Thermostat is all the way up but apartment is still freezing. Help?

usually if its cold inside and the heater is not able to heat its because the windows and doors are not well isolated. they sell transparent plastics that you can cover your windows with and in extremely cold days you can put tape around the doors to cover the crack. you can also put your oven on low and leave the door of the stove slightly open , you can also use fans to circulate the air in your house (or turn on seiling fans if you have them) because hot air tends to rise and hover above the room, by circulating the air you prevent heat from hovering and creating layers where the upper air is hot but the air close to the floor is cold. it gets extremely cold over here so i have some experience.

It was minus 8F here very early this morning. Temperatures are supposed to shoot up to 47F tomorrow.

Try boiling water on your stove. Cooking, baking and broiling all heat the place. Since you can't fix the insulation, you are going to have to insulate yourself. Dress in several layers...at least four. Make sure your feet are in two loose pairs of wool socks and then put on your winter boots over them.

Your head and your core are the two most important places to keep warm. Warming your head by wearing a warm knitted cap and a hoodie stops internal heat loss.

It might be that your apartment building has run out of fuel. Call the landlord.

Call your landlord.

where you set the thermostat is called the 'setpoint'. if your heater is not making setpoint at 68F (sorry I don't Celsius much) it won't make setpoint at 72F. so turning it up won't help. check the air filter on your heating unit, if clogged that will restrict the airflow and reduce the heat output. plastic on the windows can help if they are not modern windows. it would help to know what kind of heating system you are using. hot water systems may have air in them which needs to be bled out. forced air heating requires not just a supply but return air also. are all your vents clear and clean?

Are you renting or owning? If renting make calls to the land lord every hour, until they get it fixed.

Don't call an emergency number, but if it's life threatening cold, you can probably contact the local first responders to see if they can do anything, at minimum, hopefully they can check it out and give you their recommendation. Again, not an emergency number.


Based on what you have said, something is clearly wrong, but we don't have enough details to guess what the issue is.


It could be signal isn't working... (check the thermostats batteries), could be that the whatever is not getting signal.

Could be that the heater is broke, or the heats to get the heat from one place to somewhere else are broke and if that's the case, it could be over heating in the local area and freezing elsewhere.

Humans are already 98.6 degrees. Reach deep into thinking about this. Everyone suggests adding heat, sealing up doors and windows etc.

But the puzzle isn't that hard to solve. Cold air is heavier than warm air. If you have ice cold cielings you're going to have cold floors. Even if you have a furnace pushing heat, convection of the air will spill ice cold air down along the walls for you, while collecting a nice hot foot thick blanket up in the middle of the rooms ceilings.

I know my thermodynamics folks. Don't CO2 yourself to death with the oven or waste time with plastic on walls. You'd be better off having plastic over your ceiling since that's where all the cold air is coming from.

You probably have that cheap blown in cellulose insulation in your attic. That stuff is useless crap.

You get 90 on your ceilings and 50 on your floors with that stuff.

I would be baking foods to help warm up the apartment….barbecue chicken, casseroles, Mac & cheese, rolls, cookies or muffins etc. That would help take the chill off.

Hang blankets over the doorways and windows. Isolate one room, close the heater vents in every other room. Everyone will have spend time in one place, but at least it's warm.

Check the batteries in your thermostat maybe it’s not working if not go check your furnace. See if the pilot lights on.

Is it blowing or not? Is the air blowing warm but not making a difference, or is the air blowing out cold? Is it a gas (or oil) fired furnace or electric, or a heat pump with gas or electric backup?
Heat pumps don't work well when the temps are really low and should have a backup of some sort. Years ago in the south it wasn't that unusual to find heat pumps installed without a backup, the colder it was outside the less efficient they were. A heat pump without a backup could explain it. It's possible something could be wrong with the backup.

Reading the details again it sounds like something that was working a few days ago isn't working now. Check all the breakers, check that the furnace is actually burning (assuming it is something other than electric). I'm thinking there may be a separate breaker other than the one for the blower. You could get lucky and find the problem.

You should concentrate on heating yourself rather than the building.
Electric blankets are great to sit on and keep warm under a blanket. Extra layers and the usual stuff.
If you've got less than perfect insulation your heating will be working really hard to keep the chill off at those temperatures.

buy an infrared heater or 2

The heater should be uh, hot and not making weird noises.

But beyond that insulate your windows.

I use a humidifier.
It adds moisture in the air which will absorb and contain heat. It also make my skin less dry.

maybe the walls are not insulated and you have single pane windows?? not good

Wear socks or slippers and a robe over your clothes.

You don't have good insulation.

Take a hot shower
That always helps

sounds like furnace isn't even on, just the fans blowing

Layer on clothing. Check to see if the radiators are warm to the touch.

Are they radiators? Do they need to be bled?

What kind of heating do you have?

Like 57F here today

It’s possible