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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Posts
    7

    Default A/C Not Working Right, Landlord Reluctant to Fix

    My question is concerning Landlord tenant law in the state of Florida

    Me and my wife have recently moved into a new rental home and have been here about a month. This place had several small things wrong with it and a few major things upon move in, which we wrote down on the move in sheet and gave to our landlord to fix. All of them have been taken car of for the most part to our satisfaction except for the A/C.

    It basically isn't working right at all. Florida routinely gets upwards of 90 degrees, especially during the summer, and this A/C unit will not get below 78 degrees according to the newly installed thermostat(It took awhile to get that installed, the old one was just a on/off switch, the mercury didn't work right and wouldn't regulate temperature).

    The only way we can keep it cool is to have it run 24/7 which makes the house a refrigerator at night and then the cool air will be enough to keep it cool during the day(Providing we don't have workers constantly keeping the door open repairing things). We just got our first months electric bill though and it is almost $200 more than our previous house that was about the same size house. His answer to this was that it's an older house and A/C unit so the cost will be higher.

    Is he not by law obligated to to fix/replace the A/C unit if it cannot regulate temperature right. I don't feel that I should have to run up my electric bill so high and be freezing at night to have a cool house.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Behind a Desk
    Posts
    98,846

    Default Re: A/C Not Working Right, Landlord Reluctant to Fix

    Unless a lease provides otherwise, a Florida landlord is not obligated to provide air conditioning at all. (Florida Statutes, Sec. 83.51). What does the lease say about air conditioning?

    Let's assume for now that the lease is silent, but that the landlord's promises effectively make the air conditioner's presence and function a part of the rental agreement. The question then becomes, what did the landlord offer? Does the provision of air conditioning by a landlord require that the landlord provide a unit as efficient, or more efficient, than the one at a place you used to live? No, it does not. Does the provision of air conditioning necessarily mean that the unit will be as large and powerful as the tenant would prefer? No, it does not. If it's just a unit that happens to be in the apartment, despite nothing in the lease, it likely boils down to "what you see is what you get."

    I suspect that the bill is so high because you're running the air conditioner during temperatures when it's too hot for the unit to function properly, and thus it's constantly on. (I'm not saying it's not understandable - you want to run your air conditioner, after all, when it's hot outside. But if the unit is on all the time it will cost more to operate without necessarily even cooling the air.)

    I suspect also that the air conditioner might be low on coolant, but I'm not able to check that. You may be able to Google the specs, or call a HVAC company and ask whether that particular make and model should be able to cool an apartment of the size at issue.

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