Air conditioning isn’t required in Iowa rental units. Should it be?

After destructive thunderstorms roiled July 28 through Eastern Iowa, Abbie Chalk realized the air conditioning in her three-bedroom apartment in southwest Cedar Rapids was broken.

She called her maintenance office the next business day; staffers said they were aware of the issue and working on it. But, more than five weeks later, Chalk’s centralized air conditioning still hadn’t been fixed despite repeated calls, emails and visits to apartment management.

The 29-year-old single mother could only do so much to combat the heat in her home. She took her son to splash pads, libraries or loved ones’ homes to cool off. She ran cold baths for him at the apartment. But still, she had to take breaks from cleaning and cooking as she became lightheaded. Even her 5-year-old son didn’t have the same energy levels he usually had, Chalk noticed.

Last week, she finally received a temporary window air-conditioning unit for her bedroom — after the hottest heat of the summer scorched Iowa the week before. It wasn’t enough to make the whole apartment comfortable, though.

“When I get up and get ready in the mornings, I'll go to the bathroom … and I'm lightheaded to the point where I have to sit down for a couple of minutes, just so I don't collapse,” said Chalk. “It sounds so ridiculous, but that's our life right now, unfortunately.”

She was without any sort of air conditioning for most of August, the hottest month of the year so far. Average temperatures in Cedar Rapids were 2.4 degrees higher than normal, according to the National Weather Service Quad Cities bureau.

Heat is the leading weather-related killer in the United States. More than 11,000 people in the country have died from heat-related causes since 1979. There were 23 heat-related deaths reported in Iowa from 2018 to 2022, one of which occurred in Linn County.

Last summer, Iowa saw 1,037 emergency department visits and 49 hospital visits due to heat-related illnesses. The Biden administration’s new Heat-Related Emergency Medical Services Activation Surveillance Dashboard shows there has been more 911 calls for heat-related illness and injury in Linn County than average over the last two weeks.

In times of extreme heat, air conditioning is a life saver — one that not everyone in Iowa has access to.

About one in 10 residential properties don’t have the resource in Linn County, according to county and Cedar Rapids assessor data compiled by The Gazette. However, that data doesn’t include apartment complexes, nor does it differentiate between owner-occupied and rented homes. Dozens of advertised rental properties don’t say whether air conditioning is offered.

By law, it’s perfectly legal if they don’t provide the air conditioning. Iowa law mandates that landlords provide their tenants heating for the cold winter months. But there’s no complementary regulations for cooling during the hot summer months, unless landlords voluntarily offer to provide it in rental agreements.

In a changing climate, when extreme heat spells may come more frequently, that could be problematic. A 2022 study found that Iowa likely will experience more dangerously hot days over the next 30 years.

“Being in the heat with no AC can be just as dangerous as being in the winter without any heat,” Chalk said. “My thermostat gets up to about 95 degrees, and you think to yourself, ‘This can't be safe.’”

Iowa cooling regulations

Iowa has no statewide building code, leaving regulations up to local housing authorities to define and enforce. Similarly, it’s up to the authorities to decide if air conditioning is required in public housing and Section 8 housing, according to Brian Handshy, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regional public affairs officer.

Cedar Rapids adopted the 2021 International Property Maintenance Code as the minimum standard for all structures located within the city, including rental properties. Most communities throughout the United States adopt the same code, according to the city’s Building Services Department Director Kevin Ciabatti. The code is published every three years with input from code officials across the nation.

The code does not require air conditioning in residential structures. However, it does require the interior of a structure and its equipment to be maintained, structurally sound and in a sanitary condition. That means that, although air conditioners are not required, they must be maintained in good repair if a landlord voluntarily provides them.

The Cedar Rapids Code Enforcement Division has not needed to file a municipal infraction — or a civil offense with a fine — with any rental property owner regarding the maintenance of an air conditioner this summer so far, Ciabatti said in a statement.

Since June 1, the department has received three complaints about the maintenance of cooling units in rental properties. It has provided a notice of violation, which sets a compliance date for repair, replacement or removal of the air conditioning unit. Ciabatti said most rental property owners then repair or replace the cooling units.

His department has also seen, in at least one complaint, that the property owner experienced lengthy repair times of the equipment due to contractor availability.

Mark Lins, owner of Cedar Rapids-based LINS Heating and Air Conditioning, told The Gazette his company has been seeing higher demand for residential repairs during the summer’s hot spells. His residential sales are currently about 25 percent higher than sales at this time last year.

Replacement parts have been hard to come by, particularly for cooling systems in commercial buildings.

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“My distributor got in a fair amount of equipment just last week,” Lins said. “It's been on order for well over a year, and normally that would be like a six to eight week lead time.” He noted that supply chain lags have been improving.

Patrick Bigsby, staff attorney at the Cedar Rapids office of Iowa Legal Aid, said he has seen cases this summer where tenants aren’t receiving the air conditioning their landlords promised in their rental agreement.

Such disputes can end in eviction of the tenant.

“Often what we'll see is tenants will become reluctant to pay rent because they feel like they're not getting what they bargained for in their rental agreements,” he said. “If the landlord disagrees with that, then the landlord's most common remedy, I would say, would be to attempt to evict the tenant for non-payment of rent.”

More assistance needed

Ulrike Passe, an architecture professor at Iowa State University, is studying how buildings in Polk County handle heat. The project uses machine learning to assess how different variables, like air conditioning and outside temperatures, impact temperatures in homes in at-risk communities.

The end product — an app — will allow residents across the state to be more prepared for heat waves by learning how heat specifically impacts their property.

“The reason why Des Moines is with us and the reason we kept writing proposals is what happened in Portland two summers ago,” she said, referring to record-breaking high temperatures that struck the Pacific Northwest in 2021, killing at least 72 people in the area. “Nobody thought Portland would get that hot. And people died on the streets. So we said, ‘We need to be prepared.’”

With this project, Polk County is at the forefront of heat response in Iowa, Passe said. But changes at the state level could benefit all Iowans — like making more cooling assistance available to residents.

Thirty U.S. states and territories provide cooling assistance for their residents during the summer through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP. Iowa is not one of them. Most of the plan’s funding is reserved for heating assistance in the winter, according to the state LIHEAP plan.

Eligible households can access cooling assistance through LIHEAP’s crisis assistance, Iowa Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Alex Carfrae told The Gazette. In general, cooling aid is limited to the purchase of fans and window air conditioners when medically necessary or to prevent service disconnection. Otherwise, crisis assistance funds go toward winter-related aid.

For fiscal 2023, $78.8 million of funding is available to Iowa’s LIHEAP. About $8.6 million is allocated to the crisis intervention payment programs, along with $9.3 million in emergency supplemental awards. It’s unclear how much will be used specifically for cooling assistance. Applications for such aid are open only between Nov. 1 and April 30 of the following year — outside the hot summer season.

“We are very good when it comes to cold weather … but the same doesn't apply for cooling,” Passe said. “I think that's probably going to change if people actually suffer, and to be honest, probably they haven't suffered enough in Iowa yet.”

Preparation also can mean creating safer conditions for tenants in rental units. Most often, those decisions fall to local jurisdictions, including any air conditioning requirements.

Rental housing units in Tempe, Ariz., for instance, are required to have permanent cooling devices that keep indoor temperatures from reaching 89 degrees at most. Landlords in Dallas, Texas, must provide air conditioning as well.

Since last June, Chicago now requires permanent air conditioning in new senior facilities and larger residential buildings, which must be operated when feels-like temperatures exceed 80 degrees.

“Ideally, you want to provide your renters with a comfortable environment. You don't want them to suffer,” Passe said. “Public welfare — that's something you should actually require, I would think. These are human public health issues, right?”

Local officials comment

Cedar Rapids Code Enforcement Division has received two to three inquiries a week on average this summer regarding whether air conditioners are required.

“This summer has seen an uptick in inquiries because of the persistent hot temperatures,” Ciabatti said.

Ruby Perin, supervisor of the Linn County Healthy Homes branch, has been tackling county housing regulations regarding mold and lead. But she said Linn County residents have also been on her mind throughout the summer heat waves.

She’s now considering proposing regulations for air conditioning in Linn County rental properties.

“Heat waves this year and every year in the future are going to be even more unpredictable,” Perin said. “I would have to do some research before, but … I could definitely propose something like that, and we can see what happens.”

The next publication of the International Property Maintenance Code will be in 2024. The city of Cedar Rapids then will have the option to adopt the latest code as part of its property maintenance and housing code.

“If the code body were to publicize a code with AC regulations, the city would consider adopting the standard for all structures,” Ciabatti said. “The purpose of the minimum code is to be consistent across all structures, universally.”

Linn County would likely mirror Cedar Rapids’ decisions regarding any extra requirements, said county building official Luke Maloney. If the Linn County Board of Supervisors were to ever move forward on more regulations based on public need, then the county would draft an ordinance to reflect those wishes.

Adding requirements on top of the minimum standard could raise the cost of lower-income housing, he added.

“It’s just never come up. I’ve never even heard of it,” Maloney said about added regulations for air conditioning. “That’s more of a comfort than a necessity at this point.”

After more than five weeks without functioning cooling equipment, Chalk’s centralized air conditioning system was finally fixed this week — after the worst of the summer heat had finally ended.

“A lot of people think about AC as a luxury,” she said. “But at the same time, when summers are just getting hotter and hotter every year here in Iowa, it doesn't feel as much like a luxury. It just feels like a necessity, and I just hope to change the idea that AC isn't as important as, say, heat.”

What to do?

If a rental property owner does not provide cooling units, then the Cedar Rapids Building Services Department can provide information about cooling center locations.

If there is a legal dispute about whether a rental property owner agreed to provide a cooling system, seek legal counsel or contact Iowa Legal Aid.

With any rental property maintenance issue, the Cedar Rapids Building Services Department recommends tenants put the concern in writing to the rental property owner.

Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com