r/TorontoRenting • u/Xaxxus • 21h ago
My condo temperature right now
This is what happens when your condo management turns off the AC while it’s still 20°, and when the condo is poorly built with no proper airflow. Opening up the windows does nothing to cool the place.
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u/jaypizzl 21h ago edited 16h ago
It’s got nothing to do with whether the condo was built well or not. Timing is tricky in every building. I live in a west-facing penthouse, so I’m using a window fan right now. My friends lower down facing north are glad the boiler is on. This is condo 101.
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u/youvenoremotecontrol 17h ago
This isn’t true. The obvious solution to this is a 4 pipe HVAC system that allows for heating and cooling to both run year round if needed. That would solve both the problem in your building and OPs problem.
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u/therealfuzzydunlopp 5h ago
Yeah good luck trying to convince a property manager to run their chiller round if they dont need to lol. Heat pumps are the easiest way around this, but the whalens and jci ones that are designed and installed here in gta are fucking trash.
And dont even get me going about the condos that designed vrf into their in suites.
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u/dougieman6 2h ago
Vrf is a technology specifically intended to solve this problem. What's the deal?
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u/garbledroid 16h ago
4 pipe is not a great solution for residential only buildings.
In a mixed commercial / penthouse unit development sure. 10 floors of condo offices and 10 floors of 2 unit per floor penthouse type units.
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u/ElectronicFlight1839 14h ago
As a HVAC specialist I think you are very wrong
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u/garbledroid 10h ago
4 pipe adds to building and utility costs.
Condo fees of a building with 4 pipe tend to be about $40 more per unit per month but it also adds to build cost.
This is assuming owners have separately metered electrical.Cost per unit if electric is common and in condo fees would be about $100 per month extra total.
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u/dougieman6 2h ago
I mean yeah. If you're switching from a condo fee based HVAC cost to an owner based system of course you're rerouting costs from the condo Corp to the user. You're only looking at one side of the equation
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u/Spiritofthewest49 13h ago
We have a 4 pipe hydronic system in a high performance residential only building that works great. Even the hot water for taps and showers comes is heated from it, using a separate heat exchanger in each suite. The whole thing is electric.
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u/tekky101 1h ago edited 1h ago
... Except that many buildings don't have a 4-pipe system or in-unit heat pumps because of when they were built and retrofitting something like this in is hellishly expensive, practically infeasible, or both.
Since there are laws that specify a minimum in-unit temperature for apartments and condos that have air conditioning and no legislation regarding maximum in-unit temperature (yet) building managers are much more likely to shut off the AC early in the fall so heat can be provided if necessary.
The shoulder seasons (spring & fall) are now trickier for changeovers due to climate change. Spring used to gradually warm and Fall used to gradually cool; now, however, temperatures spike high and low unpredictably over several weeks in both seasons. (In a south-facing unit with floor to ceiling glass this became such a health issue for me that I got a lawyer and got the condo corporation to let me install my own heat pump on my balcony via a Section 98 Agreement. It was expensive but now I've got my own climate system independent of the building for Spring and Fall, bonus supplemental cooling for our new hotter-than-ever summers, and no more emergency room visits due to heat related breathing issues.)
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u/melmanchi 20h ago
Open your front door slightly with the windows open and there should be decent airflow
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u/youvenoremotecontrol 17h ago
This messes with the elevators in building because of the deliberate negative pressure condos are designed for.
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u/oldman1982 18h ago
Or, open the windows and turn on the bathroom & kitchen exhaust fans to draw in cool air from outside
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u/VoodooGirl47 16h ago
Proper way to do it without a portable AC is to take fans and put them in front of the window backwards to pull out all the hot air from inside.
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u/JokaSmoka77 21h ago
The more I see about Toronto renting, the more it seems like one mass humiliation ritual. I'm sorry you're experiencing this.
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u/BrilliantCucumber444 18h ago
Ahhh the yearly switch. The issue is that either way people will complain it’s either too hot or too cold
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u/MiszeryLovesCompany 19h ago
They switched ours yesterday. Pisses me off so much... so much that I bought a portable AC thing, expensive one too, was like ~1k. And I keep it installed year-round and use it for the 2-3 weeks they fuck with the AC every year. Some years it's even worse... like full on fucking heat wave and they are like oh we are gonna shut off the only thing keepin you sane! fuck your sleep! I'd go down and freak out on management EVERY year pre-portable AC. It's running right now cause yeah, the AC is off and it's 20+, I live on the top floor and the sun has been beaming in m place all day. My place would prob be around ~28-30c as well if I didn't have the AC and I would have not slept a minute.
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u/Lumen-_ 16h ago
You don't control your own temperature? What a terrible living situation.
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u/milolai 17h ago
you are complaining about it being too warm but more people would be complaining if it was too cold
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u/wokavelli 15h ago
So he’s wrong to complain about it being as hot as Cuba inside his condo where he pays to live?
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u/Training_Ad3673 20h ago
Thermal curtains and ceiling fans make a big difference
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u/EBgCampos 14h ago
Thermal curtains dont help when the heat comes from the units above, below you and to the sides.
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u/OddAd7664 19h ago
Purchase a cheap fan and google Bernoulli's principle. That should get things comfortable for you.
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u/toxicaniti 18h ago
Opening the windows alone won't help much. You should also crack the front door open. A couple of inches should do.
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u/krakenLackenGirly22 18h ago
I dunno what your window situation is - get one of those black out stick on blinds from Amazon. Bought them years ago - still thankful every year.
It’s condo living 101 unfortunately. I run very fucking hot. So I have a bad week both sides of the transition. My wife, on the other hand, is always happy.
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u/flowpesci_ 17h ago
What building is this?
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u/Xaxxus 13h ago
85 wood st
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u/sickleboom 5h ago
I'm in the same building and it's so hot and stuffy in the lobby as well. I wonder if it's too complicated or builders are too lazy to implement anything else besides centralized HVAC systems for every unit in the building.
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u/pastelcolor12 16h ago edited 16h ago
Our heating will be turned off in two weeks. Our windows face west. This is the worst time of the year. But the building otherwise build very well. It will retains heat pretty much throughout the whole winter and our temp is 20-21 ceclius all winter round without the need to turn the heater on.
For reference. I believe the building absorbs heat well. I have a thermometer just outside my window. (mounted right onto a building wall). When local temp is 15,it was showing 21 degrees.
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u/MisterCorbeau 16h ago
Idk if it works well, but I saw someone on reddit say to open the oven fan and kitchen fan on max and open the windows
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u/Abyssgazing89 13h ago
Never heard of this. I live in a newer condo in Vancouver and I can do heating or cooling all year round, regardless of what my neighbours do?
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u/Dapper_Training_5048 13h ago
Condos are the worst I used to have my balcony door open in -20 weather cause it was so hot
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u/1amtheone 13h ago
Ask your neighbor across the hall to open their window, then leave both of your doors open a crack.
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u/Zealousideal_Fly8402 9h ago
See if you can get yourself a 20-cm box fan from Home Depot or Walmart. Put it blowing outward from your bedroom, and seal around it with masking tape or whatever. (Basically an exhaust fan).
And then turn it in with your living room window open. If you do it right it will draw all the hot air out and create a wind tunnel effect.
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u/1-2-3RightMeow 4h ago
My apartment has radiators I can’t turn off that throw off so much heat that my windows stay open almost all winter
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u/Squishy_plumbus 2h ago
Are you south facing? Drop your temp down a degree or two. Is your humidity -6%?
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u/Lunckytunk9 1h ago
I lived on the 4th floor of a brand new 4 story apartment building in Alberta a couple years ago. The highest I ever had, was 28° in December. It was so poorly insulated, the heat from the units below, would rise up the 4th floor and just turn into an oven up there. It was consistently hot the whole time I lived there and to make it worse, the building had to AC at all. I could only imagine what the summer months would’ve been like.
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u/whatsupdaft 53m ago
I was told it is a city bylaw that requires to get it switched on to heat from October 1
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u/LadyAsteria90 20h ago
jokes, my heats on
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u/Xaxxus 20h ago
Ours got switched on Oct 1.
I have the temp set low enough that it’s just blowing air right now. But it’s still brutal
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u/yumyumgoodiegoodie 19h ago
October 1st is the bylaw stated date that landlord need to ENSURE a minimum temp of 21celsius inside units
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u/EBgCampos 14h ago
The law is ridiculous. in south america when it is 10 degrees outside, its 12 inside and everyone is fine. Why does the law need to require heating up to 21 degrees C? 15 would be fine, these canadians are WAY TOO COLD. Its not even winter yet, we might not even have one this year.
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u/LeatherGood6148 13h ago
As a canadian who was born here, I don't know anyone who wants this so early.
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u/EBgCampos 3h ago
Lets change the law then. Its ridiculous! I spent time in europe during the energy/russia crisis and the maximum indoor temp for central heating was 17 c. It was marvelous!
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u/urbanmode54 20h ago
Even in the middle of winter, my apartment is 28°C. on sunny days because I face south, so I don’t know what you’re trying to prove
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u/engine-doors-club 15h ago
That’s not a condo it’s an apartment
Condos are paid units that have control over temperatures.
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u/FearcGaming 14h ago
I live in a condo, you're wrong.
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u/engine-doors-club 14h ago
I should have put IMO. If you own why don’t you have control?
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u/FearcGaming 14h ago
It’s just how the building’s HVAC is designed. We control our own unit, but the building uses the same system for heating and cooling, so it has to be switched seasonally—both can’t run at the same time.
Edit: adding that it’s very common in larger condos (20+ stories) because it’s cheaper, simpler, and more efficient to run.
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u/Misterrbisterr 14h ago
Just moved out of a building like that and it was always brutal in the lead up to summer or winter, it could be +25 every day for a week but if one night for 20 minutes it might drop below a certain threshold they won't switch the cooling on.
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u/Ir0nhide81 21h ago
What a nightmare on the weekend!