Tenant Requesting HVAC Maintenance

[Sanjeet Dighawa]

My tenant has been making a long list of maintenance request since past one month when I have denied their request of adding one more pet citing HOA max pet policies. The last request is for HVAC maintenance based on their electricity bill. This is what the request says -

"My last a/c bill was $300. In no universe should it be that expensive for a home this small especially considering it doesn’t even feel that cool. My old house at over 3500 square feet was never ever more than $250 and that was for an extremely hot summer month for a family of 6. And the fact that it never even feels that cool in here, not even on the main level, let alone upstairs. Sometimes i find myself having to lower it to 62-63 degrees just to get some relief."

I am first time landlord of the 1700 sq ft townhouse in south of St. Paul where the HVAC was replaced in January this year by prior owner. During home inspection while purchasing this property, the HVAC unit tested fine for heating in Feb this year.

Any suggestions as to how do I process this request?

[Richard F.]

Aloha,

If the HVAC was replaced in January, and tested in February, has anybody cleaned or changed the filters?
Electric bill $$ is barely relevant, due to recent surcharges and increases in many areas. You need to look at the actual kilowatt hours used. Determine the watts of usage by the HVAC based on specs of the unit, then estimate kwh of usage over the recent billing period. Determine what percentage of the total bill is just for the estimated AC usage.

Of course, it is possible the HVAC is undersized, which would have it running more and being generally less efficient, but I doubt you are going to replace it if that is the case. FYI, tenants always tell you the AC is not cooling, even when they turn it down to lowest setting. The fact is, NO residential AC will cool a space more than about 15 degrees cooler than ambient. If they press the matter, get a couple temperature data loggers to place at a central area on each floor so you can review the actual temps over a period of time, and be able to see the AC cycles as the temp rises and falls.

You don't say what "other" maintenance requests they have been giving (generally, you should only be dealing with actual functional issues, nothing cosmetic or as a requested upgrade), but I might just advise them, in writing, that since they are clearly not happy here, you will let them out of their current term with no penalty if they can turn over the property and keys to you within 30 days. There are far more good tenants than bad, and I don't waste much time with bad ones.