Capability, measured lower than its neighbours
Section 4.10(2): "Every Dwelling and every Dwelling Unit shall be provided with a heating system capable of maintaining a room at a minimum temperature of 20° C (68° F) at 1.2 metres (4 feet) above the floor level in all habitable rooms, bathrooms and toilet rooms."
The measurement height is worth noticing. Barrie and Oakville both specify 1.5 metres; Richmond Hill specifies 1.2. Warm air rises, so a lower measuring point is a marginally stricter test of the same nominal temperature — and it means a compliance reading taken to one municipality's standard is not automatically a reading to another's.
The obligation attaches to the equipment being capable, not to the air being at 20 degrees on a given morning. Section 4.10(3) adds that no dwelling unit, including a rental unit, may be equipped with a portable heating appliance as a primary source of heat, and 4.10(4) limits sleeping rooms to appliances approved by a recognised standards testing authority.
A hot water ceiling, not just a floor
Most Ontario property standards bylaws set a minimum hot water temperature. Richmond Hill sets a band: hot water must be provided "at a temperature of not less than 43 degrees Celsius and not more than 49 degrees Celsius".
The upper bound is a scald-prevention rule, and it is an obligation a landlord can breach by setting a tank too high — the opposite failure from the one most people check for.
The bylaw also requires an adequate and safe supply of potable water at all times, and that a dwelling unit be insulated to minimise heat loss, air infiltration and moisture condensation on interior surfaces.
What a cold tenant can actually do here
Because the standard is about equipment capability and carries no dates, a Richmond Hill tenant whose unit is cold has a weaker municipal hook than a tenant in Toronto or Oshawa, where the bylaw fixes a temperature and a season.
The provincial route is unaffected. 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.
For a landlord that shifts where the argument happens rather than whether there is one, and it makes the service record on the heating system — when it was inspected, what was replaced, what the technician wrote — the document that decides it.