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One building, many levels of comfort
Climate control software has tenants warming up to staying put after cold winters
June 7, 2008 - Toronto Star

Jennifer Brown
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Living in an apartment that is too hot in summer and too cold in winter can be uncomfortable and frustrating.

Especially in older buildings where obsolete heating systems make it difficult to control the temperature from one room to the next – the kitchen can be too hot in winter while the bedroom is too cool.

For landlords or property managers, regulating temperature in a rental unit can be equally frustrating, especially if tenants are threatening to vacate if the problem can't be resolved.

The ability to balance and regulate temperatures in individual units has prompted residents at one Ottawa apartment building to warm up to the idea of staying after years of suffering through cold winters. In fact Forest Manor property manager Marianne Montgomery now has a waiting list compared to a 10 per cent vacancy rate when she first started working at the eight-storey, 128-unit, 40-year-old building, which is home to a mix of seniors, families with young children and couples.

The building did have a system that regulated the electric heat in the units, but old thermostats did not always work properly. Residents living in units that were too hot would throw open windows in winter while those in colder units couldn't get warm enough.

"When I started there in 2004/2005 people were moving out because they said they would not go through another winter like that again," says Montgomery.

"There was a whole process we had to go through to figure out why people weren't getting heat. At that time my bosses finally said `Just give them the heat.' We especially had problems with the end units – we were always adjusting them. We really had to play with the heat to get it warm in the bedroom but it meant the living room became unbearably hot."

This year hard-wired systems with motion sensors placed in individual rooms were installed into the units with technology developed by Alberta-based HappyBuilding.com. Motion sensors placed at strategic areas in the living room, bedroom and kitchen detect when a resident gets up in the morning and the temperature adjusts.

The temperature of individual tenant units can be controlled remotely through an online, wireless system.

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