condo in nyc, central AC without unit submeter?

My co-op has central air and heating. The building delivers cold or hot water (depending on season) to the register units in my apartment. The electric bill for my unit covers running the fan that blows air over the cold/hot coils. The co-op's cost to generate all that cold/hot water is passed on to me through the monthly maintenance (my part determined by how many shares I own, not the usage). In your case, it would be through the common charges.

All central ac and heat systems in NYC I know work the way Aaron described. They are highly desirable as the central system is more efficient than individual units and individual units have poor aesthetics due to the requirement of external venting.

If it's truly more efficient, then it may be worthwhile despite the "tragedy of the commons" problem of folks overusing.

Older buildings though will often have individual HVAC units in the unit, you'll obviously pay for your own use in that case.

@Response, if your concern is the "tragedy of commons" you may want to reconsider buying into a NYC Coop (or condo). Welcome to the world of common/shared living.

The unit that everyone is describing is known as a "fan coil unit". In most older buildings, there is a single water flow system that delivers either hot or cold water through a continuously circulating water stream. The building (and thus, your maintenance) pays for the heating/cooling costs. You only get one or the other and the building decides when to flip over from one to the other.

Depending on the building system, the changeover is more or less work and may be able to flip one hot day in April and flip back two days later during a cold streak. My building is going through the complaints of the hot side of the building vs the cold side and when to change.

There are buildings that have units that look like fan coil (big boxes on the wall as opposed to window units) that can be *either* hot or cold. Much less common, I think they may have two different water fed systems, hot and cold.

Either way, you pay the electric of running them, an I will say, I notice the difference in my electric bill during the summer (rarely run during the winter). Many are dumb 3-way switches (off, low, med, hi) some have a built in simple thermostat. You can often wire in your own thermostat if it is a newer model (including wireless).