My landlord is clueless.

[Heart.Revolution]

My husband and I are renters, sadly. When we moved into our home we did not realize that there is no insulation between our floor and the unfinished basement. We just assumed that a home would be insulated, I mean, why they heck wouldn't it be?!?!?!

So I have asked him three times now over the past 4 months to please insulate the floor between us and the basement before it get's cold. (I should also mention that we have a 6 month old baby to keep warm) He keeps giving me the run around and saying that he cannot find a contractor to do the job. So I asked him why he just won't go to Home Depot and buy some insulation and stuff between the rafters himself. Can you believe that he said he "did not know what i was talking about"! How dense can you be? He does not have a clue.

We do not plan on staying here after our lease expires, but we have 6 months. I found a website for renters rights that states we can inform him that we will be hiring someone to repair something that has ignored then just use the rent money to pay for it.

At this point I am not wanting to push it into a fight because I do not really like living here anyways, but I want to be warm during the winter. Does anyone have any advise or experience similar to this?

[Sharlla]

I wouldn't worry about it. I don't think it's that common to insulate basement ceilings but rather attics and exterior walls. IMO it would be a waste of money for him to insulate it.

[michelle524]

1

[jocelyndale]

Our floor is insulated and I assure you--the hardwood is still painfully cold.

I don't think the landlord has any obligation to insulate the floor. This doesn't really count as a necessary repair to provide a liveable situation, since you can easily remedy the cold floor with throw rugs.

Now, if he didn't repair a broken furnace and the temp dropped below a certain point, or if he refused to make necessary water repairs--those are more serious and the local housing authority would probably help force compliance.

In most jurisdictions, you cannot withhold rent or use it to make repairs without the landlords authorization. In sticky situations, there may be procedures whereby rent is paid into an escrow account until the repairs are made, but the rent must *still* be paid and the landlord must know that it's being held in escrow by the county/city/state.

[Heart.Revolution]

Ok, let me add that just to heat our place per month it is costing us $350!!! and we don't even have the temperture up past 70 degree's for fear of what the bill will look like. Even at this temperature we are still wearing multiple layers because it is still cold. we have very high ceilings and no ceiling fans to draw the warm air back down. We also have the old fashionn heaters where we have to wait for the water to boil to make it warm. The whole set up is just not economical.

[sapphire_chan]

Have you checked your windows for drafts? Dh and I put plastic insulation sheeting over all our windows when we lived in apartments. The sort you stick around the edges and then blow-dry to tighten-up.

My parents hung quilted curtains at the windows when I was a child. The insulating properties are the real reason people would have summer and winter curtains (and why tapestries were popular in stone houses).

My friend who had steam-based radiators had an apartment that was sweltering during winter, and his bills were pretty low. Are you turning the heat off all the time? You might see whether it's more economical to leaving your heat running instead of spending the energy to bring the water to a boil.

[baileyandmikey]

we don't have insulation between our floor and the basement, which is completly unfinished. my husband did stick some thick styrofoam stuff in there , which helps some, and it was cheap.

[Sharlla]

We live in a 100 year old uninsulated house. We covered up our windows and also curtained off unused portions of the house. We use the oil filled space heater. I'd say our biggest electric bill was aboutt $70 last winter. I'd advice you to find another heating source if you are spending that much per month.

[melissa17s]

Originally Posted by Moobey

Ok, let me add that just to heat our place per month it is costing us $350!!! and we don't even have the temperture up past 70 degree's for fear of what the bill will look like. Even at this temperature we are still wearing multiple layers because it is still cold. we have very high ceilings and no ceiling fans to draw the warm air back down. We also have the old fashionn heaters where we have to wait for the water to boil to make it warm. The whole set up is just not economical.

I would start asking the landlord to repair the heating system opposed to insulating the floors. Talk to your local utility because that sounds like a crazy amount to be paying for heat in the fall- February sure on 2000 sq. ft.- sure, but not Sept. Your system may have clogged lines or be leaking.

[mightymoo]

I agree - we have a simlarly sized house, our basement is unfinished and the ceiling is not insulated and our heating bills are nothing like that. We are in new england.

Have you confirmed that the attic is properly insulated? That sounds like a much more likely culprit. I agree about the heating system, furnaces should usually be checked yearly anyway, so its reasonable to ask him to do that so you can see if there is something wrong with it.

[Heart.Revolution]

Yeah we covered the windows with plastic as well. I will try blocking off rooms with blankets to help. I have an oil and electric heater that we drag around with us to each room. I doubt my landlord has cleaned the heating systems, or cares too. He seems to forget about everything i ask him to do multiple times, then he does things like paint the porch or chop down a tree. I don't get why thoses things are more important.

Thanks for all you replys!

[bobandjess99]

i do agree that you have no legal recourse....having insulation in a house is not the type of thing you can demand that he do. Quite frankly, he is well within his rights to tell you "nope, sorry, not gonna do it"...it seems like he is choosing a more passive route of simply stalling until your lease is up.

You have no right to assume a house has insulation.
Mine doesn't.


IF the filter in the furnace hasn't been changed, that could be a HUGE part of the problem..they need to be changed every 6 months, MINIMUM...preferably much more frequently....ours was DISGRACEFUL after only a few months...dh changed it last year, and we had a professional inspection about 6 months after that..the guy was HORRIFIED and was certain the filter must have been in there for YEARS...we were like..nope, and he said we must have a horribly inefficient furnace, which we do.
sigh.

[Heart.Revolution]

Hmm.
How do you change the filter? I am clueless.

[bobandjess99]

lol...thats why i have a husband

It's like..a place on the actual furnace unit, and you pull out this big filter (looks sort of like a big screen window) and replace it? at least on ours...

[WNB]

Check the building codes in your area for rental units; they should specify standards for insulation. If your unit does not meet code, you may have some leverage with which to encourage your landlord to remedy the situation. Otherwise, you might ask him for a rent credit for doing the work yourself, as it will add value to the place after your lease is up. If it will cost you more than you will save over the 6 months though, then I don't know what you should do. It might make the place more comfortable to live in, and an insulation batt or two really isn't very expensive (nor hard to install - I've done it myself), but you only get 6 months of enjoyment out of it.

[oregongirlie]

You don't have a filter to change if you have hot water heat.

One of the best things YOU can do (and it's really cheap) is to install weatherstripping around doors and windows. If you have oil for your fuel, it's pretty normal that it would cost $350 per month. Gas is also really expensive. If electricity is cheaper, try some of those space heaters (not the red glowing ones, the ones that look like your radiators).

70 degrees is pretty high. I'm from a really warm climate but have adjusted to a house temp of 62. I had to because we couldn't afford the oil. Last year we were even on 58 degrees -- not fun. But now I get hot at 63 degrees.

It helped us to wear lots of wool, and to get one of those thermostats with a timer/schedule so you can have it automatically adjust if you go to sleep or work. They're around $30 to $50. Furnaces should be serviced yearly -- your landlord should do that just to keep up his property. Maybe you could convince him to.

[adtake]

A pretty easy way to check the ceiling insulation is to look at the roof in the morning after the frost. If there is frost on the neighbors roof and none on yours, there is a heat problem. Thats how my dh figured out we needed more. It was pretty easy to fix, bought the rolls out stuff and just rolled it out. I know it's the lanlords problem, but you want to be warm.

Good luck!

[root*children]

I think that's unreasonable to try and demand floor insulation. It's pretty common for a house floor to be uninsulated, really, unless your house if very recently built. That's probably why he didn't know what you were talking about. Ours was built in 1925, and all the houses here that were built in that time do not have floor insulation. Heat also rises, so you're not losing all that much throught the floor. We have hardwood floors also, throughout the house, and there is just crawlspace below that. We don't turn the furnace to above 65. Oh, we also have the tall ceilings, but found the fans we installed do not help when turned to push air downward, just makes a little draft.
We run on oil heat : , and our heat deficiencies come from the piping needing to be checked every winter. That is something the landlord is required to do, is to make sure your house does have heat. So our pipes under the house just randomly come loose so we'll get really cold, and go check the furnace in the cellar and it's REALLY warm down there! That's because we were heating the crawlspace, and it wasn't making it up to our house! In our oil furnace, we do have to change the filter monthly (it's so easy, and about $1.50/filter). Also the main heat pipe that comes off of the furnace needs to have insulation around it. If you can feel heat coming directly off your furnace, it needs to be insulated better. So, our main thing is just making sure our pipes are connected. Oh, we rent too, FWIW. I try to be a really good tenant and never complain about anything unless it violates code (heat not working and termites have been my only complaints in 2 years). We also do LOTS of fixing up to the house, landscaping, installing nice ceiling fans (coming out of rent for the cost, but free labor), always pay rent early/on time. Anyhow, I'm just saying a landlord is more likely to help when something is really wrong, if a tenant is polite and doesn't ask for much unless it's something really important. Getting more flies with honey than vinegar, or something like that

[Heart.Revolution]

Well if the floor from the basement is not required to be insulated then why if it so friggin cold? I just don't get it. Even if we keep the heat at or below 70 degree it's still so cold in the house that we are wearing multiply layers! There has to be something else wrong with the heating system then. My landlord just does not want to come around and fix anything. He happens to just forget about things. I don't think I am being unreasonable. The only things that I have asked him to fix is the bathroom fan because we had a severe mold and mildew problem, which is still not fixed, and the issue with the heat. The only reason that I mentioned it to him was because we were so late on our heating bill due to the outrageous cost, that the gas company was going to shut it off.

I just wish we lived somewhere that was heat efficient and we did not go into debt trying to stay some what warm.

[jocelyndale]

$350 is a normal heating bill for an uninsulated old house. That's what we paid *minimum* for a 1100sqft 1920s cottage *before* all the ductwork fell apart under the house (yeah, that was the month of the 55F thermostat and $600+ gas bill).

We put reflectrix up in the windows, turned the heat down to 62-65F, and had heavy curtains over all the windows. We baked frequently (old stove wasn't insulated, so that helped a bit) and bundled up. We kept the ceiling fans on (where we had them) to circulate the air back down.

Where is the ductwork? If it's in the crawlspace, can you access that? Get down there and see if the ductwork is solid. If any joins are broken, your landlord *does* have a responsibility to address it.

You may qualify for heating assistance from your locality if you have a low income. Otherwise, in the future you'll need to consider living somewhere more modern. :/ I know that's no help now, but heating old houses is *expensive*. It's one reason we opted for a 1950s ranch instead of one of the older houses with character.