HPD Announces Start of “Heat Season” in NYC

HPD recently reminded tenants, owners, and landlords of the temperature requirements for all apartments as New York’s “heat season” begins. The 2018-2019 “heat season” begins on Monday, Oct. 1 and continues through Friday, May 31.

During heat season, all residential building owners are required to maintain indoor temperatures at 68 degrees when it falls below 55 degrees outside during the day and a minimum of 62 degrees indoors overnight, regardless of outdoor temperatures. Building owners are legally required to provide hot water at 120 degrees year-round.

HPD responds to all heat and hot water complaints, and encourages tenants to check the HPD online webpage to learn the result of the complaint. Tenants can also receive complaint status updates via text if a phone number is provided when a complaint is submitted. If a landlord fails to provide heat entirely, HPD’s Emergency Repair Program (ERP) or Housing Litigation Division will intervene to seek the restoration of heat.

Here are some statistics from the 2017-2018 Heat Season (Oct. 1, 2017 – May 31, 2018):

• 215,138 total heat and hot water problems were reported to the city through 311 (this number includes duplicate calls), an increase of 7.8 percent as compared to the previous Heat Season.
• 107,424 unique heat and hot water problems were reported (this number doesn’t include duplicate calls).
• HPD inspectors attempted 121,170 heat and/or hot water inspections (this number includes multiple inspection attempts in response to a complaint). HPD inspectors wrote 4,755 heat and 5,243 hot water violations, which is an increase of 36 percent and decrease of 7.4 percent as compared to the previous Heat Season.
• HPD completed a total of $1.7 million in heat-related emergency repairs, such as fuel delivery, boiler repairs, or hot water repairs. All ERP costs are billed to the property.
• HPD filed 4,198 heat cases in court and collected $1,876,916 in civil penalties. An additional $15,650 was collected in heat settlement penalties for FY18.
• HPD collected $198,200 in heat inspection fees during FY18.