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What heating standard applies to a landlord in Barrie?

Verified against the linked bylaws on 25 August 2026

The short answer

Barrie's property standards bylaw sets a capability standard rather than an operating one. Section 36.1 of By-law 2011-138 requires every dwelling to be provided with an approved heating system capable of maintaining a room temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, measured 1.5 metres above floor level and one metre from exterior walls, in all habitable rooms, bathrooms and washrooms. There is no heat season and no calendar in the bylaw. Section 36.2 requires that system to be kept in good working condition.

Standard type
Capability — the system must be able to reach the temperature
Minimum heat
20 °C in all habitable rooms, bathrooms and washrooms
Heat season
None — the bylaw sets no dates
Measured
1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) above floor level and 1 m (3 ft 4 in) from exterior walls
Property standards bylaw
By-law 2011-138, ss. 36.1 and 36.2

Capability is not the same obligation

Section 36.1: "Every dwelling shall be provided with an approved heating system capable of maintaining a room temperature of 20°C at 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) above floor level and 1 m (3 ft 4 in) from exterior walls in all habitable rooms, bathrooms and washrooms."

The obligation attaches to the equipment. A municipality that says "capable of maintaining" is regulating what is installed; one that says heat "shall be provided and maintained at" a temperature between two dates is regulating what the air is actually doing on a given morning. Barrie is the former.

Section 36.2 closes the gap you would expect: the system "shall be maintained in good working condition so as to be capable of heating the dwelling safely to the required standard". A boiler that once met the standard and no longer does is a breach.

Section 36.3 adds that no room heater shall be placed so as to cause a fire hazard.

What that means when a tenant is cold

A Barrie tenant whose unit is cold cannot point at a municipal temperature-and-date rule the way a Toronto or Oshawa tenant can, because the bylaw does not contain one.

That does not leave them without a remedy, and it does not leave you without an obligation. Section 20 of the Residential Tenancies Act still requires the unit to be in a good state of repair and fit for habitation, and section 21 still protects heat as a vital service. Those are provincial, and they apply in Barrie exactly as they apply everywhere else in Ontario.

The practical difference is the enforcement route. Where a municipal temperature rule exists, a tenant can call the city and get an officer. In Barrie the argument is more likely to run through the Landlord and Tenant Board, which is slower — and which makes your dated maintenance record the thing that decides it.

Tyler knows which calls cannot wait

No heat in Barrie in January is a repair obligation, a vital service and a municipal offence at the same time. Tyler files it as an emergency the moment a resident reports it, pages your team, and timestamps every step so the response time is a record rather than a memory.