SPLIT TOPIC: Overheated Apt buildings

For the past three days, I've had both radiators turned off completely, all my windows open, and a box fan blowing out my living room window so as to pull fresh air in through all the others, but it is STILL a steady 78 degrees inside my apartment. I finally bought a cheap thermometer from the hardware store so I could know for sure.

I'm on the top (4th) floor, so I'm getting all the heat radiating up through my building, plus the vertical pipes in my kitchen and bathroom are hissing away and radiating plenty of heat and steam. It is such a waste of energy and so uncomfortable. I have never understood why business people so uniformly overheat and overcool the spaces for which they are responsible. Why on earth do they choose to pay extra to make us all so uncomfortable?? You would think they would err on the side of stinginess. I left a message for the super, asking him to lighten up on the heat a bit. Anyone have insight into why this happens so regularly in NYC?

In the Clinton Hill Coops (where I live), the upper floors (where I live) get thoroughly baked in the winter so that the lower floors get decent heat. Its a prewar set-up, so the system is what it is. We have gone to cogeneration as a way to save some cash, (which the fuel nerds can educate us all on), but it does nothing to address the insane heating system that we have. Our complex has 6 13 story buildings. Wanna talk about waste of energy? I wonder whether the Fed/State/Local governments would subsidize a conversion to something less wasteful? These building are not going anywhere anytime soon, and I doubt shareholders will see it as a priority anytime soon (seeing as we have elevator and lobby beautification projects to consider *ahem*). if the government(s) dont chip in, we will continue to be some of the single biggest wasters in the borough.

following the tangent...can't relate to the overheating. I live on the top floor of my building and am never hot in the winter. It's quite chilly (and I can only imagine the temperature for lower levels). The only consolation prize for my need for indoor layering is that we *hopefully* are consuming less energy.

It's not only true for old buildings. My building was only built five years ago and I *still* roast, and I'm on the second of eight floors. My radiators are in these metal boxy things and there's no way to turn them off -- there are knobs, but I think they're only there for show, as there's no discernible difference in the heat no matter which way you crank 'em. I have to keep windows cracked to keep it comfortable, and even though I'm constantly running a humidifier I start to feel sick from the dry air anytime I spend a full day at home.

My last apartment was pre-war and ten times worse, though -- I used to have to do the same box fan/open windows thing travel_wench described.

This is one of the reasons why I decided to buy a new condo this past year. I've lived in this city 5 years (3 different apartments) and I would bake in each one. As soon as they turn on the heat it is instantly 85-90 degrees. A central air system is heaven.

pitu wrote: I don't understand not being able to just turn off a radiator.
I have the old ones at my place, and one or two of them get shut off most of the time. The valve on the side screws all the way open for *on* and all the way shut for *off*. If you have old radiators and that isn't the case, something is probably wrong with them. Servicing those badboys is super inexpensive.

We have the old ones. Had them serviced, can turn them all the way off (though they still stay a bit warm due to conduction). And then open the window. And still bake in the heat from the other apartments -- the building is that overheated. Except perhaps in the draughty cellar where the bioler's thermostat is and the super lives.

Board says its too expensive to upgrade the system, so I'm holding out for a further tripling in the price of hydrocarbons, so that it becomes too expensive not to conserve.

Came across this article on the topic in the NY Times a while back. The idea of upgrading an existing system with remote sensors is intriguing. Thermostatic radiator valves also sound like a good idea, although given how many people complain about overheated apartments with the radiator valves turned completely off, i'm not sure how much they would help. Anyone tried these?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/realestate/01home.html

Interesting that I should write this response today as it's my last day living in a pre-war co-op and moving to a new condo; however, being that I have served on the co-op board for some years, I can shed some light (at least from my building).

Our building, and many others, uses a device called a heat-timer, which is set to read the temperature outside, not on the inside (the device does not work that way, so don't ask why we just don't set it for the inside...the device only works with the outside temp). In addition to the outside temperature, it also reads the amount of pressure in the heating system. When the pressure drops below a certain point, the heat will kick back on. Also, because of the outside temperature setting, regardless of the pressure in the system, the outside temperature setting will cause the heat to pump if it drops below the set temperature. Remember that the city requires that there be heat when the temperature outside drops below 55 degrees (I believe). This means that the heat pretty much stays on because the temperature is below 55 in the winter. The only other control on the system is the pressure. So until that pressure threshold is hit, it won't shut off. Couple this with the warmth of the building and it can get really warm. We did find that replacing the heat timer with a new one did improve the heat and our new boiler also helped. The heat timer is not cheap..in the thousands.

Because many of these buildings are old and the heating systems are uneven, they cannot control whether one apartment is super hot or another is super cold. and to avoid the latter, they have to make sure the heat is sufficient. You cannot install thermostats in each apartment...I think you would need separate boilers if that was the case. also, if you were to use a central thermostat, where would it be? the highest point of the building would mean the lower apartments would freeze and the lower point would mean the higher ones would burn up. Most of our boardmembers live in the building and also don't like the heat being to hot. We've experimented with different heat settings, but like I said it's difficult to calibrate and the slightest adjustment can throw off the level of heat in someone's apartment and landlord and co-op boards don't want someone calling the city to say there isn't enough heat.

Regarding the radiators, I too bought a digital thermometer to measure the heat and found that it was like 84 degrees all the time. I have those box framed metal covers over the radiators. I took off the cover and closed the valve all the way and found a dramatic difference in the heat. For the past 2 years, I have only left 1 small radiator on and turned off the others and have found the apartment to be about 74 degrees (mostly, but sometimes it's hotter). Be careful with the valves! We have found that they need to be either all the way on or all the way off...a middle setting caused the radiators to leak.