I have a question about hot water in apartments?

Question

I live with 3 other girls and we have serious hot water problems. When we need to take a shower in the morning the hot water runs out after a minute or two. We have communicated the problem to the landlord and they have come to our apt to "fix" it but we still have the same problem. They have actually told us that we get a certain amount of gallons per apartment. Aren't there any laws that say that a person should be able to take a good shower that lasts at least 10 minutes. What can I do to fix this problem. If we take a shower in the middle of the day or at night, we have plenty of water. But if its in the morning, its a disaster. I guess thats because we shave water with the rest of the tenants. but is this fair. Please if anybody has an insight to this problem let me know. Thanks

Answer 1

You pay rent, hot water is included, your landlord knew how many people would be in the apartment, he must provide sufficient hot water, as long as you did not alter the supply of water with an unapproved shower head or other device. Having said that, the power of numbers is your best bet, speak to other tenants with multiple residents, they must be having the same problem. Write a letter to the owner and the management company with signatures, state politely but firmly that the portion of rent judged to provide hot water will be withheld in an account until the problem is fixed. If you do not get any other support from tenants, send a letter stating that you will file a complaint with the appropriate housing authority if the problem is not corrected. A number of gallons per apartment is total bull, since some apartments have more residents and it is impossible to direct the same amount of water to each apartment. Since the timing is suspect, it is possible that they are cutting the temperature at night and not reheating the water to bring the temperature back up early in the morning, ask if there is a timer or electrical cutoff on off hours. I can't state any regulations because I don't have your location, go to your state's housing websites. Stand up for your rights.

Answer 2

Did this just start or has it been going on for a while. When the water turns cold in the tub/shower is it hot at the sink. If this happens then it might be in the (single handle pressure sensitive) tub/shower valve but that would be one in a million. If the water heater is old it might have a build up of minerals in tank which reduces the capacity of water heater. They need to flush tank but if tank has never been flushed and heater is old then flushing may not work. Might have to be troubleshooted and or replaced. The reason it does this in the morning is that everyone else is using the water too. During the day most people are at work so the usage is low. Check your lease and see what is says about your gallons per apartment rule. If that is what they are saying and if it is not in there lease then they are wrong about that statement. Sounds like there water heater is undersized and has a low recovery rate. Look at the following site from a water heater manufacture it states what they recommend for sizing water heaters in apartment buildings. Good luck hope this helps. http://www.hotwater.com/lit/sizing/B1030.pdf

Answer 3

I don't know how they're restricting the flow of hot water to just a certain amount of hot water per apartment. Maybe they just have very small individual water heaters per apartment (small mobile homes have about 15 - 20 gallon water heaters that run out very quickly).

You might want to look at the way you take your showers. When I had a tank water heater years ago (we now have tankless), my teenage daughter would turn the hot water on full for a few minutes before getting into the shower. Then she would have the water on full blast for as long as it took for the hot water to run out. By the time anyone else got up to take a shower, the hot water was gone.

To conserve hot water, turn the hot water on and, as soon as it gets hot, start using it. Turn the cold water on to a very low flow and bring up the hot to get the right temperature. The less flow your shower has, the less hot water you use and the longer it lasts.

You might also ask if there's some way you can pay a little extra a month to get more hot water (they might be restricting it because it's expensive to pay the energy bill if they give you lots of hot water). Otherwise, either deal with it or move.

Answer 4

Your first statement leads to the answer of this predicament. There are four of you in one apartment. Probably this is the type of occupancy concentration in the building as a general rule. Given that when the building was built, it was designed as a one family per unit occupancy, with mechanical systems built to sustain that type of demand. With many apartments exceeding that demand at peak periods, (6-8 AM and 6-8 PM), the hot water will run out. Given that this is not a condo - I doubt that there's not much that you can do. Complain too much and you might be shown in the small print of your lease that there are too many people in the unit.

Answer 5

No there is no law stating that -- but usually there is a switch or something on the hot water heater in your apt that you can adjust for temp.... maybe it was a fuse that was blown or something take a look at it.... it will probably be located somewhere near the kitchen

Answer 6

I *think* if you check the availability of hot water is not specified in any tenancy laws.
So, you are kinda on your own, there are no laws being broken.

You can trying complaining again, but there is no "law" saying that you have to be supplied with what you require, so there is nobody that can enforce anything.

Maybe it's time to move (but you have to give proper notice and play by the rules).