I am not a HVAC person, but I have seen fans that fit exactly into windows and that have tight shut off when turned off. I am not a professional, and you should talk to a local HVAC person, who may know better solutions. Like this one :
I’d just crack a few windows when you wake up in the morning, start by just having them barely cracked. See how the temperature holds up throughout the day. Then just close them off before you go to sleep.
I think realistically you will feel uncomfortable and close them long before the pipes freeze, at least if you’re awake.
My wife and I lived in an older three-story apartment building when we first got married; we had an apartment on the top floor. The building had steam heat, and so, each apartment had its own radiators.
We found that, until it got really cold out, we did not need to turn on our radiators – we had plenty of heat rising up through the floors, from the apartments beneath us. It wasn’t uncommon at all for us to wind up opening some windows in our apartment, even in the winter time, to keep our apartment from becoming too warm.
I know they’re fearmongering a bit but my pipes/heaters are close to the windows. I do have the windows open a fair amount when it’s as cold as -5C…otherwise I don’t like risking forgetting to close them.
Are the pipes exposed? Pipe insulation is pretty cheap.
Running the portable AC in winter is definitely an option I’ve considered…just seems silly and would require good insulation but it’s an option.
As a landlord who has dealt with burst pipes from being too cold, I am extremely skeptical that cracking your windows is a meaningful increase in the risk of the pipes bursting. Most burst pipes I’ve ran into are in un-insulated areas that don’t get heated properly (sometimes we even have to install heating on the pipes.) Pipe bursting because the insulated living area got too cold would be really weird to me because I can’t imagine you’d be able to tolerate the level of cold necessary for the pipes to freeze.
That said, do all of your windows have pipes close to them? If not, and if you are as worried about this as you seem to be, just don’t open windows that have pipes near them.
I agree with the other posters – even if you have windows cracked open in the deep of winter, it’s really unlikely that you are going to cause the temperature in your condo to drop below freezing (and, if it did get anywhere close to freezing, you’d very likely notice it).
I believe that the OP is aware of this and is wanting to ponder the alternatives. A window exhaust fan properly installed may be a viable solution.
The OP explicitly expressed the fear of causing their pipes to freeze due to an open window upthread:
As long as you have your thermostat enabled, I would expect it to turn on and keep the condo well above freezing unless you had everything completely wide open.
One unconventional alternative could be to open a window, but put some kind of metal in the open space rather than leaving it open. Something like a cookie sheet, for example. That would prevent wind from blowing through, but the metal would get quite cold and would act as a heat sink. Alone it might be able to cool off the room enough, or you could point a fan at it. By using larger or smaller pieces of metal, you could get more or less cooling. I doubt if a cookie sheet will happen to fit perfectly, so something would need to be used to fill in the gap completely. If you are handy with that kind of stuff, you can probably rig something together like that you can put in the window to draw heat slowly from the room.
Is that really a thing?
I live in a hi-rise (pretty modern one too…13 years old). I have never noticed a pressure difference when opening my door to the hallway.
EDIT: I just checked and there is just the barest of movement of air from the hallway into my place at the bottom of the door. It is really small though and only barely noticeable.
I can’t even imagine how the pipe freezing thing would be a risk unless the OP opened a window and then immediately dropped dead.
Is it your sense (or are you bored enough to quantify this) that running the bathroom exhaust fan does help ?
Because if it is helping, it may be possible to buy a much more powerful and much quieter replacement fan (whether or not it’s plug and play, and whether your building will let you are obvious possible issues).
Most buildings aren’t air tight. An exhaust fan will tend to create negative pressure, bringing in outside, fresh air through every micro crack and crevice in the envelope.
Some of these exhaust fans are ‘intelligent,’ and can be set to run for only X minutes out of every hour. They can also be set to run for Y minutes after the bathroom light is shut off, so they remove excess humidity after bathing.
[ETA: in this scenario (a timed exhaust fan), you could open one or more windows – truly – just a sliver to enhance the effect, and with an effective freeze risk of zero.]
But wouldn’t that then turn the heater on? Are these radiators with a central thermostat, or with individual thermostats? Are they fan coil units that blow across a radiator inside? Some more information on the system would help. Knowing the age of the building and how many floors we’re talking about would help too.
There’s some issues with opening the windows. First, if you get good airflow from the wind, it’ll suck out all the moisture and quickly crash your relative humidity. Maybe that’s not an issue for you but it’s something to consider. Also, if it’s not a breezy day, then opening the windows may just accelerate the warm air coming up from the floors below rather than cooling you off. Basically it’s enhancing the chimney effect that’s the problem in the first place. It doesn’t do much good if all the air is going out rather than coming in. The same goes for exhaust fans.
All that said I don’t know of a good solution, at least not without some more information. Though running the portable a/c units actually does seem like an option worth considering. They won’t need to run for long compared to in the summer, and unlike a window a/c they’re not going to be bothered by the cold outdoor temperatures. I just don’t understand the comment that they “would require good insulation.”
Here’s the warning my condo board/property management company sends out every year:
“Do not leave a window or patio door open in sub-zero temperatures. Even with your
heat turned up, an open window (even a small amount) may cause the piping to freeze/burst
within minutes. Even if the window is located five feet (5’) above the floor, cold air is heavier
than warm air and consequently the cold air will travel to the floor level and freeze the piping;”
This is the warning my condo board sends out:
Do not leave a window or patio door open in sub-zero temperatures. Even with your
heat turned up, an open window (even a small amount) may cause the piping to freeze/burst
within minutes. Even if the window is located five feet (5’) above the floor, cold air is heavier
than warm air and consequently the cold air will travel to the floor level and freeze the piping;
(bolding mine)
I have lived my entire life in swampy climes and so know very little about arcane technology like radiators, but this seems like absolute bullshit. Your board is erring way, way, way too far on the side of caution.
I just finished re-certification for Fire Warden at my office through virtual training. There’s 90 minutes of my life that I am never getting back…
I am the fire warden for my office too. Mostly they told me to point people to the staircase and check the office is empty (read: I am the last one out if there is a fire).
No one has been there for 18 months though so they’ve not made me take the yearly class.