What heat season actually is
New York City defines a heat season that runs from October 1 through May 31. During those months, building owners are legally required to keep occupied apartments at minimum indoor temperatures — the law sets a daytime floor tied to the outdoor temperature, and a separate nighttime floor that applies overnight regardless of how cold it is outside. The point is simple even if the thresholds are technical: from fall through spring, a cold apartment isn't your problem to solve with a space heater, it's the owner's legal obligation to fix.
We're describing these rules in plain English rather than quoting code sections or reciting exact temperature numbers, because the numbers shift with the time of day and the weather and they get updated. The principle to hold onto: during heat season there is a required daytime minimum that depends on the outdoor temperature, and a required nighttime minimum that applies overnight. If your apartment is colder than it should be during those months, you have a legitimate complaint — and the city measures the actual temperature to settle it.
Heat and hot water are governed separately, and people mix them up constantly. Hot water is required every day of the year, around the clock — there's no off-season for it. Heat is the seasonal one, required during heat season. A building can be legally without heat in July; it can never legally be without hot water. If your issue is the tap rather than the radiator, our no-hot-water guide is the one you want.
First, check what's actually happening
Before escalating, get specific about the cold. If you can, measure the actual indoor temperature with a thermometer and note the time of day and what it's doing outside — those three facts are exactly what determine whether the building is below the legal minimum. 'It feels cold' is hard to act on; 'it was this temperature at this hour while it was this cold outside' is a record an inspector can match against the standard.
Find out whether it's just you or the whole building. Ask neighbors, check the building chat, look for boiler-work notices in the lobby. A building-wide cold spell with the boiler down is a different situation from cold confined to your apartment, which can point to a closed or stuck radiator valve, an air-bound radiator that needs bleeding, or a draft problem rather than a heating-plant failure. Knowing which one you're dealing with shapes both the complaint and the fix.
Note the pattern over a day or two. Cold only overnight, cold only during the day, cold that comes and goes — each tells the building's managers (and later an inspector) something about whether the heat is failing, undersized for the weather, or simply being run too low. Write down when it's cold and how cold; you're building the timeline that everything else stands on.
Tell your landlord — in writing
Report the cold the same day, and put it in writing. Call the super for the fastest response, then follow it with a text or email to the super and the management office stating the facts: no adequate heat since when, the temperatures you measured and at what times, your apartment number, your phone. The written record isn't about being combative — it's the foundation that a 311 complaint, an HPD case, or a court proceeding all get built on later.
Give the building a genuine chance to respond — many heat failures are a part and a day, not a standoff. But 'we're working on it' with no crew and no timeline doesn't suspend your rights or the season's requirements. Keep screenshots of every message and a log of every call. If the cold persists with no credible progress, you've done your part, and it's time to escalate to the city.
Escalate: 311 and HPD
Call 311, use the 311 app, or file online — heat complaints route to HPD, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development. HPD notifies the owner of the complaint, and if the cold isn't resolved, an inspector can come measure the actual indoor temperature against the heat-season standard for that time and weather. You'll need to provide access to your apartment for the inspection; an inspector who can't get in can't verify the violation.
If the inspector confirms the apartment is below the required minimum, HPD issues a violation. Lack of heat during heat season sits in the city's most serious violation class — the immediately hazardous tier, with the shortest deadlines to correct — and in persistent cases the city has a program to perform emergency heat repairs and bill the owner. None of this requires a lawyer; it requires the complaint, the apartment access, and your records of the cold.
File each time it happens, not just once. Every complaint is a data point on the building's public record, and patterns are what drive enforcement. Heat failures are rarely one apartment's problem, so complaints also protect your neighbors — a building's worth of heat complaints reads very differently to HPD than a single call, and a cold building in January is exactly when that collective record matters.
When no heat is a plumbing problem
A lot of New York heat is hydronic — a central boiler heats water or steam and sends it through pipes to radiators. When that system fails, the failure is often mechanical and lives with the boiler, its pumps, valves, and piping. That's plumbing-and-heating territory: a boiler that won't fire, a circulator pump that's died, a steam system that's lost pressure, a zone valve stuck shut. Diagnosing and repairing those is skilled work, and on gas-fired equipment it intersects with gas lines, which in NYC is strictly licensed.
At the apartment level, some cold is a smaller fix: a steam radiator that won't heat because its air vent is clogged, a hot-water radiator that's air-bound and needs bleeding, a radiator valve that's seized. In a rental these are still the owner's repairs to make, but they're quick ones — worth knowing about so you can describe the symptom accurately ('the radiator stays cold and the vent isn't hissing') rather than just reporting a cold room.
Crucially: if the cold building is gas-related — a gas boiler down, or any suspicion of a gas smell — that's not a wait-and-document situation. For any gas emergency in NYC, leave the building and call 911 or Con Edison first, before anyone else. Gas work, including on gas-fired heating equipment, must be handled by a Licensed Master Plumber with the proper filings; our license-verification guide shows how to check any plumber's LMP credential against the DOB roster.
Who fixes and dispatches the boiler
In a rental, you generally do not hire a plumber to fix the building's boiler. It's the owner's equipment, the owner's access, and the owner's bill, and a plumber would need authorization you can't give. Your leverage is the written record, 311, and HPD — that path exists precisely because tenants shouldn't have to pay to heat a building they don't own. Document, report, escalate; that's the route the law gives you.
When the heating equipment is genuinely yours to fix — you own the building, or it's your unit's own system in a condo or co-op per your bylaws — a boiler or no-heat failure in deep cold is an urgent dispatch. A licensed plumber can diagnose whether it's a repairable part or a replacement, and any gas-fired work must go through a Licensed Master Plumber with the proper DOB filings. Where the line falls between your unit and the building lives in your proprietary lease or bylaws, so confirm responsibility before hiring anyone.
When the dispatch is yours, Reset shows which licensed plumbers can move now, with price bands and published trip fees shown before you book, every profile verified against the DOB roster, and Reset's own crew labeled In-House when it takes the job. No heat in a hard freeze is an emergency, so the Reset Guarantee applies: emergency requests are confirmed within 30 minutes, or Reset's in-house crew is dispatched automatically. Coverage is live across the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, with Staten Island opening later in 2026.