The record, live: heat season

Heat season in New York City, and what the record shows.

Heat season runs October 1 through May 31. During the day, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., the city's Housing Maintenance Code requires an indoor temperature of at least 68°F whenever it drops below 55°F outside. Overnight, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., the requirement is 62°F regardless of the outside temperature. Hot water is not seasonal: HPD requires at least 120°F at every fixture, year round. A hot water complaint filed in July follows the same 311-to-inspection path as one filed in January. The heat requirement sits at Admin. Code Section 27-2029; the hot water requirement sits at Section 27-2031. HPD enforces both through inspection, usually after a 311 complaint.

By class

HPD sorts every heat and hot water violation into one of three classes. Each class carries its own correction window, and the window sets how urgently an owner must act.

Class C accounts for 94.3% of all heat and hot water violations HPD issues. What happens to those Class C violations after they are issued is measured in full on the accountability page.

The monthly pattern, in full

Filings follow the season. Here is the shape across every year on record, first as a chart and then as a table.

All years 2023 through August 27, 2026 combined (our working copy of the record begins July 30, 2023). October runs 105.5% above September. January, the peak, runs 5.8 times the September floor. The full measurement behind those two figures is on the seasonal-spike page.

By borough

HPD's heat and hot water record, read live from the city's data for the trailing three years, does not split evenly by borough.

Bronx carries the most at 55,198. Staten Island carries the fewest at 2,392. Each borough's own page carries this figure alongside its other categories: Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island.

After certification

Of the 148,225 Class C heat and hot water violations on the record, 49.0% have ever been certified corrected. The median time to certification is 9 days. The 90th percentile is 15 days. The remaining 75,627 have not been certified at all, and 47,488 of those have sat open more than a year. The full measurement, set against the 24-hour standard above, is on the accountability page.

What a tenant does

A tenant without heat or hot water can call 311 to file a complaint. HPD schedules an inspection. If an inspector confirms the condition, HPD issues a violation and the case joins the public record. A photograph and the date of the complaint help if a second call is needed. Once a violation is issued, the case is searchable on HPD Online by address. If the condition is still not corrected, the tenant can call 311 again to request a reinspection.

What an owner does

An owner corrects the condition and certifies the correction with HPD. If the certify-by date passes with no accepted certification, the status moves to Not Complied With. For Class C violations that stay open past that point, HPD's civil penalty process can follow. HPD mails a CIV-14 notice as part of that process. Certification is filed directly with HPD once the repair is complete.

Both research pages behind these figures go further: the seasonal spike, measured precisely, and the certification record, measured against the 24-hour standard. By borough, the citywide record, ViolationScout.