What temperature must a Windsor landlord maintain?

Verified against the linked bylaws on 25 August 2026

The short answer

Windsor sets one of the two highest standards in Ontario and the most demanding measurement rule. Section 5.4.6 of Building and Property Standards By-law 148-2025 requires every dwelling and dwelling unit to have a heating system in good repair and safe operating condition capable of maintaining adequate and suitable heat, and provides that "room temperature shall be determined at any point in the room", with the minimum air temperature available to the tenant set at 22 ºC. Common areas and internal entrance ways in a multiple dwelling require systems capable of not less than 18 ºC.

Minimum heat: 22 ºC — the minimum air temperature available to the tenant or lessee
Common areas: 18 ºC minimum in common areas and internal entrance ways of a multiple dwelling
Measured: At any point in the room — no specified height or distance from walls
Portable heat: s. 5.4.8 — no dwelling unit may be equipped with portable heating equipment as its primary source
Instrument: Building and Property Standards By-law 148-2025, passed 8 September 2025, repealing 9-2019
Cross-reference: The section points at the City of Windsor Vital Services by-law for adequate and suitable heat

The measurement rule is the strict part

Section 5.4.6 provides that "Room temperature shall be determined at any point in the room", and then that "adequate and suitable" means the minimum temperature of the air in the accommodation available to the tenant or lessee is 22 ºC.

Every other municipality on this site that specifies a method picks a favourable, representative point — 1.5 metres above the floor, or 1.2 metres, or the centre of the room. Windsor allows any point. Cold corners, floor level near an exterior wall, and the spot behind a door are all valid readings.

Combined with the 22-degree figure, that makes Windsor the most demanding pairing of number and method in this set. A building that comfortably passes a mid-room reading at 1.5 metres can fail a Windsor reading taken at the baseboard.

Two temperatures, one building

The section continues: "All common areas or internal entrance ways in a multiple dwelling shall be provided with heating systems capable of maintaining a minimum temperature of not less than 18 ºC."

So a multi-unit building carries two obligations at once, and the common-areas duty is a capability standard while the in-unit duty is about the air temperature actually available to the tenant.

Sections 5.4.7 to 5.4.9 fill in the equipment rules: heating systems, stoves, appliances, fireplaces, chimneys, fans, pumps and filtration equipment kept in good repair and safely operable; no dwelling unit equipped with portable heating equipment as its primary source of heat; and only approved heating equipment in rooms used for sleeping.

Two instruments, and a recent replacement

By-law 148-2025 was passed on 8 September 2025 and repealed by-law 9-2019 as amended. Anything written about Windsor property standards before late 2025 names an instrument that is no longer in force.

Section 5.4.6 also points outward, requiring a system capable of maintaining adequate and suitable heat "specified in the City of Windsor Vital Services by-law" — a separate instrument the City lists in its own index.

If you operate in Windsor, read both. The property standards by-law is the one that gives you the 22 degrees and the measurement rule; the vital services by-law is the one the section defers to for the supply obligation.

Tyler knows which calls cannot wait

No heat in Windsor 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.

Talk to Tyler How Tyler handles Ontario's rules