City Walk utilizes what is called Hydronic Heating and Cooling, District Heating, or put in other terms we get hot and cold water delivered to the building by a company in Downtown that heats and cools water that we then use to heat or cool our building.
The company that provides our service is District Energy
They have fantastic pages that help explain how these systems work and how our heating and cooling is generated.
Within our units, the water flows through what is called a Fan Coil Unit (FCU). This is a pipe loop within a radiator fin stack and a fan blowing air through the radiator forming a FCU.
The FCU circulates air around the unit, drawing unit air in via the louvers in the door to the 'furnace' room containing the FCU and back out of your vents. You can alter the circulation patterns of your unit via adjusting your vents.
Because of this setup, our units are substantially isolated from each other with one major exception, the exhaust vent in our bathrooms connects to a shared vent stack and depending upon pressure conditions you can get odor from units below you out of your bathroom vents. If this occurs, running your bathroom vent fan can alleviate the issue.
Also of note for these FCUs, they are considered Limited Common Elements within our governing documents and as such are the financial responsibility of the unit owner when it comes time to replace them.
Due to how our building was constructed we have what is called a two-pipe system. Or in other words, we have one pipe going up and one pipe going down, allowing our building to either be heating or cooling at any time.
The alternative to this is a four-pipe system, with two pipes up and two down, allowing both heating and cooling all year round.
Because of this configuration of the building we have a twice yearly transition between heating and cooling in spring and fall.
Due to laws related to renters the building is required to switch to heating as soon as any point in the building falls under 68f.
Further, the change between heating and cooling is manual and requires coordination between district energy and onsite staff, meaning we can't quickly and easily switch between heating and cooling.
This is why sometimes in the fall/spring periods our units experience temperature regulation issues. We only get one or the other, heating or cooling.
There is very limited humidity control in our units. The primary system in place to reduce the humidity in the summer is by utilizing the cold coil which water condenses on.
This condensation then drips into the drip tray and flows into a discharge line to exit the unit.
If you desire more humidity control in your unit, a humidifier and/or dehumidifier is recommended.
As always, please let me know if you have additions, changes, or corrections.