Cooperation, Technology Can Keep Temperature Comfortable and Save Money

Cooperation and a Little Technology Can Keep Temperature Comfortable, Save Money

Q I share a three-story rowhouse with six other people. With seven housemates, we're dealing with seven different thresholds for cold! Our house is almost 100 years old and is poorly insulated. However, the owner installed a new furnace this summer. He thinks it should make a dent in our gas bills, which ran up to $800 a month last winter.

Do you have any recommendations for temperature ranges to program into a furnace? Also, would it be more efficient to simply heat the house up to 55 or 60 degrees and encourage housemates to use space heaters in their rooms if they want more heat? I grew up in Los Angeles, where my parents were too thrifty to turn on the heat, and went to school in western Massachusetts, where I lived in a dorm, so I don't know much about heating. -- Washington

AYou're not the only one concerned about your heating bill at this time of year. It takes most people who control their own temperature a little time to figure out the balance between being comfortable and keeping the temperature low enough to afford.

"With a gas furnace, or oil furnace or heat pump, it would probably be more efficient to run the main unit than the individual units because typically when you're talking about space heaters, you're looking at an electric heating unit, and electric heat is the most expensive form of heat," said Steve Halsted, vice president of mechanical and electrical engineering for Emcor Facilities Services, an Arlington consulting firm.

Efficiency is a concern, but not the only one. "As far as a space heater's concerned, you have to be very careful," Halsted said. "A lot of fires are caused by space heaters. People plug them into circuits that aren't sized to handle that load or something flammable gets knocked against it. I would recommend avoiding space heaters at all costs."

Halsted said that most people prefer temperatures of 68 to 72 degrees. If the new furnace was not installed with a programmable thermostat, he recommends that the tenants or their landlord put one in. Such a device, which costs about $200 to $300 depending on how it is set up, allows residents to set the temperature according to their schedules. It can automatically lower the temperature when nobody is home or in the middle of the night, which can lead to significant savings. Encouraging the chilly among you to throw on an extra sweater or blanket rather than turn up the heat will also lower your bill.

But if the seven people living in a group house cannot agree on a temperature range, there is a possibility that they will not be able to agree on schedules that would allow them to ease up on heating the house full blast at all hours.

My roommate and I are moving out of our apartment, and we are having some problems with repainting. When we moved in, our management company told us we could paint the walls as long as we repainted when we moved out. They said it wasn't their responsibility to repaint, only to do touch-ups from the previous tenants. (One room was blue, but we said we would keep it.) They ended up telling us that no touch-ups were needed from the previous tenants, so we left a lot of the place as it was. However, we painted two bedrooms, a hallway and a bathroom in bright colors. We were planning on repainting when we moved out, but someone from the management company just called and told us if it was not a "professional job" we would be charged.

So, I guess my question is this: What is their responsibility for "touch-ups" and what is ours as far as how professional our job is?

None of this was in writing. -- Washington

The key to getting your security deposit back is leaving the apartment as close as possible to the condition in which you found it. So, returning the walls to the colors that were there when you moved in is all you have to do. Your landlord's mandate that you do a "professional job" should not scare you, unless you are planning to leave the walls in multi-color streaks or carve your initials into each door jamb. Assuming you do a decent job of painting, enough to cover the changes you made, you are entitled to your security deposit back.

Where paint has faded because of normal wear and tear, a landlord is responsible for repainting it, or adequately restoring it to good condition, even if that means a series of touch-ups. Landlords should not rent an apartment without repainting if the current paint is peeling, badly smudged or dirty.

As a matter of course, many management companies paint after each tenancy, especially if tenants have lived in a unit for two years or more.

However, when tenants add color to their white or off-white walls, they are responsible for restoring the previous hue unless the landlord tells them it is okay not to do so. Because your landlord expects you to paint, you should do so unless you are willing to forfeit your security deposit.

Even though it entails a little extra effort, tenants should not fear adding color to their walls to bring life to their rental unit, even if it's a temporary situation. There is no reason apartment dwellers should miss out on making over their living space just because they are renters.

Painting a few walls your favorite shades and then back to eggshell white really isn't too difficult or time-consuming, especially if you have help. Add repainting to your move-out checklist. Have your friends over for a paint party and get to it. Don't worry too much that you are not professionals. As long as you don't splatter paint around or make a permanent mess, you should be in the clear. Keep in mind that it might take a little more preparation and work to cover a dark color with light paint.

Next time, make sure you put in writing your move-out responsibilities and any conversations you have had with your landlord that have changed the duties outlined in your lease.

It is important to take photos or get a written description from the landlord of the apartment's original condition. Without proper documentation, your management company could blame you for the blue wall that was a holdover from previous tenants. The management could cite you for many problems that you did not create, for that matter. Written and photographic evidence of what has happened in your apartment throughout your lease term is the best way to ward off disagreements about your security deposit.

Do you have questions, comments or ideas about apartment life? Contact Sara Gebhardt via e-mail at gebhardts@washpost.comor by mail, c/o Real Estate Editor, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.