is a good point. It’s beneficial for the property owner to heat the building during the winter to protect their own assets.
You can cook them in the winter though! Totally reasonable for it to be 28+ in an apartment in January.
They wont do this..... otherwise someone might make this apply to High Schools - and most of them in Ontario do NOT have air conditioning. They are constantly asking students to spend a whole day in 30+ degree classrooms....
I'm new in Canada, but seriously??? I can't imagine studying in this heat in school, should be illegal
I went to a school with a uniform and often times in June and sometimes even September they would make exceptions for us to wear our gym shorts and tees all day because it was so hot with no AC. That was basically the best it got for fighting the heat
Same with many elementary schools, I believe. I know a lot are getting retrofitted now, though.
only if we're also gonna address mechanisms and systems for enforcement. in this case the LTB
Submit complaint. 3 years later: did the temperature ever come down? Yes. Resolved.
Agreed, the LTB needs to be able to deal with crooked landlords. Give the LTB the power to take the property.
Corporate landlords bogging down LTB with nonstop AGIs needs to be punished.
They cant do that. Thats on the province. Good luck getting them to do anything.
Right now the provincial heat pump rebate only applies to houses. Anyone landlord or not in a condo doesn't get the same sort of rebate. Changing those rules would go a long way to help get single units set up with coolant
That’s not necessarily true. There’s very large incentives for reducing the costs of installing ptac systems and some others in each unit of a condo/apartment building. But unfortunately the economics of it all still don’t make it too feasible. A landlord has to shell out a lot of unplanned capital and it’s a massive project. I know this because I met someone who works for a company that started doing this exact thing in the last 2-3 years.
There's incentives for free hold homeworkers. There's incentives for converting entire buildings. But as far as I can tell, there are no incentives for individual unit owners to install heat pumps
That seems reasonable to me. As a society we should be incentivizing the economically and environmentally efficient option not piecemeal infrastructure that will do a worse job and would overall cost more to fix the whole problem. Incentivizing the piecemeal solution wouldn't just be throwing money into a poor investment, it would also be disincentivizing the better solution as you swallow up a fraction of the economic potential.
What's inefficient about installing a heat pump in an individual condo unit? The status quo is just using much more inefficient window units, and how is it efficient to offer incentives for single family homes, but not multi family condos?
> What's inefficient about installing a heat pump in an individual condo unit Because the alternative is a building system which as I understand it is both more efficient in terms of coefficient of performance and more efficient in terms of $/unit. > how is it efficient to offer incentives for single family homes Because single family homes don't have a more efficient alternative...
My condo building had residents install units on their own, but organized it so that contractors would come in and install multiple units at once (turns out having a better AC and heating is actually very popular), so I hardly see the loss in efficiency considering we had multiple dozens of heat pumps installed. What "more efficient" alternative is there for old condos without central AC than this? Its more efficient to get the condo board to organize a group install than to give SFH rebates to do individual installs but we still do that. It's just laziness we don't make it possible.
Install central air conditioning via a 3 pipe VRF system (which allows for independent heating/cooling of each unit, automatically re-uses waste heat from cooling a unit to heat other units, and like all building-wide unit allows for larger more complex more efficient heat pumps). And yes, in some particular building the construction might make it prohibitively expensive to retrofit a building wide system. The way to guarantee that's the case in *every* building though is to have half the units install their own less efficient private heat pumps first (that would then become waste if a building wide system was installed). Having the purchase be done at the condo board level is the only way to ensure that the otherwise better options are being ruled out because poor construction has made the retrofit not worthwhile, not because it's the wrong entity doing the purchase.
It would be basically impossible for a condo so switch its existing individually vented units to a whole system unit, particularly assuming the majority of the building is made of concrete. I'm not sure why this would ever be considered a good idea?
Bought Fujitsu heat pump system; came with seven year warranty. It failed at seven years, six months. Fujitsu quoted me on the part that failed around $8000; the quote to install a new unit was $16000 So I paid $1500 for them to rip it out and haul it to the dump, and installed window ACs
This is correct as someone who did it and wasn't eligible for any of the incentive programs - felt ridiculous that someone owning a 2M home was and yet I wasn't...
These programs feel like they're designed to win votes in suburban swing ridings not actually fix anything
It only applies to those with gas or oil furnaces. If you have electric heat you don't qualify
It does not; that rebate is long dead They offer you an interest free loan (aka you pay it back and need to have good credit score)
We're fine roasting our kids in school—they don't have air conditioning in most public schools. I doubt this will happen.
The humidity really adds to the whole airborne pathogen soup too, so that's great. Just a really great way to treat kids.
The pandemic taught me that kids are simply collateral damage and that will likely never change.
I remember failing my tests during exam time because it was so hot in the classroom, plus I had to wear a sweater as part of the uniform ...
Billions of dollars for gender equality in the middle east? Sure! Keeping our kids from dying of heat stroke? Not in the budget, fam
Sounds like a good idea, but I feel like it will be another thing that's illegal in Toronto but doesn't get enforced.
Still worthwhile to have on the books
I suspect a lack of enforcement for basic laws eventually *invites* people to break those laws
I hope so. The folks beneath me keep turning the AC off. It was 29 in here yesterday. Emailed the landlord to let them know the AC keeps repeatedly being shut off by other tenant. No response yet
often in old houses the hvac is not engineered properly and some areas get way cooler than others. talk to your landlord and downstairs neighbors and get the owner to buy them some magnetic vent register covers so the downstairs won't freeze in the effort to cool the upstairs.
This place is a recent gut job and was newly renovated about three years ago. Vents have dampers in them to force the cold air upstairs and avoid certain floors. They just haven't switched them to summer settings yet. Downstairs tenants absolutely could just shut their vents but instead they're just turning it off entirely. During a heat wave. I've scheduled the Nest thermostat to force it to reset to a comfortable temperature every hour now, as a workaround. Thermostat-obsessed dad stereotype fulfilled ✅
It’s wild that “should apartments be habitable” is even a question
Apartments, schools and long term care homes.....
The schools bit has always felt ridiculous to me. Our education was so important that we needed to absolutely be miserable in the last chunk of the school year. Even worse were those portables; friggin' getting slow cooked while I'm trying to learn calculus
But if you ask the wrong person, their reasoning is that they survived, so kids these days should be able to as well. And the parents that want changes are raising a generation of soft, entitled brats. Somehow as a society we collectively agreed that the days of lying down in the backseat of dads car was unsafe, so car seats and seatbelts were normalised and even made part of the law. On the other hand, children having to deal with a few weeks (if they're lucky) of sweltering heat that's been scientifically proven to be linked to poor performance in class is something not worth taking seriously. The pandemic really taught me that children are simply collateral damage, because the adults tasked with protecting them are too lazy and ignorant to do the work. And if something happens everyone just shrugs their shoulders and says it's always been this way.
Agreed. And the 'survived it' argument has always been so asinine. Like, my mom survived a car crash; that doesn't mean it was good for her health
While we're at it, can we please also change the heating bylaw period to something like between October 1 and May 15? It's currently between September 15 and June 1, and I'd argue there are more instances of September and May being too warm than being too cold. Landlords and property managers often wait until the very end of May before they turn off the heating (vice versa, turn off the AC too soon) because they want to play it safe with the bylaw. It's an insane song and dance that a lot of us do every year!
I’d say November 1st and may 1st even. October is often still warm enough that you don’t need heat.
Yes. Canada recognizes adequate and safe housing as a fundamental right and this imo falls within that. I would go further and say the government of Canada should legislate that (if it’s possible? I don’t know how that works exactly). I remember living in a place without air and it was unbearable. At least my electricity was included in the rent so at least I could keep a fan running 24/7. I wouldn’t be able to budget that otherwise. That’s how people die. I would also go for long grocery store runs and to the library to get some relief. Years ago, my grandmother lived alone in her condo after my grandfather passed away. She would always have a fan on instead of the air-con box in the window because she said it aggravated her alllergies. That’s what she said but I also know she was thrifty with stuff like that because ‘why waste it when I don’t need it?’ mentality. Anyways, I went over one day during a heat wave and she was slumped in her chair and I called 911. She recovered but she still didn’t like the air-con box on. After that, we discussed as a family the reality of her living alone and she went to a retirement home, with central air, and enjoyed it for her last 10 yrs. She wanted the retirement home btw. Basically what I’m saying is that it will save lives. Our weather is more extreme than I ever remember and the heat is crazy. Some people can’t control their own living temperature either because they aren’t cognitively capable or financially able to.
"Canada recognizes adequate and safe housing as a fundamental right" Should I break the bad news to you?
> it will save lives TBH I don't think our governments care about saving lives, if the last five years are anything to go by. Dead people don't need health care or pensions or housing. It saves money and partially solves a few problems if some people pass.
This government will probably start recommending MAID for people without AC next summer.
Get an AC unit?
Unfortunately, yes. Government is there to protect the public. Some landlords/ building management need to be *told* how to respect their customers.
The way our future on this planet is looking, I think this would be prudent
HVAC contractor lobby here: yes please do it! Also, likely, all costs will be passed on renters
As another HVAC/R party member, I agree. It would take 15 years of very steady work to pipe the chilled water or install heat pumps. We could write our own paycheque
Imagine all the flex duct You would be set for life just repairing all the hackjob installs
Some units I think this is close to impossible in. Specifically some buildings in last 30ish years where they have tons of floor to ceiling windows+tiny bs windows not conducive to airflow+no building wide chiller (this is different than AC in building/units) you just can't live normally in. Specifically, you can't cook any meals, have blinds open at all, there is no reprieve it's awful if you get afternoon sun.
It would be a massive engineering and technical challenge to put AC in a lot of Torontos buildings. It would also likely take 15 years even if it was law tomorrow.
That's really the whole issue. We already have a by-law that requires landlords to keep homes below 26 degrees if there's A/C available. But a lot of older buildings don't have that, and a lot of buildings are banning window units because of [the potential hazards if they fall out](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/girl-air-conditioner-struck-dies-scarborough-1.5356152).
I think its more reasonable to grandfather multi unit buildings with central systems in. Almost no buildings built in the last couple decades though don't have a building wide chiller though. It's much older buildings that lack central cooling systems
It's only going to continue to get hotter. Today's high is 32 feels like 41 degrees. How hot will august be? July? Only God knows. And year after year we only expect it to get hotter.
We really need it for workplaces. The amount of times I’ve been dizzy and nauseous from the heat at work already this year is getting scary
Absolutely. This is a disability/health & safety issue. 600 people died in BC in 2021 due to the “heat dome”. Air conditioning should be mandated by law.
Never going to happen because the cost to retrofit AC on 70 year old buildings would be insane. Buildings would have to file for massive rent increases via AGI and everyone would literally be priced out of their homes... Buy a portable AC unit, it's not that complicated 😉
Yes, but there are huge logistical challenges with this. Most newer condo buildings for example operate on a two-pump system where they can run heating or AC, but not both. I don’t think it would even be possible to retrofit them to a four-pump system since the physical space to double the piping wouldn’t exist. Similarly, many older buildings don’t have the electrical infrastructure to support AC in every unit. I like the idea of mandating it for all new builds going forward, but trying to enforce it with existing high-density buildings would be an absolute nightmare and bordering on logistically impossible in many cases.
The issue is not with condo or apartment buildings that have A/C already, it's with ones that have no A/C at all.
Yes. Otherwise, people will die.
Yes 100000 percent yes. It’s reached nearly 30+ degrees in my condo. I can semi handle it because I’m 26 and in good health. But I think how the fuck do young children and babies survive or even animals???? I swear it’s going to take a death or two for someone to actually legislate something.
Hundreds of people have already died and no politician bats their eye. A death or two wouldn't even be registered as a statistic.
We should probably deal with the dates of the minimum temperature requirement first.
Yes, absolutely. Minimums and maximums in both winter and summer based on typical human physiological comfort levels, maybe something like 19°c low and 26°c high year round?
Minimum is 21⁰C all winter for apartments (18⁰C for the Building Code) There is no maximum, not even in the OBC for new construction. That's right, new condos, office buildings, etc, can be built currently without any provision for cooling. First step would be to bring this to the attention of your MPPs, City Councillors etc and get the regulations changed.
Absolutely. Just like there's a minimum temperature for apartments there should be a maximum one as well. It's completely nonsensical that we've had one for decades but not the other. And while we're at it, there should also generally be minimum ventilation requirements for all apartments as well. All of these basic health and safety regulations should be applied to all buildings, regardless of age.
Rather than try and do everything through more regulation (notice the regulation on windows is part of the issue here) I think the tenant advocacy should build a database/website where they potential tenants can look up a building and get some visibility on these sorts of issues. Part of the problem with units that have poor cooling is that for 80% of the year you'll never notice it, and for another 15% of the year it's somewhat tolerable. It's only in the rare cases that you learn your unit is terribly equipped to deal with the temperature, and it's hard to have that knowledge when you're signing a lease
This is very building dependent. Installing AC in an old building from the 1960s running 208V is a huge undertaking. Main electrical feed needs to be upsized to accommodate the cooling load. If the next route is heat pumps, the building chases need to be upsized too. If a chiller is installed, the roof needs to take the load or it's going on the ground and generating enough noise to annoy at least a few tenants. Pipes need to be resized for cooling and radiators need to be upgraded to fan coil units. This is millions of dollars the landlord likely does not have, on top of the tens of thousands in additional hydro costs for summer cooling. A rental built in 2022 has all these features built in, but renting a shoebox costs $2,800 a month plus utilities.
Housing prices go brrrrrrrrrrrr
How many bilaws are they failing to enforce now? This will just be one more.
100% yes. Before my landlord installed a decent AC unit last year, my place (3rd floor converted attic/bachelor) was easily getting between 35°C-40°C on hot days. There has to be hundreds of others in the same situation, so I would definitely say yes, Toronto should legislate a maximum temperature in apartments.
How could that even be possible? There are tons of old buildings that would need major upgrades that would cost big bucks in order to provide A/C. Then the tenants would be looking a BIG rent increases when the LTB approves the landlords application for an above guideline increase. And the LTB for sure would approve it. So, then there would be a cascade of evictions when people can no longer afford their rent. As it it weren't already enough of a problem.
Yes. Every year when our building switches over from AC to hear or vice versa, there’s about a 1 month or more period where the building is 28 degrees (either because outside still isn’t cold enough for heat, or because it’s getting too hot but the heat is still on).
Does toronto enforce any apartment standards as is? Looks good on paper but enforcement may be non existent
Yeah, my apartment is 33 currently. Just south of Toronto. The owners are millionaires, I give them half my salary.
I don't know how this will go but if I owned an apartment and got slapped with hundreds of thousands of repair orders I'd just sell the building to a developer and exit the game. This could displace people living in older buildings which are generally low rent. So pick your poison, be hot in the summer or be potentially homeless.
Can we please stop over-regulating everything in our lives? Want to pay more rent? Make a/c mandatory in all apts.
With no one to enforce anything and backlogs left right and center, i dont see how it will make a difference. Especially when people are desperate for apartments. You're half lucky the landlord doesnt set the unit on fire with you in it.
The upside of this means you can go ahead and install an AC even if your landlord tells you that you aren't allowed. What are they gonna do, take you to the ltb?
I hope this maximum also applies in winter. When the central building heat is on it all rises to the higher floor units, and for those without balconies it’s impossible to get below the maximum summer temperature with all the windows open despite the heat switched off in the unit. With all these warm winters we’ve been having it’s been a total nightmare.
To play devil's advocate, what is the realistic option for older (40-50+ year-old) buildings that do not have the infrastructure (power, forced air system, etc) to equip each unit with A/C? Giving each unit a portable/in-window A/C seems like the easiest option, but is the electrical wiring in the older buildings able to handle several hundred A/C units running simultaneously? Who pays for the power use of these units? Monthly rents generally only include heat (via radiators) but if summer temperatures are now being regulated who will bear the additional cost?
Yes. 25c max.
That would require landlords to act like compassionate human beings and not treat people like ATMs
If this requires the province to sign off then no, absolutely not. I'm not normally one of those people that think we can't do two things at the same time. However this is a little bit different. The province hasn't been doing their job. We can't give them token victories before we force them to address the lack of funding for the LTB Without a functioning LTB, it's not like this law would mean anything
Did over 600 people die in BC’s heatwaves in 2021? If housing conditions cause masses of people to die, then yes - this is something that needs to be legislated.
I know the common person thinks AC works like magic and there’s zero cost to it. It’s not so easy to just retrofit a whole building with AC. There are electrical limitations and the cost would be so high. They would be able to raise rent more than the minimum with doing the extra capital work. They could also pass all of the electrical bill onto the tenant which would be the next thing they cry about.
Yes.
No that would mean people would need to care about one another. We can't have this in Canada. It is every man for themselves especially in Toronto.
They should but every apartment I ever lived was always freezing cold during summer. I guess I got lucky?
Absolutely. Sweltering temps aren't going away. Year after year it seems things just get hotter and hotter. Having elderly and kids in apartments that absolutely BAKE in the summer sucks. Having lived through that my childhood; we did everything from sticking box fans into the windows, to walking around with cool wet towels. And back then the temps really never got that high as they do now. In apartments, the amount of thermal mass that can suck up the heat during the day and bake you at night is absurd!
Heat was still on in my apartment this morning. Good ol skyline apartments
Yes, its getting too damn hawt in heer' Now take off all your clothes
Yes!!! This is a no brainer. And people are going to want to talk about who cover cost of implementation and that’s easy and common sense… the same as the heat. The landlords own the system and tenets pay for the utilities or not depending on the lease. They can do a special rent increase of an extra 1% or whatever if they add AC and mandatory add within however many months. People who have AC and are renting are already paying extra for that in higher rents and utilities. Heat related illness can be just as serious as cold related illness. It’s a no brainer. There should be a max heat and mandatory AC. To not have it in Toronto now is a health risk for too many people.
Good luck with that!
For us the problem was high temps in the winter. When the AC would be turned off for the winter, our south facing lake view unit would get bombarded by the sun all day and heat up my bedroom to temps as high as 94F with no way of cooling. I remember waking up one afternoon after a night out covered in sweat and all my bedsheets soaked from sweating all night and the thermostat read 94. I couldn’t help but imagine if there was a child stuck in that room….
Not sure about residential but office spaces follow the ASHRAE standards.
can we also do it for workplaces? working in kitchen in summer is much worse than sitting in hot apartment..
Even in winters my building gets up to 30. I have bot closed my windows in years
Good luck telling all the landlords they need to have air-conditioned rentals.
Just reading the comments and there is absolutly no reason to retrofit a whole build for AC when a simply mini split for each unit will work. Almost every Asian country has them installed on the outside of the apartment and they can both heat and cool. There are 220 and 115 versions, 220 is cheaper since the current draw is lower and could be added to the fuse panel. I've been looking at getting one and they are finally coming down below $1000 but of course all the HVAC companies mark them up like crazy.
Yeah i would love this. My apartment is so hot Im pretty much confined to my room because we dont have a built in a/c and windows are only in the bedrooms. I have to rely on window a/cs that can only do the bedrooms but the living room and kitchen and stuff are screwed as they were already about 30+ degrees back in May. Im the top floor of a low rise so I get all the heat. I feel like I have a right to be able to enjoy my entire unit but I just cant due to heat.
How about workplace first
Just means rent goes up due to increased costs. Better off buying a couple window units folks.
yes, protect the poor, old, the animals and the babies. its insane there is no maximum already. do you know how many seniors get sent to the hospital during heat waves???
If they do, rent will go up to compensate for the cost of installing/providing. Then the world will cry that rent went up again
Yes.
Toronto has lots of rules for apartments. None of them are enforced.
Ifmy unit isn't actively cooled or ventilated it gets up to 28c on average.even hotter in direct sunlight so yes cooling should be regulated for safety
Ugh, as a tenant, who purchased an AC, pays additional on hydro for it, I can’t imagine what my landlord could do to help… except help with cost. It’s 40 degrees in here today with the ac, cuz it’s an attic unit with no ventilation. While it’s sucks, I can’t see this as being fixable. I think landlords should have to live in their units it for a year
Absolutely, but wait until sustainability herd will find this out and start screaming AC = CO2 !!! PLANET IS BURNING, NO AC FOR YOU!!! 
My condo's fancoil unit gave out at the final stretch of last summer and needed to be fully replaced. My apartment got up to 40c if I had to cook or do laundry. The afternoon sun hits all my windows directly, making the heat worse as the day goes on. I have a brand new fancoil this year, but with the way temperatures are getting, these units are only gonna last half as long as they're meant to.
It is a great idea, but like all great ideas the politicians will say that any building older then 30 years is exempt. I say bunk to that, all apartments buildings not only in Toronto but the entire province should be forced to install air conditioning. Of course that will never happen because the owners of those buildings will come up with millions of excuses not to do it.
At the very least, tenants should be allowed to purchase small form factor AC units. If a building can't support AC units, then that'll just have to be a risk factor of living there. Sucks, but retrofitting old concrete buildings isn't practical or possible without disrupting the lives of the tenants.
Should apartments have legal requirements to be safe enough to live in?
Toronto, rushing to make affordability crisis worse at every possible opportunity.