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electrical heating in apartment

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rdboothe
rdboothe Member Posts: 1
in THE MAIN WALL
My new landlord says my apartments heat is included in my rent. I cannot understand how this can be when I need to pay my utlities(electric) and the apartment has individual thermostats for each room for heat. I was told that all the apartment s heat is on a common circuit with the hall, lobby etc lights and each apartment has it's own circuit for their utlities. Is this possible? never heard of this before. Our heat is electrical baseboard heat.

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  • SWEI
    SWEI Member Posts: 7,356
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    Anything is possible. Do you have an electrical subpanel in (or near) your apartment?
  • ratio
    ratio Member Posts: 3,626
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    It's possible. I wouldn't think it's a common setup, but possible.
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,283
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    You'd have to look at how things are wired up, but it's entirely possible. While it may well be true that the individual thermostats control the heat in the individual rooms, this does not mean that the heating circuits -- controlled either directly by the thermostats (line voltage 'stats) or indirectly through relays -- necessarily go through your apartment's panel and metering.

    Even if you have a master electricity shutoff for your apartment, and the heat stops when you kill the power, this might only mean that the power for the thermostats and their relays goes through your panel, so you can't tell that way.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • BobC
    BobC Member Posts: 5,478
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    If this is electric base board heat they usually run on 240v, If they were powered by your panel there would be 2 pole circuit breakers for them ion your panel. Are there any 2 pole breakers except for perhaps the stove in that panel?

    Bob
    Smith G8-3 with EZ Gas @ 90,000 BTU, Single pipe steam
    Vaporstat with a 12oz cut-out and 4oz cut-in
    3PSI gauge
    SWEI
  • Gordy
    Gordy Member Posts: 9,546
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    The landlord probably has the heating, and common hallway, and or exterior common lighting, and other electric that a renter would not be responsible for on a different meter.

  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,061
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    Are you sure your baseboards are electric? Hot water baseboard heating can resemble the electric heaters profile.

    If they are electric baseboard heaters they would have at least maybe 2 circuits for your apartment. So if you are paying for heat then in your electric panel in your apartment there might be two 2 pole 20 amp circuit breakers for heat. one 2 pole 40/50 amp CB for range. One 2 pole 30 amp for electric dryer if you have one. 1 2 pole 20 or 30 amp CB for the AC outside unit. (It is permitted to put electric heat and AC on the same breaker, so this may cut the count down. It is assumed that you will not heat and cool at the same time.)
    It is possible but rare that you would have your own electric water heater, that would be another two pole 30 amp CB.

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