Better to rent an apartment with or without heat included? (California: how much, month to)

[Copanut]

As a landlord, I would NEVER rent with heat included. The only places that do so are ones that have a single gas line with 2-4 units. The cost to separate would be excessive.

As a tenant back in the day...My ultimate apartment was in Mt. Lebo back in the mid-80's, 1 BR basement, 600 sf, hot water heat that was included in the 210/month rent. Most of the tenants were elderly, and one time in June when the temperature hit 40 the furnace kicked on. I used to open the windows some times in the winter. Damn, I miss that place.

I'm sure that will greatly affect my lifetime carbon footprint.

[Little Mizz Pittsburgh]

I've been in both situations and I'd love to go back to the time where heat was included because Equitable Gas has lost their friggin' minds.

The only thing I didn't like with the heat being included is that "I" had no control over the thermostat. The landlord had the thermostat covered and you had to use a key to open it, which only he had. He would put the temperature on a certain degree and there it would stay all fall/winter long. Sometimes, depending on the temperature outside, it would be TOO hot in my apartment and sometimes I'd be freezing. I'd still rather deal with that than to deal with Equitable Gas myself. I loathe that utility company.

[Hopes]

This is complicated to explain but it's worth following because I was totally screwed by this arrangement.

One place I lived, there were four apartments in the building. One on the main floor, one on the second floor, and two on the third floor, and the basement had laundry hookups for every apartment. The utilities were included for the two apartments on the third floor. The first and second floor paid utilities, and I lived on the second floor. I lived on the second floor.

It took 9 months for me and the people who lived on the first floor to realize that we were paying all utiltiies. The first floor apartment was paying utilities for the basement and the lighting in the common area hallways and steps. I was paying all the utilities for the two apartments on the third floor!

So, it's important to check how many electrical boxes and gas meters are located on a building that has utilities included for some apartments. You could end up paying utilities for other apartments if there's not enough separate utility lines running into the building!

[greg42]

When I briefly lived in Mt Washington (a one year lease, but he let me out early at 10 months because the timing would be better for both of us) I was in a shared heat setup. We split the gas bill, which was in the landlord's name, but the people upstairs got screwed because I had the only thermostat. (Mine was 1BR ground floor; upstairs was 2BR on 2nd and 3rd floors.) The insulation sucked (new windows do not help much if there's not reasonable insulation in the walls), and even though it was cold in the winter we were still sharing a $300+ gas bill.

It really varies what to expect; "heat included" alone doesn't tell you much. It could be in a large old building with radiators, and there's just no way to individually meter that. In that case, you may have control over the temp and have heat included. In a 2-4 unit building, you'll have to be more careful of the arrangements for the control of the heat (and payment of utilities, if it's not heat included). Basically, regardless of the heat included or not included rent arrangement, you always want to find out if you control the temp of the heat, if you will be having a gas bill in your name, etc. I lived in a complex in Emsworth where some of the buildings had gas and some didn't. Where they had gas, the complex bought the gas at a better large volume rate and billed us on monthly rent statements. The hot water was shared and billed at a flat rate. So although everything was individual and we had gas stoves, gas furnace, etc. we never had an account or bill from the gas company. Scenarios are just about endless; better to ask too many questions and be met with "Of course (not)!" as an answer than be blindsided by an unexpected setup.

[Hopes]

The split utilities scenario can cause friction among tenants. In one place I lived, the tenants had to split the utilities. They were divided according to how many people lived in each apartment. One apartment had four people. The two other apartments had one in each. That meant that apartment with four people paid 2/3 of the utilities for the building. They felt they were getting ripped off since two of the four people were under 4 years old.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Hopes

The split utilities scenario can cause friction among tenants. In one place I lived, the tenants had to split the utilities. They were divided according to how many people lived in each apartment. One apartment had four people. The two other apartments had one in each. That meant that apartment with four people paid 2/3 of the utilities for the building. They felt they were getting ripped off since two of the four people were under 4 years old.

That does seem unfair. My DD lived in a place where the utilities were divvied up among apts. In other words, 3 apts would each pay 1/3 of the utilities in a setup such as the above. (This was not in Pittsburgh.) This meant there was no particular incentive to economize, b/c the tenants in the other apts might keep their thermostats at 80 while she was wearing thermal underwear to keep hers at 68. Such arrangements are always difficult.

[Drover]

I have lived in three apartments now where various utilities (heat, electricity, or both) were paid by the landlord. In both cases, the restrictions on the use of those utilities was intolerable enough that I vowed never to do it again.

In all three places referenced above the landlord paid the heat, and they also controlled it. That meant that when they didn't feel like turning the heat on in September when it dropped down to the 30s for a couple nights, you were SOL. It also meant that when they didn't feel like turning it off when it hit the 70s in April, they wouldn't let you open your windows so you didn't broast to death -- in fact having your windows open with the heat on constituted an "emergency situation" per the terms of the lease that entitled them to enter your apartment to close them, with no prior notice. In the two instances where they paid for electricity, we were not allowed to have an air conditioner, which was really awesome when we had a 100+ degree heat wave.

I'm willing to pay for utilities in order to pay for control over their use. It evens out in the end anyway; our landlord isn't going to give you anything for free. You just end up paying for it in higher rent instead of sending separate checks to the utility companies.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Hopes

This is complicated to explain but it's worth following because I was totally screwed by this arrangement.

One place I lived, there were four apartments in the building. One on the main floor, one on the second floor, and two on the third floor, and the basement had laundry hookups for every apartment. The utilities were included for the two apartments on the third floor. The first and second floor paid utilities, and I lived on the second floor. I lived on the second floor.

It took 9 months for me and the people who lived on the first floor to realize that we were paying all utiltiies. The first floor apartment was paying utilities for the basement and the lighting in the common area hallways and steps. I was paying all the utilities for the two apartments on the third floor!

So, it's important to check how many electrical boxes and gas meters are located on a building that has utilities included for some apartments. You could end up paying utilities for other apartments if there's not enough separate utility lines running into the building!

I had this happen once too, only not as dramatically. I noticed that my electric bill went up when there was a change in tenants in the unit above me. The "old" tenant was almost never there; he actually lived with his GF and used the unit above us as an "escape" when they were fighting. When he moved out and full-time tenants moved in, my electricity bill jumped by about 20%.

Turns out all of the common area lights (which the new tenants left on a lot more than the old one did) and the washer & dryer were on our meter. The ex and I found that out when we requested an audit from the electric company. And when they found out that common-area utilities were being billed to us and there was no prior arrangement for doing so on our lease, they switched the billing for our meter to our landlord's name.

Needless to say, he was not pleased, but that did give us leverage to renegotiate our rent to account for us paying for common-area utilities. When our lease expired, he refused to renew it because we had busted him, so we had another meter audit done and put our final bill back in his name.

[Hopes]

Way to go, Dover! I never had such satisfaction. Only finding out three months before the lease expired, I merely moved.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by Hopes

Way to go, Dover! I never had such satisfaction. Only finding out three months before the lease expired, I merely moved.

You know, it was really kind of an accident the first time. All we wanted was an audit so we could discuss it with our landlord. We had no idea the electric company was going to put our electric bill in his name. They didn't even ask us, they just did it -- actually told us they were required to. But knowing they'd do that came in handy when he refused to renew our lease as a form of retaliation. Unfortunately we didn't realize at the time that retaliatory refusal was illegal, or else we would have just held over and dared him to evict us.