How long can a landlord leave tenants without heat or hot water?
In most places the honest answer is: only as long as it takes to fix it, working as fast as you reasonably can. Washington sets the clock in writing, requiring a landlord to start fixing a loss of heat or hot water within 24 hours of notice, and New York City fines owners per day for every day the building falls below its heat and hot water minimums. Other states use a general duty to keep heat and hot water working, so check your own state and city code.
The rule in four places
Heat and hot water show up in almost every state's landlord law, but only some put a number on it. These four show the range, from a hard hourly clock to a general duty.
| Place | What the rule says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | Heat from October 1 to May 31: at least 68°F inside from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. when it is below 55°F outside, and at least 62°F from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. whatever the outside temperature. Hot water at a constant minimum of 120°F, 365 days a year. | NYC HPD |
| Minnesota | Heat at a minimum of 68°F in all places intended for habitation from October 1 through April 30, unless a utility company requires and instructs the heat to be reduced. | Minn. Stat. 504B.161 |
| Washington | Landlord must provide facilities adequate to supply heat, water and hot water. After notice, repair of a defect that deprives the tenant of hot or cold water, heat or electricity must begin within 24 hours. | RCW 59.18.060, RCW 59.18.070 |
| Florida | For apartment buildings, unless otherwise agreed in writing, the landlord must make reasonable provisions for functioning facilities for heat during winter, running water and hot water. | Fla. Stat. 83.51 |
Rules as published on the linked pages on 2026-10-29. Your city may add its own heat ordinance on top of state law. This is not legal advice.
Where the clock starts
In Washington the 24 hours runs from the tenant's notice, and the statute asks the landlord to begin remedial action in that window, not necessarily to finish. A replacement boiler can take longer than a day to arrive; what the law looks for is that work started and is moving. New York City works differently: the minimum temperatures are a standing requirement during heat season, and an inspector who finds the building below them can write a violation whether or not you knew.
That difference matters for how you run the building. Under a notice-based rule, a fast and documented response is your protection. Under a standing rule like New York City's, your protection is not letting the building get cold in the first place: a serviced boiler before October, a spare circulator or igniter on the shelf, and a heating contractor who answers at night.
What a slow fix can cost in New York City
NYC HPD lists civil penalties of $250 to $500 per day for each initial heat or hot water violation, and $500 to $1,000 per day for each later violation at the same building within the same or next calendar year or heat season. After the first two inspections that find a violation in the same season or year, HPD bills the owner a $200 inspection fee for each further one. If the owner does not restore service, HPD's Emergency Repair Program may hire a contractor and bill the owner for the repair plus fees (NYC HPD).
Example a made-up 18 unit building in Queens loses heat on a Friday night in January. The owner's boiler contractor cannot get a part until Tuesday, so the building is below the minimum for 4 days. If an inspector writes one initial heat violation and the penalty lands at the $250 low end, that is 4 x $250 = $1,000, before any inspection fee. Paying a contractor's weekend premium to rig a temporary fix on Saturday would likely have cost less.
What to do in the first hours
- Log the report with the time it came in, the units affected and what the tenant described. That timestamp is when most notice-based clocks start.
- Call your heating or plumbing contractor right away, even at night. Write down when they answered and when they will arrive.
- Tell every affected tenant what happened, what you are doing and when you will update them next. A short text sent every few hours prevents a stack of complaints.
- If the repair will take more than a day, consider temporary measures. Do not hand out fuel-burning heaters, and remind tenants never to heat a home with a gas stovetop or oven, as Ready.gov warns.
- Keep every invoice and message. If the tenant later raises the outage in a rent dispute, your record of speed is the evidence.
- After the fix, write down the cause and whether a spare part or a service visit would have prevented it.
Hot water out, heat still on
A failed water heater is treated the same way as lost heat under Washington's 24-hour rule, and New York City requires 120°F hot water all year, not just in heat season. In summer the risk of fines is the same even though nobody is cold. If one shared water heater serves several units, a single failure becomes a building-wide outage, which is a good reason to plan its replacement before it fails. Our guide on repairing or replacing a water heater walks through that decision.
How DoorKeeping helps
DoorKeeping keeps each property's books separately, so the cost of an emergency boiler call lands in that building's ledger under repairs, and anything that spends money waits for your one-tap approval. Open a work order for the outage and send the job to your contractor by link, so the time-stamped log described above lives with the property. DoorKeeping does not give legal advice, so confirm your local heat rules with your city or an attorney. For the full response plan, see emergency maintenance after hours.
Sources
- NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Heat and Hot Water Information, read Oct 29, 2026
- Minnesota Statutes 504B.161, Covenants of landlord or licensor, read Oct 29, 2026
- Revised Code of Washington 59.18.060, Landlord duties, read Oct 29, 2026
- Revised Code of Washington 59.18.070, Landlord failure to perform duties, read Oct 29, 2026
- Florida Statutes 83.51, Landlord's obligation to maintain premises, read Oct 29, 2026
- Ready.gov, Winter Weather, read Oct 29, 2026
Questions
- Can a landlord turn off the heat to do repairs?
- Short planned shutdowns for repairs are normal, but the minimums still apply. Schedule the work for a mild day, tell tenants in advance and restore heat as fast as possible.
- What temperature must a landlord keep an apartment at night in NYC?
- From October 1 to May 31, at least 62°F inside between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., whatever the outside temperature, according to NYC HPD.
- Does a landlord have to provide hot water in summer?
- Where the law requires hot water, it usually applies all year. New York City, for example, requires hot water at a constant minimum of 120°F 365 days a year.