avirid - stock.adobe.comBeware of unauthorized expansion by homeowners or tenants
Removing radiators is not a purely private undertaking. Owners and tenants must coordinate it with their landlord, property management company, and qualified professionals to avoid legal and technical consequences. Anyone planning to remove radiators should inquire about costs, billing, and the impact on the heating system.
Removing radiators – purely a matter of taste?
Whether behind the fitted kitchen or in rarely used rooms – many residents find radiators bothersome or superfluous. The idea: simply remove them to create space or save on heating costs. But it's not that simple.
What happens when radiators are dismantled?
Heating bill with a removed radiator
From a billing perspective, removing a radiator is not a problem. If there is no longer a radiator, the heat cost allocator is also missing, and no consumption is billed. However, the meter reading should be recorded before the radiator is completely removed so that it can be included in the final bill. This can be done informally and by the apartment owner themselves, ideally with a witness signature (e.g., from the building manager).
Alternative: Storage with heat cost allocators for later reading.
It is also possible to store the radiator with the heat cost allocator in the basement or any (cool) storage room until the next reading, so that our service technicians can then read it. However, with heat cost allocators that use the evaporation principle, it is important to store them upright. Otherwise, the measuring fluid will leak out, making a meaningful reading impossible.
Cold evaporation and its impact on billing
Evaporative heat cost allocators don't have a fixed activation point where the consumption reading begins. This means that some liquid always evaporates – especially during hot summers. This so-called "cold evaporation" is compensated for, according to DIN/EN standards, by overfilling the ampoules to cover 120 days without heating, assuming a room temperature of 20°C. However, it can happen that the standardized amount isn't sufficient, resulting in slight readings even on unused radiators. This isn't generally a problem, as this occurs in all apartments and is balanced out by a relative distribution. However, this isn't the case for apartments where radiators, and therefore heat cost allocators, are missing, even though they were originally planned and installed. In these apartments, there are no readings for unused radiators, and depending on how the summer progresses, these apartments may actually have an advantage. This can lead to protests from other residents.
Basic costs remain despite the removal of radiators.
To ensure a fair distribution of heat losses from the heating system, to compensate for disadvantaged residential locations, and to offset transmission heat loss (heat theft), between 30 and 50% of the total costs are allocated according to living space (basic costs). Even in apartments with removed radiators, the total living space is still billed. There is no justification for reducing the basic cost component. Therefore, removing a radiator in a 12 m² kitchen does not reduce the basic cost component by 12 m². The building's heating system remains designed according to the original specifications even after a radiator is removed. Any reduction in the boiler's heating efficiency must not negatively impact other tenants or owners.
Technical risks associated with unauthorized radiator removal
Removing radiators because they no longer serve a practical purpose seems to be a widely held personal choice, something everyone is free to do as they please. However, it's often forgotten that the communal heating system is a finely tuned and technically sensitive system where even minor modifications can lead to serious malfunctions. If radiator removal is to be carried out at all, it should only be done by a qualified heating engineer. A guarantee must be obtained beforehand that the heating system will continue to function perfectly in the future.
Radiator dismantling: Economic considerations
The cost of removing radiators should be taken into account. Often, the removal process costs more than the anticipated additional expenses would have accumulated over the years. The effort involved in removing a radiator is usually disproportionate to the resulting reduction in heating costs.
Legal framework and court ruling
The unauthorized removal of radiators by tenants is generally prohibited. However, even apartment owners cannot simply do as they please. A clear court ruling: After an apartment owner removed several radiators from her apartment, the Bavarian Supreme Court ordered her to reverse this action. Based on Section 47 of the German Land Register Code (GBO), no owner can refuse participation in communal facilities such as heating, hot water supply, elevator, communal antenna, or maintenance of the building's systems. No legal basis was found to justify exempting participants from consumption-based portions of the heating and hot water costs. Bavarian Supreme Court, Judgment of August 7, 1988, BReg.: 2 Z 157/87. Lower courts: Regensburg Local Court 13 UR II 25/86 and Regensburg Regional Court 2 T 261/87.
Conclusion: Radiator removal should only be done in exceptional cases
Removing radiators has many aspects to consider. If it's not absolutely necessary, it should be avoided. It's also important to remember that radiator removal costs aren't free, due to the labor involved. Therefore, the pros and cons should always be carefully weighed.
Author
Quelle: Handbuch der Wärmekostenabrechnung | Frank Peters Minol Messtechnik W. Lehmann GmbH & Co. KG, 2019
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