A cold water flat is an apartment that has no running hot water. In most developed countries, current

building code A building code (also building control or building regulations) is a set of rules that specify the standards for constructed objects such as buildings and non-building structures. Buildings must conform to the code to obtain planning permiss ...

s make cold water flats illegal, but they used to be common in such cities as

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

until the mid-twentieth century. The Chicago City Council banned such flats and passed an ordinance requiring hot water piping and water heating apparatuses for all residential units in January 1957, setting the deadline for enforcement to January 1, 1962. Typically, cold water flats did not have built-in showers installed;

tenants A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a ...

who wished to bathe would heat pots of water by stove and add the heated water to a

bathtub A bathtub, also known simply as a bath or tub, is a container for holding water in which a person or animal may bathe. Most modern bathtubs are made of thermoformed acrylic, porcelain-enameled steel or cast iron, or fiberglass-reinforced ...

. They also typically had no

central heating A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (short: HVAC) systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces. ...

. Often some type of cooking stove, either wood or coal, was the only heat source and was kept going most of the time. Wood or coal embers could be banked in the small stoves overnight so a fire could be easily started early in the morning. A gas cooking surface was often just a grate with jets. Tenants would also keep warm by use of

kerosene Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was regi ...

or electric space heaters,

hot water bottle A hot-water bottle is a bottle filled with hot water and sealed with a stopper, used to provide warmth, typically while in bed, but also for the application of heat to a specific part of the body. Early history Containers for warmth in bed wer ...

s, or much later,

electric blanket An electric blanket is a blanket that contains integrated electrical heating wires. Types include underblankets, overblankets, throws, and duvets. An electric ''underblanket'' is placed above the mattress and below the bottom bed sheet. This is ...

References

Apartment types {{struct-type-stub