apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Mine is freezing at night...but that's the way I like it...

The heat in our apartment is so erratic. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it goes on or off. Sometimes we wake up to a cold apartment and other times it feels like we've been sleeping in the Sahara. Not to mention that the heaters make the craziest, most annoying sounds all day and night.

In our last apartment though, the heat would go off in the middle of the night and so it would be freezing cold every morning.

I also have a rental apartment where the heat cycle is irregular. A mattress cover that heats up is a big help. I also have a pair of those microwaveable booties and those are excellent! Sometimes I have a knit cap I put on too (it helps kep my hair out of my face too.) I'm always cold but I hate heavy down blankets.

Sasha,

you must live in my building.

Some nights I wish I'd never taken the a/c unit out for winter.

My bedroom is FREEZING at night. Literally! I woke up this morning to the common occurrance of being able to see my breath only to find an ICICLE hanging from my showerhead. I call my landlord and 311 on a daily basis - and I've never received any response from either. Anyone have any tips for this sort of thing?

an electric blanket under a thick comforter is a great way to warm up the bed. turn it on when you get home from work and your bed will be roasty-toasty by the time you turn in.

When going to school in Iowa, we had "cold air dorms" in our sorority (I know, I know) house. We had rooms but all the beds were in a separate large room filled with bunk beds. There was some sort of law requiring that the windows remain open year round since there were so many people in a single room. Believe it or not, with the help from electric blankets, that was some the best sleep ever even when the temperature dropped well below zero. To this day, I still like a cold bedroom though I no longer have an electric blanket.

Chip, I would speak to an attorney; this sounds like the sort of situation where you would be justified in withholding rent until the problem is remedied.

Oh yea, definitely in a rental with a radiator that likes to make strange noises all night. I also have a space heater on the floor that can pick up the slack (if any). Usually around this time retail stores carry tons of heaters which will be marked down sometime in March.

I sleep better in the cold, too, under a down comforter and flannel sheets. And of course it's cheaper to turn the heat off at night (since I have control over it). I remember when we lived in Manhattan on an upper floor, and we had to keep the windows open, it was so hot in the winter.

It's hotter than heck in my apartment, I sleep with just a sheet and still wake up sweating in the middle of the night. My friend says never complain about too much heat in an apartment in winter, but she doesn't have to live there! I'm considering asking my super to remove the radiator and just using the heat from the pipes. That's all I have in the living room and it's pretty sweltering in there too. There's no valve on the radiator so no way to turn it down/off, as far as I can see.

My whole apartment is freezing at night. Last year the pipes froze in the kitchen TWICE. The bedroom is the LEAST of my problems! The sacrafice is worth it though as it's a huge rent contolled place.

my entire apt is too hot, i keep some windows open a crack. i don't sleep under any sheets, and i use a cool-mist humidifier. i only have a pipe in my bedroom but still i sweat. what really makes me mad is this is such a waste of fuel. my next door neighbor across the way actually puts his air-conditioning on. i suspect the heating system for the (old) building is very out-dated and the landlord won;t upgrade.

I live a drafty old Victorian building, which, though picturesque, tends toward the chilly in the winter. I bought heavy flannel sheets last time I was in the States visiting my parents (my sweetie, who'd never heard of flannel sheets, didn't want to get out of bed for three days after I put them on the bed!), and between those and the down duvet, I'm in good shape.

Count me among those who prefer a cool bedroom and warm bedding.

Where is Patrick-2 with commentary on the best way to keep warm at night?

I'm cooking like a roasted chicken in my bedroom - basting in my own sweat.

My apartment seems to get warmer inside the colder the weather is outside. We've had a bit of a cold snap in Minneapolis (temps below zero the past few days), and even with the one radiator turned completely off, I still had to crack a window open.

I looked for a button that said Too Hot AND Too Cold! I too live in a building with fickle and uncontrollable heating - the pipes are right next to my bed. If it's cold at night I'll pile on the jammies but often wake up in the middle of the night in a sweaty fury of ripping off clothes (sounds much better than it is, heh), only to wake up a couple hours even later shivering and clinging to my blanket. This happens every night!

(Does anyone else also have loud clangy pipes? It sounds like someone is taking a hammer to them!)

My god, if someone will tell me how to make my radiator NOT clang for an hour, starting at 4 am, I swear to God I will ensure your life all the happiness I can provide.

We called the landlord about the problem (my first time having an apt with a radiator) and they came in and turned it on, months ago, saying it needs to be completely on or completely off to not bang. But when the heat pushed the temp in my place up to 85 degrees AND still clanged, i just turned it off completely. The temp is perfect but I am awake every morning for an hour listening to it and wanting to end my life.

I had to turn off all of the radiators in our apt except for the kitchen, which is furthest from the bedroom (and there is a hot pipe radiating heat in both the kitchen and bathroom). Sometime it still gets so warm that we have to open a window, so I can't even imagine how nasty it would be in here if all three were on. I prefer to sleep in a cold room, and always rest better that way. However, now that the super cold weather has set in, i find our blankets to be lacking. Anyone want to donate a down comforter??

The dog sleeps under the blanket at night in the winter. Canines run a couple degrees warmer than humans, and he keeps things warm.

Chip,

Your options vary depending on whether your apartment is rent controlled, rent stabalized or none of the above.

If rent regulated, try the NY State Division of Housing and Community Renewal - Office of Rent Administration. They can conduct an inspection of the apartment, and if it does not meet the standard of habitability (of which, heat and hot water are essentials), they can give you a court-ordered rent abatement. Your landlord should then act quickly to fix any problems and lift the abatement. The phone number is (718) 739-6400. If not rent regulated, hopefully they can refer you somewhere else.

Freezing at night and the house does not have time to warm up before i have to get up (ditto for the timed thermostat). Just this am I was grumping through the house with the scarf I wear in bed wrapped around my head and muttering stuff about living in a Russian ghetto........

our apartment has a constant chill...we've added a thick down comforter to the bed, two oversized down throws in the living room, and i purchased a fluffy warm fleece bathrobe. these three items keep us toasty and have saved us much money in heating costs.

we have this supposedly eco-friendly, green heating system that is so terrible it is being overhauled and replaced this summer...and it's only on winter two! it's cheaper for the owner but to get the heat out we have to pay for electric fans to output. turning the heat off at night has saved us hundreds of dollars.

I have an electric mattress pad. Click on my name for the link. It makes all the difference in the world. I also have a thick down comforter and a really fuzzy blaknet, which help to hold the heat in.

I love to sleep in a cold bedroom under a warm duvet. It was that way growing up. I hated having to live in overheated apartment buildings with the windows open.

Also I could never understand why people seem to want the inside temperature to be the opposite of the outside temperature. Basking in heat wearing T Shirts indoors in winter but freezing your tits off in the summer.

Ever heard of global warming folks. a little consideration for the planet would be nice!

the warmest solution i use is a feather bed and a comforter,when you get in bed your body heat is trapped between both layers.

I used to think a space heater was the way to go in order to sleep in a cool (temp) bedroom. But the second space heater I had shorted out, I guess, after just a month, while I was asleep. I wound up with a burn mark on the carpeting, about half of the distance to the outlet, before the circuit breaker tripped and shut the heater off.
I don't remember the manufacturer at this point, but probably I'm lucky to still be among the living.
Now I'm in an apt. with a thermostat I can control so it's not an issue, but I'll never use a space heater again.

felicity, you are scaring me. The bottom (below street level) floor of my bf's apartment has barely any heat. I was going to run to BB&B to get a space heater today. I know you have to be very careful to keep an eye on them, but how dangerous are they really?

Here in OK, we experience a huge range of temps (being so far inland). Last week temps got into the single digits at night, and I had to turn on my heater. But this week it's warmed up to the thirties at night, and I smother, even with the heater down. I keep it at about 60 so the pipes dont freeze in case something happens, but it never kicks on. It hovers around 72, all by itself.

I'm not sure what the deal is. I do live on the second floor, but it's a loft, and aren't lofts supposed to be drafty? I find myself opening the balcony door at varying times in the night just to get some relief. It's keeping my gas bill capped at about $35 a month though.

My bedroom is in the tiny addition to the garden floor, so it's not over the basement. This means the floor lets in cold air like CRAZY as does the door to the backyard. Usually when i'm going to sleep, the heat has cycled to just about off and it's really freaking cold but in the am i wake up suffocating from the heat. The radiators right next to my bed and the room is exactly the width of bed + radiator so there's no escape. This is the 1st winter I've had such a hard time with this so I'm (slowly) traing myself to sleep on other side of the bed, which is way harder than it should be espec when suffocating is the result of not doing it... My new plan is to train a monkey or some other friendly, small non hair shedding animal, to open the window a crack at around 6:30 in the morning. No plan for the cold at night except to find a (human) guest to help heat the place up.

One time, back in the days when I had the whole second floor of a big old house in Peoria, I decided to strip some the paint off the carved woodwork in the hallway & at bedtime, the fumes were still so strong that I knew that if I went to sleep breathing that stuff, I'd never wake up, so I just grabbed a pile of wool blankets--this was November--and went out & spent the night on the roofed sleeping porch. I was cold, but I woke up feeling better than I had since the weekend my Boy Scout troop went on a Polar Bear campout, and as a result I ended up sleeping outside for over a year, blizzards, thunderstorms, mosquitoes & all. There was a starling who lived inside one of the hollow columns who woke me up every morning with his imitation of cell phones & the neighbor's cuckoo clock, and every night I went to sleep listening to the girl next door--an apiring singer who's since gone on to a major career--trying out chords for her new songs. It was great.

These days I live in a tiny apartment in the big city & I no longer have a balcony, but I do have windows, and when I go to bed, they're all wide open--even this time of year--and I sleep under 2O pounds of wool right right next to them, where the only problem is waking up thirsty at 3AM & finding my glass of water full of ice on the window sill. My pals call me crazy, but I haven't had a cold in years.

Alicia,
I don't know if you will see this but i owe you a big thank you - I went out and bought the electric heating pad and just had an amazing night's sleep last night in my cozy bed. Many many thanks!

Serra,

You're welcome! I'm so happy for you! :)

my bedroom is a frickin' furnace! i have the fan on, the windows wide open, and still i wake up feeling like i'm being smothered by a hot pillow. i'm considering turning off the steam heat in my room...it's just too much! i'd rather be cold and get all snuggggggly.

I buy a few cheap boat neck cashmere sweaters from Amazon.com, which I machine wash & hang dry. They are worth every cent when you are so cold you feel miserable. They are lightweigh, soft and not scratchy. Use a down comforter and lightweight throw, and you will sleep well in your cold room. Anything electrical makes me anxious.

To second Sweat's comment, our apartment is always hot. We crack the windows and keep the ceiling fan on year-round. The cross breeze also helps to keep us from roasting.

I live in a co-op, so we are responsible for dealing with the too-hot/too-cold/too-clangy radiator and boiler issues ourselves -- no landlord to complain to. It is definitely the single worst problem we have in the building; there are mechanical problems compounded by personal differences: people from the south who are affronted at the idea that they might have to wear a sweater indoors in winter vs. people from the north who think it's immoral not to.

Here are the main points of wisdom I've gleaned from experience: radiators should be all the way ON or all the way OFF; there is no in between. This has nothing to do with regulating temperature; it is to permit water vapor to enter and leave the radiator, which needs a wide-open channel, otherwise steam will get trapped there and turn into water.

Clanging in the pipes is a sign of too much air in the system; it can be regulated by putting good-quality valves on radiators and risers. Valves have holes in them to allow steam to exit, and the holes can get clogged over time; valves need to be replaced periodically.

There is tons of info on the Internet about how heating systems should work, and you can become a mini-expert if you do your own research, even solving your own problems. Your landlord will love you for it, and you will be happier too.

Oh, and NYC law specifies certain amounts of heat between certain hours of day and night, so you can bet your life the heat is programmed by timer to go down at night. Most people prefer it colder at night (see above comments), so this is actually a good thing for most people. Heat is supposed to be up to daytime settings by 6 a.m., so boilers usually start cranking around 5 a.m. or earlier, depending on the building size.

And, heat a lot of times is run on an hourly cycle, with radiators varying between stone cold, hot-hot and every level of warm in between, every hour of the day as the boiler goes on and off. That's part of why the temperature seems to fluctuate, tho' air temps in your room should never go below 68 degrees even though they will rise and fall all day long.

OK, that's my wisdom. Hope it helps someone!