How warm does your landlord need to keep your apartment in Vancouver?

Wintry weather arrived in Vancouver this week, with temperatures hovering around zero or dipping below that for several days.

If you’ve been lying awake shivering in your rental apartment recently, you are not alone. Local renters previously had to call out their Toronto-based property manager over their refusal to turn the heat up during a cold snap. Another woman had to speak up over a lack of heat and hot water in her apartment building, which forced her to shower at the gym.

Are there rules governing the minimum temperature landlords need to keep rentals? According to the City of Vancouver, it depends on where you live.

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“In British Columbia, municipalities set bylaws that regulate the minimum temperature of rental units,” said a representative from the City of Vancouver. “As a result, the minimum temperatures may differ across municipalities.”

Vancouver bylaws regulating minimum temperatures in buildings are outlined in the City’s Standards of Maintenance (SOM) Bylaw.

“These regulations apply to all buildings in the City of Vancouver, including rental units and new builds,” the City said in an email to Daily Hive. “The bylaw includes specific requirements for landlords to follow and differ slightly depending on the dwelling type.”

The minimum temperatures that must be maintained in buildings in Vancouver under the bylaw are:

• Per Section 18.1: All buildings with the exception of lodging houses must be able to maintain a minimum temperature of 22°C.
• Per Section 21.13 (b): Every lodging house operator shall maintain the following minimum temperatures:
  • Between 8 am and 12 am midnight: no lower than 20°C
  • Between 12 am midnight and 8 am: no lower than 16°C

Vancouver’s SOM Bylaw defines a lodging house as any building, or separate portion thereof, with three or more units or rooms that are separately occupied or used for rental living. These could include a hotel, apartment building, bed and breakfast, or a multi-use building.

However, the City clarifies that a lodging house does not include a single detached house, a duplex, a self-owned apartment or a building managed by a strata corporation under the Strata Property Act.

A wood-frame apartment building under construction. (Imagenet/Shutterstock)

Minimum temperatures may also vary depending on how old your rental unit is. The government of BC told Daily Hive that they recently updated the rules regarding how warm new homes must be.

“Since the Province updated the BC Building Code in 2024, all new homes in BC are required to be capable of maintaining an indoor air temperature of not less than 22°C in all living spaces, 18°C in unfinished basements, and 15°C in heated crawl spaces,” said the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs. “The new BC Building Code also requires all new homes to have at least one living space that does not exceed 26°C.”

The Ministry representative explained that the BC Building Code does not apply retroactively, so existing buildings are not required to be upgraded when a new edition of the Code is adopted.  

“In addition, for both minimum and maximum temperatures inside a rental home, the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) requires that landlords must maintain the unit according to standards suitable for occupation. Some local governments may have bylaws requiring minimum and maximum temperatures.”

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Zuzana Modrovic, a lawyer with the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre (TRAC), told Daily Hive that while the City of Vancouver’s bylaw and the BC Building Code states that buildings must be able to maintain a minimum temperature of 22°C, it doesn’t mean they have to keep it there.

“It just means that the heating unit for the buildings needs to be capable of reaching that temperature,” Modrovic said in an interview. “No provincial regulations govern the minimum temperature landlords need to keep their unit. Residential policy doesn’t go into that granular detail.”

Modrovic explains that the TRAC infoline receives thousands of calls a year, with several inquiring about heating or cooling.

“We hear from tenants saying that it’s too hot or too cold, though it happens more in a shared living situation.

“Tenants usually have control over thermostats in their unit, but when they share a house or with the landlord, and if the landlord has control of thermostats, that’s when the issue can come up.”

TRAC recommends that tenants who experience cold temperatures in their unit first write their landlord, asking them to turn up the heat or provide a way to make the space warmer.

“Next course of action is to file at the Residential Tenancy Branch for an order to comply with the tenancy agreement,” added Modrovic. Under the Residential Tenancy Act, they have the right to have their unit heated.”

What do you think of the rules? Let us know in the comments.