4 ms·

This is a silly study. Home efficiency matters to people who own a home, not renters. Renters only care about making rent and being able to eat. They don’t hav

This is a silly study. Home efficiency matters to people who own a home, not renters. Renters only care about making rent and being able to eat. They don’t have the luxury of thinking about energy saving appliances when the landlord hasn’t fixed the appliances they do have. Renters are trapped with capped wages and increasing rents.

mayneack 9mo ago
Renters often pay for utilities.
- AlotOfReading 9mo ago
  It's quite common for utilities like water and gas to be shared, where the renter is billed proportionally to the usage of the entire block/rental complex. Plus, people generally aren't doing chores or using appliances unnecessarily. That means it's difficult to find ways to save meaningful amounts of energy other than adjusting the thermostat. Most household energy use outside heating /cooling comes from the appliances they can't upgrade, so the alternatives are quality of life issues like fewer showers and less laundry.
- reactordev 9mo ago
  Yes, what they don’t do is pay for a new fridge. Or energy efficient windows.
  - lou1306 9mo ago
    Yes, because it's silly to pay for things that effectively won't belong to them anymore if they move/get kicked out.
    - compsciphd 9mo ago
      not silly if they have confidence that they will live in the place long enough to get paid back (and more). shortsighted to think otherwise. I've renovated kitchens in apartments Ive lived in with coordination with the landlord (when I had confidence that I was going to be there 3+ years, with likelihood of 5+) as the $10k or so it cost me when amortized over a 36 month period came out to a few hundred a year, and finding an equivalent place with such a kitchen would have cost me significantly more in the area. While I can't say its universally true (many landlords are just as shortsighted as renters), good landlords will be happy to give certainty to good tenants who want to take care and improve their unit in manner that the landlord is happy with. I had an apartment in NYC that over a 10+ year period my landlord never raised my rent, because I never complained, paid my rent on time and took care of the place in a manner that enabled him to rent it for even more than he could have otherwise after I moved out. Part of this is NYC rules (rent stabilization and other rent rules would have controlled how much he could have raised it anyways and also provided me certainty), but also partly that good tenants are worth their weight in gold.
genter 9mo ago
Except a lot of renters (including this one) pay their own utilities.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
IncreasePosts 9mo ago
If you had two identical looking houses for identical rent, one could cost $100/mo to heat/cool and the other could cost $300. This isn't really something that renters are realistically able to discriminate on.
- gruez 9mo ago
  >This isn't really something that renters are realistically able to discriminate on. Surely they can ask for what the expected utilities are? Failing that, asking for what the trailing 12 month's bills were.
  - relaxing 9mo ago
    Good luck with that. If you’ve got the runway and free time, maybe you can find a corporate landlord with a conscience. For small rentals, utilities are in the tenants name so the landlord might not even know.
- isubkhankulov 9mo ago
  I would support a law that makes this a required disclosure in rental listings, like asbestos. In some cities, commercial buildings are issues a public facing grade on their energy efficiency. Why not other forms of commercial real estate like multifamily? The status quo is the energy costs are hidden and only revealed one month after you move in.
  - lou1306 9mo ago
    In the EU this is already a thing: if you want to sell or lease a building, you must disclose an energy certificate. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEGISSUM:en0021&from=DA https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEG...

mayneack 9mo ago

Renters often pay for utilities.

AlotOfReading 9mo ago
It's quite common for utilities like water and gas to be shared, where the renter is billed proportionally to the usage of the entire block/rental complex. Plus, people generally aren't doing chores or using appliances unnecessarily. That means it's difficult to find ways to save meaningful amounts of energy other than adjusting the thermostat. Most household energy use outside heating /cooling comes from the appliances they can't upgrade, so the alternatives are quality of life issues like fewer showers and less laundry.
reactordev 9mo ago
Yes, what they don’t do is pay for a new fridge. Or energy efficient windows.
- lou1306 9mo ago
  Yes, because it's silly to pay for things that effectively won't belong to them anymore if they move/get kicked out.
  - compsciphd 9mo ago
    not silly if they have confidence that they will live in the place long enough to get paid back (and more). shortsighted to think otherwise. I've renovated kitchens in apartments Ive lived in with coordination with the landlord (when I had confidence that I was going to be there 3+ years, with likelihood of 5+) as the $10k or so it cost me when amortized over a 36 month period came out to a few hundred a year, and finding an equivalent place with such a kitchen would have cost me significantly more in the area. While I can't say its universally true (many landlords are just as shortsighted as renters), good landlords will be happy to give certainty to good tenants who want to take care and improve their unit in manner that the landlord is happy with. I had an apartment in NYC that over a 10+ year period my landlord never raised my rent, because I never complained, paid my rent on time and took care of the place in a manner that enabled him to rent it for even more than he could have otherwise after I moved out. Part of this is NYC rules (rent stabilization and other rent rules would have controlled how much he could have raised it anyways and also provided me certainty), but also partly that good tenants are worth their weight in gold.

genter 9mo ago

Except a lot of renters (including this one) pay their own utilities.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

IncreasePosts 9mo ago

If you had two identical looking houses for identical rent, one could cost $100/mo to heat/cool and the other could cost $300. This isn't really something that renters are realistically able to discriminate on.

gruez 9mo ago
>This isn't really something that renters are realistically able to discriminate on. Surely they can ask for what the expected utilities are? Failing that, asking for what the trailing 12 month's bills were.
- relaxing 9mo ago
  Good luck with that. If you’ve got the runway and free time, maybe you can find a corporate landlord with a conscience. For small rentals, utilities are in the tenants name so the landlord might not even know.
isubkhankulov 9mo ago
I would support a law that makes this a required disclosure in rental listings, like asbestos. In some cities, commercial buildings are issues a public facing grade on their energy efficiency. Why not other forms of commercial real estate like multifamily? The status quo is the energy costs are hidden and only revealed one month after you move in.
- lou1306 9mo ago
  In the EU this is already a thing: if you want to sell or lease a building, you must disclose an energy certificate. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEGISSUM:en0021&from=DA https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=LEG...