Ask your neighbors what their square footage is and how much their heating bills are. I’d tell my neighbor if asked.
Yes your best bet would be ask your neighbor - their gas bill should be a way to prove how much you were charged for heating a basement somewhat to a small claims judge if you go that way.
It does seem high but that’s without doing the math.
Another option is to document the repair and wait a year for your real bill to come in then ask for the difference.
After getting an estimate from neighbors and asking nicely, the next step could be to insinuate that you’ll consider moving out on the grounds that you no longer trust the landlord. If there isn’t a waiting list, the landlord would likely be out a month’s rent (before the next person moves in), which would probably be a greater loss than paying you.
The key would be to insinuate without putting yourself in the position of actually having to move out if he doesn’t budge.
On your side, this is fishy on your landlord, at best. I would at least document when you brought it up, and exactly what you did bring up.
On the other hand, it may be difficult to prove that you weren’t getting your just ‘heat’, as it were. If you have 5 vents putting out 1 CFM (cubic feet per minute) and his “hole” was putting out 5 CFM, then you’d be equal: similar in the eyes of a non-engineering judge. However, if you could show that your 5 vents put out a total CFM of say, 4, and his was “leaking” 7 or 8, then you might have a serious case. . .
As well, I would keep reciepts of whatever heating bills you may have recieved.
Tripler
Just an engineer’s point of view.
I appreciate your suggestions about asking my neighbors. I will do so.
glilly, good idea. The problem is that I will be moving out, probably within a couple of months, and the landlord unfortunately knows this. I casually mentioned this to him the week before noticing the duct problem in the basement. It is possible that his attitude is influenced by this–he knows that I will probably be gone fairly soon anyhow, so he has no real reason to try to keep me happy.
Same problem. Since I will move I will not be able to see the difference in heating costs. I guess I could kindly approach the new tenant in one year’s time and ask him about his heating costs, but even if I got an answer I really doubt that my current landlord would do much to please a former tenant. And legally, I assume that my case would be pretty weak by then, which would be another reason for the landlord to not reimburse me. And, as I said, I am rather unwilling to take this to court anyhow.
I am really quite screwed, am I not? I wish I had noticed this six months ago. Or, better yet, three years ago.
Well, how could I measure the CFM from the vents, short of bringing in an HVAC consultant (who, I am sure, would charge quite a bit)? Is there any way of getting at least a rough estimate? It does not necessarily have to hold up in court–just having a figure to cite to the landlord would probably improve my odds of getting him to reimburse me. (A stopwatch and a large empty plastic bag of known size tightly fit over the vent comes to mind, but there must be a better way.)
Well hang on Jonah if you are leaving there may be real possibilities here. You don’t care about your relationship with your LL, and you are leaving on a timescale that may make it hard for him to chuck you out if you hold back rent any faster than you are going to leave anyway.
Does your LL have bond? How is the ledger going to look if you just stop paying rent at this or some future point?
Not true. Remember that air is being sucked out of his apartment at a greater rate then is being replaced. Air has to come from somewhere (outside) to replace it. I would say more like if the hole was 2.5 cfm you would be equal.
I would say document everything, try to get your neighbors gas bills and then after you move out start a small claims action or at least make it look like you are. I would think you should strongly suggest to him while your still there that some compensation should be made.
Ok, I had a similar problem in an apartment I lived in in Queens.
We discovered, after living in the place for several years (well, my roommates had, I’d only lived there a few months) that the common are lights in the stairwell and outside the door were running off of our electricty.
We called the electric company, who gave us information about what regulations this broke, and they gave us the number to the building inspector and told us what office to talk to and what to say.
There was no attempt at computing the amount of electricty the landlord owed. It was a simple and considerable fine, he was required to to fix it inside of 5 days or we didn’t owe any rent and he had to pay our electric bills till he did. Part of the fine subsidized our electricty for months afterwards, and I’m sure it was a lot more than just the power to the lights.
Now, this was in NYC, which has some fairly stringent renters laws. The laws will most likely differ in your area, but you can try calling your gas company and your building inspector and seeing what they say. You may not even need to prove any amount of damage, just that damage was being done. Though to prove that damage was being done, knowing if neighbors heating bills were lower might be helpful.
Doh. That’s “common area lights” not “common are lights”.
I spoke to my upstairs neighbors. Wow. The difference in gas consumption is enormous. Comparing our two latest bills, their annual CCF use is listed as 160. Our annual CCF was 855. This is for the period November 2001 through November 2002.
Admittedly, their apartment is upstairs from us, and with hot air rising, I assume that it is inevitable that our apartment must have been partly heating their apartment. Also, they do keep their thermostat set to a slightly lower temperature, I think. But could those two factors alone account for such a huge difference in gas use? In addition, their apartment is much larger (spanning two floors, whereas ours is just one floor of this three-story building.)
To be clear, both apartments are heated solely by gas.
The upstairs neighbors told me to feel free to tell the landlord about the difference in the bills.
buckgully, I spoke to a representative from the gas company. His initial comment was quite telling: “That is illegal.” I should not have had to pay to heat a common area. He also said that the landlord’s stopgap repair–covering the basement opening with duct tape–was insufficient. He said that the gas company would be happy to initial proceedings to transfer the account over to the landlord’s name if the landlord does not promptly make adequate repairs. However, while they agree that I may be owed money by the landlord for the gas cost for the past three years, they consider this to be a matter between me and my landlord. They said, however, that they would be happy to send me an official gas use summary for my apartment for the past three years, which they think could help me.
I also went over to the municipal building. The receptionist I spoke with said that it sounded like a code violation, but the Code Enforcement Officer will not be in until Monday morning. They want me to come back and speak to him then.
Well, I think that I am starting to have a more solid case. Do you think that I have enough evidence to persuade the landlord into reimbursing me, or should I wait to speak with the landlord until after I have met with the Code Enforcement Officer on Monday? Or should I perhaps approach the landlord this weekend, and mention that I am considering meeting with the local code enforcement officer on Monday? That may turn out to be quite persuasive.
I am thinking of assembling the combined evidence in a letter and send it by certified mail today. He would then get the letter tomorrow, and have two days to react before I am to meet with the code enforcement officer on Monday morning. Does that sound like a good plan?
I have no idea.
OK, I have decided to not send a letter today referring to an appointment with the code enforcement officer on Monday. Being so confrontational may not serve me well. Giving him a few days to think this through may be better. Surely he must realize that a partial refund to settle the matter is in his best interest?
I may meet with the inspector on Monday, just to get his take on this, but I will probably not reveal my landlord’s identity to the inspector at that point. I feel that there is no reason to call in the authorities if the landlord ends up being reasonable about the situation and agrees to shoulder at least some of the burden of the extra heating costs.
I will send the landlord a letter tomorrow detailing the evidence (copies of my and my neighbors’ gas bills, etc), and perhaps mention the possibility of bringing the matter up with the code enforcement officer.
The question is, how much should I ask the landlord to reimburse me? The total extra gas costs have been around $1,250 if we assume a 50% increase in costs due to the duct problem. The comparison with my neighbor’s bill suggest that the increase may have been much more than 50%. How much would be fair to ask him for? After all, I do not think that he deliberately left the ductwork in the faulty state it was in.
Votes, anyone?