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I don't understand either how your electric bill was >1000 with a broken a/c. My experience with renting was, if any big expense came up during the year, like the landlord had to replace an appliance, do a major repair, or incurred a huge tax increase, they raised the rent accordingly on the next year's lease. However you figure it, the renter usually ends up footing the bill somehow. Even if you leave, they find some way to nickle and dime you on the return of your deposit. With the last house I rented years ago, this is what happened to me and it was the last straw for renting. Bought my first house and never looked back. If I'm going to end up paying for repairs, etc, it is going to be for my OWN house, not someone else's.
We replaced our tenant's AC last year for $4500. That's just the cost of doing business. We wouldn't raise the rent because of it - the rent should already allow for any regular maintenance, and as the AC unit was getting on 20 years old that qualifies. Only two things that cause us to raise rent are property tax hikes (pretty much guaranteed) and market changes -- if the other guy is renting the same house for $200 more or $200 less, that's informative; the fact that I had to pay to fix something doesn't change what the market will bear.
The law probably isn't going to help here unless you can establish that the landlord's time frame for repairs was "unreasonable" (our lease, which is boilerplate TREC stuff, explicitly says that the AC is not an emergency but that we will fix it in a "reasonable" time frame). That doesn't seem to be the case here.
I can't imagine how an AC could run up a $1000 electric bill unless it was cooling your house to 62 degrees 24/7. Even an inefficient, somewhat broken AC that has to work overtime wouldn't be that bad, and you'd have noticed it running all the time or cooling a lot slower. If you're concerned about this happening again you could check out the new product that's supposed to tell you where your energy consumption is coming from. I think it's called Sense - I don't have one and have only seen ads for it but you can take it with you when you leave, and if I ever had a mysterious power bill I'd definitely buy one.
The A/C in our rental house broke a few months ago and instead of fixing it, they just added more coolant. We had an electric bill > $1000
We just came back from vacation (the AC was set at 80 while we left). The house was 92 at midnight.
Obviously the leak is too fast to keep adding coolant (which is somewhat illegal these days to add to a leaking system). As I understand it 7 days is a reasonable amount of time to cure (and my landlord has been extremely responsive to all repair requests).
The question is what responsibility do they have for the > $1000 electric bill Im about to have again?
Any other thoughts about responsibilities of repair time? We have a 3 kids, ages 2-9 if it makes any difference.
We all had a "fun" night with the windows open sleeping in the same room with every fan we own in the window. Ironically I was cold..
We just bought a new house but did not want to move in because we are remodeling. We were thinking about "camping" out there, but it is a hassle to have enough stuff over there to live.
how many kilowatt hours on that $1000 bill? something don't sound right.
We replaced our tenant's AC last year for $4500. That's just the cost of doing business. We wouldn't raise the rent because of it - the rent should already allow for any regular maintenance, and as the AC unit was getting on 20 years old that qualifies. Only two things that cause us to raise rent are property tax hikes (pretty much guaranteed) and market changes -- if the other guy is renting the same house for $200 more or $200 less, that's informative; the fact that I had to pay to fix something doesn't change what the market will bear.
The law probably isn't going to help here unless you can establish that the landlord's time frame for repairs was "unreasonable" (our lease, which is boilerplate TREC stuff, explicitly says that the AC is not an emergency but that we will fix it in a "reasonable" time frame). That doesn't seem to be the case here.
I can't imagine how an AC could run up a $1000 electric bill unless it was cooling your house to 62 degrees 24/7. Even an inefficient, somewhat broken AC that has to work overtime wouldn't be that bad, and you'd have noticed it running all the time or cooling a lot slower. If you're concerned about this happening again you could check out the new product that's supposed to tell you where your energy consumption is coming from. I think it's called Sense - I don't have one and have only seen ads for it but you can take it with you when you leave, and if I ever had a mysterious power bill I'd definitely buy one.
You sound like an ethical, responsible landlord. I'm sure you realize they aren't all that way. Renters are often taken advantage of financially and have no recourse but to leave at the end of the lease, with the possible (unfair) loss of at least some of the deposit. I was lucky to have had good landlords/management companies most of the time. But there were those few... The last house's landlord was the worst and that was the final straw for me.
I'll give my response as a rental property owner of multiple rental homes, and property manager of appx 100 houses for 25+ years.
The short answer is, you have no right to claim utility reimbursement or a quicker repair, unless the Landlord can be proven to be negligent and failing to respond within 7 days of notification. Even the 7 day rule is extended if/when vendor availability and/or parts procurement cause a longer wait. I have a new water heater install that I approved with the plumber Monday that will not go in until Friday, because that's the very soonest any of the plumbers I use can get there and do it. They are all backed up. Most A/C companies are backed up a day or two as well, which will become 2-4 days when we hit the first 105 degree day.
You've been given "possession" (legal term) of a property. It is yours to occupy, within the terms of the lease agreement, which you signed, and in accordance with Texas Property Code, which defines Landlord duties and responsibilities and is usually mirrored in the standard lease agreement most Texas Landlords use.
Questions:
1) If you owned the home, to whom would you send your request for utility reimbursement?
2) Did the Landlord fail to do something or take action that was his duty to do?
If the answers are "nobody" and "no", then you have no legitimate grievance.
What I often have to explain to tenants it that there is no imputed "insurance" against bad luck, discomfort, inconvenience or hardship that comes with a lease agreement in the event of a mechanical failure.
I'm not saying that you possess what I'm about to say, because I don't believe you do based on your post history and evidence of clear thinking, but many otherwise normal and logical people suddenly feel entitled as a Tenant to be "made whole" when something happens that costs them money or inconvenience in the rental property.
There is no such entitlement. Renter's insurance can be purchased by tenants to guard against many such events, such as displacement, but most tenants don't buy it. Instead they look to the Landlord to be made whole, then become enraged when redirected to the Agreement (lease) and told that the answer, as agreed in the lease agreement, is "no, we're not putting you in a hotel or paying your utility bill".
Now, having said that, if I have a tenant with an infant, a single mom, I'm going to pull some favors to get that service call ahead of all the others because of the 25+ year relationships I have with some vendors. But even then, if it's 3PM on a Friday, and a part or new install is needed, it may not matter that I can get someone out there right away, it may be Tuesday or Wed before cool air blows in that house again. That's life. Landlords have no duty to do more.
We replaced our tenant's AC last year for $4500. That's just the cost of doing business. We wouldn't raise the rent because of it - the rent should already allow for any regular maintenance, and as the AC unit was getting on 20 years old that qualifies. Only two things that cause us to raise rent are property tax hikes (pretty much guaranteed) and market changes -- if the other guy is renting the same house for $200 more or $200 less, that's informative; the fact that I had to pay to fix something doesn't change what the market will bear.
The law probably isn't going to help here unless you can establish that the landlord's time frame for repairs was "unreasonable" (our lease, which is boilerplate TREC stuff, explicitly says that the AC is not an emergency but that we will fix it in a "reasonable" time frame). That doesn't seem to be the case here.
I can't imagine how an AC could run up a $1000 electric bill unless it was cooling your house to 62 degrees 24/7. Even an inefficient, somewhat broken AC that has to work overtime wouldn't be that bad, and you'd have noticed it running all the time or cooling a lot slower. If you're concerned about this happening again you could check out the new product that's supposed to tell you where your energy consumption is coming from. I think it's called Sense - I don't have one and have only seen ads for it but you can take it with you when you leave, and if I ever had a mysterious power bill I'd definitely buy one.
I disagree, actually, since the OP did say they noticed the AC wasn't keeping the temperature it was set at. I posted a couple of years ago about a $450 bill we suddenly got at the end of summer... and that was keeping the house at 76-78. We ended up having to do a replacement when the next symptom was that it wouldn't keep to temp (even when running). I can't remember exactly what was wrong but it wasn't primarily a coolant leak. It was multiple other things that had broken including capacitors. Basically all the electrical went haywire which caused it to churn through energy while doing very little cooling.
When the AC in our rent house went out (it was quite old), we replaced it as part of maintenance on our property. It did take a bit longer to repair since it had to be replaced, but it's worked great ever since. I'm sorry, but in Central Texas in the summer, AC IS necessary for houses that weren't built before AC was invented and thus aren't designed to cope with our climate.
I'll give my response as a rental property owner of multiple rental homes, and property manager of appx 100 houses for 25+ years.
The short answer is, you have no right to claim utility reimbursement or a quicker repair, unless the Landlord can be proven to be negligent and failing to respond within 7 days of notification. Even the 7 day rule is extended if/when vendor availability and/or parts procurement cause a longer wait. I have a new water heater install that I approved with the plumber Monday that will not go in until Friday, because that's the very soonest any of the plumbers I use can get there and do it. They are all backed up. Most A/C companies are backed up a day or two as well, which will become 2-4 days when we hit the first 105 degree day.
You've been given "possession" (legal term) of a property. It is yours to occupy, within the terms of the lease agreement, which you signed, and in accordance with Texas Property Code, which defines Landlord duties and responsibilities and is usually mirrored in the standard lease agreement most Texas Landlords use.
Questions:
1) If you owned the home, to whom would you send your request for utility reimbursement?
2) Did the Landlord fail to do something or take action that was his duty to do?
If the answers are "nobody" and "no", then you have no legitimate grievance.
What I often have to explain to tenants it that there is no imputed "insurance" against bad luck, discomfort, inconvenience or hardship that comes with a lease agreement in the event of a mechanical failure.
I'm not saying that you possess what I'm about to say, because I don't believe you do based on your post history and evidence of clear thinking, but many otherwise normal and logical people suddenly feel entitled as a Tenant to be "made whole" when something happens that costs them money or inconvenience in the rental property.
There is no such entitlement. Renter's insurance can be purchased by tenants to guard against many such events, such as displacement, but most tenants don't buy it. Instead they look to the Landlord to be made whole, then become enraged when redirected to the Agreement (lease) and told that the answer, as agreed in the lease agreement, is "no, we're not putting you in a hotel or paying your utility bill".
Now, having said that, if I have a tenant with an infant, a single mom, I'm going to pull some favors to get that service call ahead of all the others because of the 25+ year relationships I have with some vendors. But even then, if it's 3PM on a Friday, and a part or new install is needed, it may not matter that I can get someone out there right away, it may be Tuesday or Wed before cool air blows in that house again. That's life. Landlords have no duty to do more.
Steve
Im not worried about the original electric bill, that is life. However, the landlord made the decision to not fix the AC, but instead refill with coolant. Several months later and the coolant is gone and the AC is not working at all. I was gone on vacation and so the AC never stopped running because it was not cooling. This could have been as much as 7 days, so I could have an extremely high power bill. This is as a result of the landlord choosing to refill the AC rather than to fix it.
They again have chosen to fill with coolant. When it happens again in two months, am I again on the hook for the high utility bill?
Keep in mind as the coolant leaks out, the AC will run for progressively longer and longer times until it can no longer cool and runs 100% of the time. The house might still be cool, but it is hard to monitor whether the AC is able to shut off or not and for how long it is shutting off.
I am aware of the devices that can measure electricity usage. Ill check into it to see if there is anything that can help monitor in more detail. That is a great suggestion.
FYI it is illegal 1) for a non certified technician to fill with R22 (up to $5000 fine) 2) to knowingly vent R-22 into the atmosphere (up to $37,500 fine)
In addition the coolant is running about $400-500 for a fill because it is being phased out.
In April my bill was 1000, may, 300, June 300. We will see what it is for July
I will add that our landlord is great. We are being charged below market rent, and they come same day to fix anything. I would recommend them to anyone. They came same day to fill the coolant so at least the house is cool. Im just worried that what they are doing is bad for the environment, against the law, and will result in more expense to everyone (including them)
Im not worried about the original electric bill, that is life. However, the landlord made the decision to not fix the AC, but instead refill with coolant. Several months later and the coolant is gone and the AC is not working at all. I was gone on vacation and so the AC never stopped running because it was not cooling. This could have been as much as 7 days, so I could have an extremely high power bill. This is as a result of the landlord choosing to refill the AC rather than to fix it.
They again have chosen to fill with coolant. When it happens again in two months, am I again on the hook for the high utility bill?
Keep in mind as the coolant leaks out, the AC will run for progressively longer and longer times until it can no longer cool and runs 100% of the time. The house might still be cool, but it is hard to monitor whether the AC is able to shut off or not and for how long it is shutting off.
I am aware of the devices that can measure electricity usage. Ill check into it to see if there is anything that can help monitor in more detail.
We routinely "recharge" a system if there is no evidence of a leak or apparent reason for it having low coolant. It could have taken 5 years to leak and be a very small leak, and the charge will last another 5 years.
Or it could have developed a recent new leak and leaked out in 2 months due to a loose valve that can be tightened and recharged. Without knowing the details of your system and its diagnosis, it's impossible to say that an initial repair with a stop leak agent, and or tightening up of things and testing after recharge, was not a prudent initial repair.
It's harder to defend the second repair, I agree. There is a leak. Either in the condenser coil or evap coil, or elsewhere in the system such as a line (easier to fix). They should conduct an actual leak test with the device designed to locate the specific leak.
If it's an older unit, with the older R-22, it is prudent to replace the entire system even if one of the components with a coil is still operating as designed.
The "I could have an extremely high bill" is speculation. Wait until you know for sure, then operate based on that known fact. As someone else stated though, even a continuously running blower should not cause $1,000 of electricity consumption. If power is going to a froze or stuck compressor, then maybe that draws a lot more energy though.
The dilemma of an unmonitored "not cooling" system makes me wonder if there are thermostats that trigger shutdown at two ends of a temperature spectrum. Typically, if you set it to 78 it stops at 78. But would be nice, in your situation, to also have it stop if it gets up to 85, which means the system is not cooling and should be shut down anyway. Feel free to patent it and send me a referral fee.
Steve
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