Interpretation of Sammelheizung under Berlin rent reduction

[hellotoy 2]

Hi,

 

My landlord (Hausverwaltung / Property Management company) has sent me a letter asking to pay temporary reduced rent. In the calculation they have mentioned Sammelheizung (collective heating) as Yes.

 

I played around with the following rent calculation form:

https://mietendeckel.berlin.de/en/mietendeckelrechner

 

I noticed that Sammelheizung Yes or No makes a huge difference in the rent calculation. Hence, I wanted to understand if my situation comes under Yes or No. My heating situation is as follows:

 

I have a separate gas meter inside my house. After moving into the apartment I applied for the gas connection and paying the monthly bill for the same. Whenever house heater or hot water is started, the meter is running. I am mentioning this because I never got a clear answer from the landlord (Hausverwaltung / Property Management company) about heating situation (Hausverwaltung is pretty clueless and unresponsive).

 

More information about Sammelheizung as per Google Translation of this page: https://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/wohnen/mietspiegel/de/gliederung.shtml

• Under a collective heating all types of heating are to be understood, where the heat and power from a central location from happening. A floor heating or apartment heating (gas, oil, electric heating) that heats all living spaces adequately is equivalent to collective heating.

 

My case seems to be individual heating and not collective heating. I wanted to confirm my understanding before I write to the property management company. Can someone provide insight on this?

 

Thanks.

 

[snowingagain 4,061]

Maybe ask Hausvertaltung?  Ours often makes mistakes.

 

[Shenandoah 74]

HelloToy,

 

It's not clear in your post what type of heat and hot water you have in your apartment?  What does the gas meter run/supply that you had installed?  More information is needed.

 

S.  

[hellotoy 2]

@Shenandoah The meter was already in the house, no installation required. I just applied for gas connection to Vattenfall.

 

What do you mean by 'type' of heat and hot water?

 

[Shenandoah 74]

Hellotoy,

 

Are you renting a house or an apartment?  You mention apartment in your first post but house in your second post?

 

Heat:  do you have hot water radiators?  radiant floor? other?  

 

Hot water:  is the hot water heated by electric?  gas boiler? other?

 

If you're in an apartment, most likely you have collective heating.  There just isn't enough information in what you've posted to figure things out. 

 

S.

 

 

 

 

[hellotoy 2]

@Shenandoah Thanks for the clarification.

 

I have rented an apartment. We have hot water radiators. No radiant floor heating. I see a boiler by Wolf inside my apartment (https://www.wolf.eu/en/professionals/gas-boilers/gasheizwert-therme-cgu-2k/).

 

Seeing this boiler and the gas meter running every time heating is triggered, I guess I have an individual heating system. Do the collective heating system have boilers in each apartment?

[Shenandoah 74]

hellotoy,

 

Interesting.  Sounds like you do NOT have collective heating.  

 

I have an apartment in Berlin that has collective heating:  There is a main boiler for the entire house (which has 21 apartments) located in the cellar.  Each of the radiators in the apartments have a meter on them that measures usage.  At the end of the year I get a bill from the Hausverwaltung for my shared cost for heat based on the meters on the radiators in my apartment.  

 

The same is true for Warmwasser.  There are water meters on the warm and cold water lines where they come in each apartment.  Each year the water meters are read and I am charged for my Kalt and Warmwasser usage.  

 

S.

[hellotoy 2]

@Shenandoah Thanks for the info.

 

So mine is individual heating BUT! Here is the reply from the property manager (Google Translation):

Central heating does not mean that all apartments are connected to a common heating system, but only that there is nothing more than heat generation in the apartment. The opposite would be, for example, individual ovens in each room.

 

Does this interpretation of Sammelheizung sound reasonable? Should I take his word for it? So far whatever I have read online is not clear and can be interpreted either way.

[Dubya 112]

In this case, the correct translation of “Sammelheizung” is central heating, not collective heating. So, yes, you have central heating, i.e. “Sammelheizung”.

[jeba 3,852]

Being a native Bavarian I´ve never heard the term "Sammelheizung" before (must be some sort of Northern dialect) but Dr. Google says it does exist and that what your property manager explained is correct (the translation seems shit though. E. g.:

Quote

Unter einer Sammelheizung versteht man sowohl eine Zentralheizung als auch eine Etagenheizung.

deepl-translation:

A collective heating system is understood to be both a central heating system and a floor heating system.

source: https://www.kesselheld.de/sammelheizung/

It means that there is one heat source providing heat for several rooms.

From what you described it seems you have individual heating (unless there are more flats connected to your furnace, which would be very unusual though).

[hellotoy 2]

Thank you all for the responses. Thanks @jeba, the link was helpful.

[hellotoy 2]

Giving an update here, just in case some poor soul is in similar situation: A single heating instrument used for heating all rooms in the house still comes under 'collective heating' even though it is used only for one house (i.e. it is not central heating for the entire building). So there was no additional rent reduction.

[Shenandoah 74]

hellotoy,

 

Thanks for posting what you found out about "collective heating".  On the other side, I'm curious what is NOT considered collective heating?  No heat at all for the apartment?

 

S,

[hellotoy 2]

I guess no heating at all, or there are individual heaters (like small electric heaters) for each room.