Am I doing something wrong with my heat?

What Mamacita says.
A reasonable time to fix this would be a couple of days at best. It sound like the radiators are not properly vented.The problem with trying to make suggestions to the LL is that when he does what you say and it doesn't work then you become responsible for it not working. Play dumb and be persistent. I suspect your trying to get along and giving the LL the benefit of the doubt. It is long past that. Start calling again this morning.

Probably the radiators just need to be bled (air gets trapped preventing the steam from circulating through them). Different systems have slightly different ways of doing this, but you should ask the landlord and it should take him maybe five minutes, tops.

Put an insulated cover on the AC, then ask the LL to come over. If not, he might blame the problem on the draft coming from AC.

how to build an effective A/C cover if you are not going to take your A/c out...

http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=643073&sid=d19e797e1166084bf402136ef7be5881

If you don't pay for your utilities, you can purchase an electric radiator and use that. It is more costly than heating your apt with steam, but that isn't an issue for you if electric is included in your rent.

For what its worth we live in an 8 unit Brownstone co op with a thermostat located on the 2nd floor. We constantly have issues with heat; the top floors boiling , those of us on the ground freezing. We have yet to find a solution to suit everybody. I use an electric oil-filled raditor. My bills are high but its incredibly effective.

With all due respect, Modsquad, you do 'bleed' steam radiators. This is the procedure whereby you remove the vent and clear it of blockages. I've done it countless times. Simply removing and reinstalling the vent is often sufficient. You can often hear air escaping when the vent is removed.

No, it's not the same process as "bleeding" hot water radiators via a screw , but that is of course, thoroughly irrelevant to this discussion.

You are clearing the vent to permit removal of excess air, ergo, bleeding.

Case not closed. I want to know what the landlord did to get your apt so toasty warm.

pastoralia wrote: Yeah...my landlord swears our heat is on a thermostat yet it only goes on at 4am and 6pm EVERY DAY. Either he doesn't care or doesn't understand but when I try to explain this to him he says it's all depending on what the thermostat says. I wish I knew how to program the goddamn thing myself.

Is he saving money by doing this? It's steam heat and I've never seen an oil truck pumping oil into the boiler so what are his costs? Water and electric?

Could be a natural gas fired boiler. No need for an oil truck. He's definitely saving money on gas/oil, the cost of water and electric is negligible.
Is the thermostat control a Heat Timer or just a digital wall thermometer?

pastoralia wrote: There's a digital read out box by the boiler (connected via a wire). He says he installed the thermometer end in the hallway but I've never been able to find it.

What's strange is all this month the heat has been great. Firing when it was cold/ Toasty rooms...and then Sunday it didn't go on and he came and "fixed" it and now it's back to the 4am and 6pm firings no matter if it's 20 degrees or 60 degrees outside. What pisses me off the most is he won't admit that he has it on a timer when everything points to that very fact. He's not a bad guy but I think he's "gaslighting (heh)" me.

It's against the law to "peg" the heat to go off at certain times in NYC for residential.Traditionally this peg was inserted on a Sunday of a 7 day mechanical clock. That would be associated with a Heat Timer usually a metal box about 10" x 12". It's certainly possible to do the same with the new digital therms. I can't imagine why he would make it come on in the middle of the night however.

The problem with the "weather head" location in the hallway is that there is an accumulative effect over time that would cause the temperature to stay higher there while it gets colder in the apartments. Heat Timer weather heads are located outside, usually with a little metal shield for the sun.

Try this. Most digital thermostats have an over ride feature for each time increment of the day, "morning, afternoon, evening and night". The problem is that you have to over ride each period each time. Try removing the power, battery or transformer and see if it goes to a default value of 72 degrees across all periods. Still might not be high enough if the hallway is over heated. Open the roof door or hatch next (Better yet try this first)

This sounds to me like a standard programmable thermostat. You can set it to change the temperature at different times of the day. For instance, heat is usually turned down at night when everyone is sleeping and under blankets.

So it sounds like every day at 4am the thermostat is set to bring the heat up from say 65 to 70. This means the boiler runs for a while and all the radiators get nice and hot every morning at 4am until the building temp rises to 70 or whatever it's set to. This way it is nice and warm when you get out of bed.

There is probably another setting that allows the temp to drop down a little during the day when everyone is at work, say to 68, and then go up again at 6PM when everyone comes home so that it's a bit warmer when most people are around.

Sometime later, say at 11PM, the thermostat temp will drop down to the night setting and the temp in the building will slowly drift down to that point.

Now aside from those transition times the boiler will turn on and off as needed but you won't notice it in the same way because it only needs to raise the temp by 1 or 2 degrees. It will just send a little steam up which may only fill the first fin of the radiator or may just get it warm. It will do this throughout the day and night to maintain the set temp.

Using a programmable thermostat does save money, it's a very useful tool to effectively control the temperature of a building and ensure that heat is not wasted and can be adjusted according to the time of day and needs of people. This allows a building manager to provide the most heat at those times when people are home and awake (early morning and evening) and reduce the usage when most people are out of the home or asleep.

Another note, heat is expensive and eats up a good chunk of the rent paid, especially in older buildings with a central steam boiler. Your landlord is not just paying for electricity and water, the boiler is run on either natural gas or oil. Heat typically costs between $350 and $450 per room per year so a 2BR apt (counted as 4 rooms incl. kitchen and livingroom) costs about $1400-$1800/year to heat.

Implementing efficiency measures such as programmable thermostats and making sure people don't have windows open or ACs in them over the winter helps keep these costs down and minimizes the need to increase rents to keep pace with rising oil and gas prices.

Now it's quite possible that the landlord put the thermostat in a place that doesn't accurately reflect the temp in the building. If this is the case, get a thermostat so you can show him what the temp is inside your apartment compared to what the temp is by the thermostat. He may need to move the location or turn the settings up in order to get everything set up properly.

This is all good advice and information...

I have a thermometer in my apartment and it registers 68 (just like it did all last winter. As an aside; to the first person who says 68 is good enough? Take your opinion and warm your hands over it because I don't care what you think. I'm not paying $2600 a month to sit around in sweaters, long-johns, and mukluks.

The digital thermometer box near the boiler is set to 75, which shows good faith on his part but it simply isn't working right. The problem is after it's done running at around 7:30pm the temp drops and keeps dropping until 4am. Add to that drafty windows and doors and being on the top floor by the time I go to bed it's rather uncomfortable (I like it a little warm some people might like it cool).

I like the removing the battery option. Plausible deniability. Considering my landlord has done numerous renovations without any permits he would be remiss in making a big stink. This is why he does everything himself- he doesn't want any outside contractors coming in and possibly realizing how much shit is not up to code.

As for opening the top hatch: It's a nice idea but not too safe. Other tenants wouldn't care because we've all talked about how poorly heated the building is but didn't someone get robbed on 8th street by someone coming in through the roof?

I like the antiquated notion that people aren't home during the day so it's OK for the heat to drop. Out of the five units in our building...there are three people unemployed.

I've given him a call and hopefully he'll do something (usually he does the very minimum if anything). As always if you want your landlord to do something you've got to be an asshole.