Heater Not Working in an Apartment? Who Fixes It, Who Pays

• Is the Landlord Responsible for the Heater in California?
• How Fast Does a Landlord Have to Fix the Heat?
• Who Calls the HVAC Company, and Who Gets the Bill?
• What Rental No-Heat Calls Actually Look Like
• What a Tenant Should Check Before Reporting
• What an Owner or Manager Should Do
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Getting Heat Back On in a Sacramento Rental

If the heater is not working in an apartment or rental house in Sacramento, the repair is the property owner's responsibility, not the tenant's. California Civil Code section 1941.1 puts "heating facilities" on the list of things a dwelling must have, and says a dwelling is "untenantable" without them (California Civil Code 1941.1, retrieved 2026-09-17).

The division of labor is simple. The tenant reports the problem in writing and lets the technician in. The owner gets it fixed in a reasonable time and pays for it.

That is the short version. Three questions are where renters and owners actually get stuck: how cold is too cold, how many days counts as "reasonable," and who pays when the technician arrives and the heater runs fine. This page answers all three, using the statute, the City of Sacramento's own program documents, and three real calls from our service records.

We are a licensed Sacramento HVAC contractor, CSL# 967727, and rental heating calls are a routine part of our winter schedule. The three case studies below come out of our own job records rather than from a stock example. If you would rather skip to booking, contact us.

Key Takeaways

• Working heat is a habitability requirement in California, and the property owner pays for the repair. Civil Code 1941.1(a)(4) puts heating facilities on the untenantable list.
• California's housing regulation sets the standard at 70 degrees F measured three feet above the floor in habitable rooms. Where the owner or manager controls the heat, that is a 24-hour obligation (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 25, section 34).
• Thirty days is the statutory presumption for a reasonable repair, not a deadline. The City of Sacramento's own tenant form says 30 days "depends on the nature of the repair," and no heat in December is not a 30-day repair.
• The access rule is what actually slows rental heating calls down. Entry normally needs 24 hours of written notice, so the fastest fix is a tenant who agrees to a window on the phone.
• On a rental call, Alpha Mechanical bills the owner or manager and schedules with the tenant. Our heating service call is a flat $89 diagnostic fee, applied toward the repair.

Is the Landlord Responsible for the Heater in California?

Yes. Habitability is the legal term: a short list of things a rental must have before it is fit to live in, and in California heat is on that list. It is not an amenity that comes and goes with the lease.

Three rules stack up, and each answers a different question.

The habitability rule. Civil Code 1941.1(a) says a dwelling "shall be deemed untenantable for purposes of Section 1941 if it substantially lacks any of the following affirmative standard characteristics." Item (4) on that list is heating (California Civil Code 1941.1, retrieved 2026-09-17):

"Heating facilities that conformed with applicable law at the time of installation, maintained in good working order."

Note the last five words. A furnace that was legal in 1988 still has to work today.

The temperature rule. California's housing regulation puts a number on it (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 25, section 34, retrieved 2026-09-17):

"Every dwelling unit and guest room used or offered for rent or lease shall be provided with heating facilities capable of maintaining a minimum room temperature of 70 degrees F at a point three feet above the floor in all habitable rooms, and when the heating facilities are not under the control of the tenant or occupant of the building owner and/or manager, shall be required to provide that heat at a minimum temperature of 70 degrees F, 24 hours a day."

Two details there do real work. The standard is a capability, so the system has to be able to hold 70 degrees. And it names a measurement point, three feet above the floor, rather than the ceiling where warm air collects.

The substandard rule. Health and Safety Code 17920.3 declares a building substandard when listed conditions endanger health or safety, and item (a)(6) is "Lack of adequate heating" (California Health and Safety Code 17920.3, retrieved 2026-09-17). That is the hook a code enforcement officer uses.

Locally, the City of Sacramento says it in plainer words. Its Rental Housing Inspection Program publishes a Resident's Rights Form listing what a habitable rental must have. The heating line reads "A heating system that is in a safe, working condition" (City of Sacramento Rental Housing Inspection Program, Resident's Rights Form, rev. 01/12/15). The program's interior inspection checklist carries a matching "Heat" line item.

If the heat is out and you own or manage the property, heating repair is the service you are buying, and the sections below cover what it costs you and how fast it can happen.

What the 70-Degree Standard Has to Overcome in a Sacramento Winter

The 70-degree standard sounds undemanding in a mild climate. The normals say otherwise.

At Sacramento Executive Airport, the 1991 to 2020 normal daily low is 38.5 degrees F in December and 39.2 degrees F in January (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Monthly Normals 1991-2020, station USW00023232, retrieved 2026-09-17). Holding a habitable room at 70 degrees on a normal December night means closing a gap of 31.5 degrees, every night, for weeks.

The seasonal concentration is the part that catches owners out. The same station's normals put 550.2 heating degree days in December and 539.4 in January against an annual total of 2,436.2. Those two months carry 44.7 percent of the entire year's heating load. A furnace that has coasted through October will be asked to do nearly half its annual work across December and January, which is why no-heat calls in a rental cluster right when the schedule is tightest.

Sacramento's heating load, by the month, from the same 1991 to 2020 normals:

How Fast Does a Landlord Have to Fix the Heat?

In a reasonable time, and for no heat in winter that means days, not weeks. The much-quoted "30 days" is a presumption attached to one specific tenant remedy. It is not a repair deadline.

Here is where the 30 days comes from. Repair and deduct is the tenant self-help remedy in Civil Code 1942(a): if the landlord "neglects" a repair after notice, the tenant may make the repair and take the cost out of the rent. The deduction is capped at one month's rent, and the remedy is available no more than twice in any 12-month period.

Subdivision (b) is where the number appears (California Civil Code 1942, retrieved 2026-09-17):

"For the purposes of this section, if a tenant acts to repair and deduct after the 30th day following notice, he is presumed to have acted after a reasonable time. The presumption established by this subdivision is a rebuttable presumption affecting the burden of producing evidence and shall not be construed to prevent a tenant from repairing and deducting after a shorter notice if all the circumstances require shorter notice."

Read the second sentence again, because it is the whole answer. Thirty days is a safe harbor, not a permission slip. "All the circumstances" is doing real work when the circumstance is a 38-degree December night.

The City of Sacramento's tenant form says the same thing without the legal vocabulary: "Current law indicates that 30 days is a reasonable period of time to address a repair, but it also depends on the nature of the repair" (City of Sacramento Rental Housing Inspection Program, Resident's Rights Form). Its instruction to tenants runs in order. Contact the owner or manager first. Document the request in writing and keep a copy. Allow a reasonable period. Only then "contact your local code enforcement department to file a complaint."

A practical read of "reasonable" for heat: a diagnostic visit inside a day or two, and a repair as soon as the part is in hand. A no-heat call in a Sacramento December is not the same repair as a dripping faucet, and the statute's own language is what says so.

What the repair itself involves is a separate question from who owes it. For the failures behind most of these calls, see what actually fails when a furnace will not turn on.

Retaliation Is Separately Prohibited

Tenants sometimes sit on a no-heat report because they are worried about the consequences of complaining. The Sacramento form addresses that under its own heading:

"A rental owner or property manager may not evict or threaten to evict a resident for exercising a legal right, such as requesting habitability repairs."

Reporting a broken heater is the exercise of a legal right.

Who Calls the HVAC Company, and Who Gets the Bill?

The owner or the property manager calls and is billed. The tenant is the one who gets us in the door.

That is how it works on our side of the transaction, and it is worth stating plainly because the confusion costs everyone time. When we take a rental heating call, the property owner or manager is the customer, authorizes the work, and receives the invoice. The tenant schedules the access window. We book same-day on weekdays when the schedule allows.

For a tenant, the practical consequence is that you should not be asked to pay the technician, and you should not be the one deciding whether to approve a repair. For an owner or manager, the practical consequence is that your response time is capped by how fast your tenant answers the phone.

The Access Rule Is the Real Bottleneck

An owner can authorize a repair in thirty seconds and still not have heat restored for two days, because the technician has to get inside.

Entry to an occupied rental normally requires advance written notice. The Sacramento program form states that "Written notice is considered reasonable if it is provided at least 24 hours in advance," and it lists "To make necessary or agreed upon repairs" among the situations that require it. The same form lists exceptions. Two of them matter here: prior written notice is not required "In an emergency" or "When you or another occupant consents" (City of Sacramento Rental Housing Inspection Program, Resident's Rights Form, retrieved 2026-09-17).

So the fastest path to heat is not a legal one. It is a tenant who says yes to a window over the phone, which is consent, and an owner who authorizes the diagnostic before the truck rolls. When both happen in one conversation, a no-heat call becomes an ordinary same-day weekday call. When they do not, 24 hours evaporates before anyone has looked at the furnace.

That is true across the metro, whether the property is a downtown fourplex or a single rental house. Our furnace repair in Rancho Cordova work runs on the same sequence.

What Rental No-Heat Calls Actually Look Like

Three real calls from our own records, anonymized to city or ZIP and year. Each one breaks a different assumption.

Case 1: The Duplex Where Nothing Was Wrong

A Rancho Cordova duplex, 95670, February 2025. The call came in as "The heater is not working; there are two units in the duplex, left is not working." Our technician went out, ran the system, and wrote the result on the invoice: "Service call, system diagnostics, and travel fee. No repairs done to the unit. Left side rooftop heater worked in techs presence."

No repair was made because nothing was broken in front of the technician.

In our experience this outcome turns up often enough in rentals that both sides should plan for it. Four things produce it. An intermittent fault. A thermostat left on the wrong mode or schedule. A breaker reset between the report and the visit. A safety that tripped and reset on its own. All four give you a heater that fails at 11 p.m. and runs fine at 10 a.m.

The visit is not wasted. It rules out the failures that would have shown up under load. It does still end with a diagnostic fee and no part, so owners should expect to pay for the trip. Tenants should note the date, time and outdoor conditions of each failure. That record is what lets a technician chase an intermittent fault instead of hunting a symptom that is not there.

Case 2: The Apartment With a Rooftop Package Unit

Sacramento 95825, December 2024. Reported as "Roof gas pack in one of the apartment units is not working." The finding: "Bad indoor fan motor. Replaced oem inside fan motor in the package unit."

Two things in that record are worth pulling out.

First, the equipment. A rooftop package unit, often called a "gas pack," is a single cabinet holding the burner, the coil and the blower, installed on the roof rather than split between a closet and an outdoor condenser. Roof access means the manager is involved whether or not the tenant is home, and the tenant cannot look at the equipment at all.

Second, the part. What was replaced was the indoor fan motor, not a burner component. A unit in that condition can be producing heat and failing to move it. From inside the apartment that is indistinguishable from "the heater is not working."

Case 3: The Report That Named the Wrong System

Elk Grove 95758, October 2024. The customer of record is a company rather than the resident, and the call came in as "Tenant complains AC not working." What the technician found was on the heating side: "Old Trane furnace made a loud ratting noise. Found the indoor fan housing was loose, also water in the motor. Screwed in the motor housing, cleaned the motor."

The lesson is not that the tenant was wrong. In a split system the furnace cabinet holds the blower that delivers cooling as well as heating. One blower fault therefore presents as "no AC" in October and "no heat" in December. A dispatcher who takes "AC not working" literally in the shoulder season hands the technician the wrong diagnosis. That is why we ask what the equipment is doing rather than which season's function has stopped.

Our finding from these three calls: one was no-fault-found, one was a fan motor, and one was reported as the wrong system entirely. None of the three was the burner. Three jobs is not a statistic, and we are not presenting it as one. It is enough to say that if your mental model of a no-heat call is "the furnace needs a new heat exchanger," these particular records do not look like that.

For the diagnostic side of all three, our Sacramento furnace troubleshooting guide walks through what a technician checks and in what order.

What a Tenant Should Check Before Reporting

This is not a repair list. Nobody should be opening a furnace cabinet in a unit they do not own, and in most leases that is a violation on its own. These are the four things that produce a service call with nothing to fix, and all four are things a resident is allowed to touch.

1. The thermostat mode and setpoint. Set to Heat, setpoint above room temperature. A schedule that someone programmed two tenants ago will happily hold 62 degrees overnight.
2. The thermostat's power. A blank or dark screen is a different problem from a working screen and a cold house, and it changes what the technician brings.
3. The breaker. A furnace on a tripped breaker is dead even though it is gas-fired, because the blower and the controls are electric. Look, do not repeatedly reset.
4. The filter and the vents. A filter nobody has changed in two years, or supply registers closed in unused rooms, will not stop heat, but it will change the symptom enough to confuse the report.

Then report it in writing, with the date and what the system did. The Sacramento form's instruction is unambiguous on this point: "Contact the rental owner or property manager first. You should document your request in writing and keep a copy."

If the screen itself is dead, that is its own fault path. See why a thermostat goes blank before reporting it as a heater failure. If the thermostat is a heat pump control and reads AUX or EM HEAT, emergency heat and aux heat explains what the system is telling you.

Two Things to Stop and Call About Immediately

Separate from the habitability question, two symptoms are not a scheduling conversation. If you smell gas, leave the unit and call the gas utility and the owner from outside. If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, get everyone out and call 911. Neither waits for a 24-hour notice period, and neither is something a resident should be diagnosing.

A burning smell is the harder judgment call, because the first burn of the season smells like dust and that is normal. What a burning smell from the furnace means sorts the ones to ignore from the ones to shut off.

What an Owner or Manager Should Do

Authorize the diagnostic on the first call, and give the technician a direct line to the resident.

The decisions that actually shorten a rental no-heat repair are made in the first phone call, not at the second visit.

• Authorize the diagnostic up front. Our heating service call is a flat $89 diagnostic fee, one price regardless of how long the diagnosis takes, and it is applied toward the repair if you proceed. Approving it on the first call removes a round trip.
• Hand over the resident's contact directly. Every relay through the office costs a day, and a day in December is the difference between a reasonable repair and a code complaint.
• Decide your repair-or-replace threshold before the season, not during it. On an older unit, a no-heat call in January is a bad time to be pricing options for the first time.
• Expect no-fault-found outcomes on intermittent reports, and budget for them rather than treating the trip charge as a failure.

If you hold units in more than one submarket, our HVAC service across Sacramento covers the city itself, and the same crew handles the outlying cities.

If the Repair Stalls

For a tenant whose written report has gone unanswered past a reasonable period, the Sacramento escalation is code enforcement. Code enforcement is the local department that receives habitability complaints and inspects the unit, and the city's own tenant form is what points residents there. The Rental Housing Inspection Program runs through the Department of Community Development for the County of Sacramento and the City of Sacramento. Its inspection form carries two numbers, 916.876.9020 and 916.808.7368, and its interior checklist includes a "Heat" line item (Rental Housing Inspection Program Self-Certification Inspection Checklist, retrieved 2026-09-17). The city's tenant form directs residents to contact local code enforcement once a reasonable period has passed without the repair being made.

The repair-and-deduct remedy under Civil Code 1942 exists as well, with its one-month-of-rent cap and its two-uses-per-year limit. It is a real remedy and it is also a legal decision with consequences, so a tenant weighing it should get advice rather than act on a blog post, including this one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a landlord have to repair the heater in a California rental?

Yes. California Civil Code 1941.1(a)(4) lists "heating facilities that conformed with applicable law at the time of installation, maintained in good working order" among the characteristics a dwelling must have, and says a dwelling is deemed untenantable if it substantially lacks them. Repairing and paying for the heating system is the owner's responsibility, not the tenant's.

What temperature does a California rental have to reach?

California's housing regulation requires heating facilities capable of maintaining a minimum room temperature of 70 degrees F measured at a point three feet above the floor in all habitable rooms. Where the heating is not under the tenant's control, the regulation requires that 70 degrees be provided 24 hours a day (Cal. Code Regs. tit. 25, section 34).

How long does a landlord have to fix the heat?

A reasonable time, judged by the circumstances. Civil Code 1942(b) creates a presumption that acting after the 30th day following notice is reasonable, but states explicitly that the presumption is rebuttable and does not prevent a tenant from acting on shorter notice if the circumstances require it. The City of Sacramento's tenant form puts it as 30 days being reasonable but depending "on the nature of the repair." No heat in a Sacramento December is not a 30-day repair.

Who pays the HVAC company for a repair in a rental?

The property owner or manager. On our rental calls the owner or manager is the customer, authorizes the work and receives the invoice, while the tenant schedules access. A tenant should not be asked to pay the technician or to approve a repair.

Can a landlord enter to fix the heat without notice?

Normally a landlord gives at least 24 hours of advance written notice to make repairs. The Sacramento tenant form lists exceptions where prior written notice is not required, including an emergency and where the occupant consents. In practice, a tenant agreeing to a time window on the phone is what lets a no-heat call happen the same day.

The heater worked when the technician arrived. Do we still pay?

Yes. A diagnostic visit is a diagnosis whether or not it ends in a part. One of our own rental calls ended exactly that way. The record reads "no repairs done to the unit" because the heater ran in the technician's presence. For an intermittent fault, note the date, time and outdoor conditions of each failure. That log is what makes the second visit productive.

Does a tenant have to let the HVAC technician in?

Access is how the repair happens. The owner is obliged to fix the heat, and the owner cannot fix what the technician cannot reach. Agreeing to a window, in writing or by phone, is the single fastest thing a resident can do to get the heat back.

Getting Heat Back On in a Sacramento Rental

The law here is not ambiguous. Working heat is the owner's obligation. Seventy degrees at three feet is the standard. Thirty days is a presumption, not a deadline. And what actually decides how fast the repair happens is whether the owner authorizes the visit and the resident opens the door.

Alpha Mechanical works with Sacramento-area property owners and managers on residential heating calls. The short version about us on a rental call: we bill the owner rather than the resident, and we schedule the access window directly with whoever is living there. Same-day on weekdays when the schedule allows, and a flat $89 diagnostic fee applied toward the repair.

Book a heating repair. If the unit is old enough that this is the third call of the season, repair or replace works through how that decision is usually made.