Massachusetts regulates heat and hot water more tightly than most states, and the rules run in both directions. There is a minimum temperature and a maximum. There are two separate tenant remedies, one of which carries a criminal penalty. And there is a widely repeated five day grace period that, on reading the regulation, does not apply to either heat or hot water at all.
Boston Renter Intelligence Survey
How does your rent compare?
Add your numbers and get an instant read on what share of your income goes to rent, measured against what Boston renters actually report.
See how your rent compares →This guide sets out what the law requires and what follows when it is not met, using the Homzora Massachusetts repair obligations dataset published this week. Every figure is traced to its section and the underlying file is free to download at the end.
The temperatures, in both directions
Under 105 CMR 410.190, an owner must supply hot water at a minimum of 110 degrees Fahrenheit. That is measured at the fixture rather than at the tank, so a boiler that reaches temperature while delivering lukewarm water to a third floor unit does not satisfy the requirement.
Massachusetts also caps it. Hot water must not exceed 130 degrees. This is the half of the rule almost nobody knows, and it catches owners out because the instinct when a tenant reports weak hot water is to turn the thermostat up. Past 130 degrees one violation has been replaced with another, and the second is a scalding risk rather than a comfort complaint.
There is a functional test alongside the numbers. Hot water must be provided in a quantity and pressure sufficient to satisfy the ordinary use of all plumbing fixtures which normally need hot water for their proper use and function. A system that reaches 110 degrees and then runs cold after one shower does not comply, whatever a thermometer reads at the moment it is tested.
The duty sits with the owner unless, and only to the extent that, the occupant is required to provide fuel under a written letting agreement. It must be written, and it must be in the agreement. An understanding reached in conversation does not move it.
Heat, and the dates that govern it
Under 105 CMR 410.201, heat must be provided on every day of the year other than the period from 15 June to 15 September. During the season the minimum is 68 degrees Fahrenheit between 7:00 A.M. and 11:00 P.M., and 64 degrees between 11:01 P.M. and 6:59 A.M.
The ceiling applies here too. The temperature must at no time exceed 78 degrees during the heating season, which means a chronically overheated building is in violation in the same way an underheated one is. Tenants in older steam heated buildings who open windows in January to cope may have a complaint rather than a quirk.
A note on the dates, because our own dataset records a disagreement here rather than resolving it. A second provision of the same code, 105 CMR 410.180, gives the season as ending 31 May rather than 15 June. The Commonwealth guidance relies on 15 June and cites 410.201, which is why we publish that figure. If a situation turns on the final fortnight of the season, check the current certified text.
The five day rule, and where it actually comes from
This is the part worth reading closely, because a great deal of published guidance gets it wrong in the same way.
105 CMR 410.750 lists the conditions deemed to endanger or materially impair health or safety. Failure to provide a supply of water sufficient in quantity, pressure and temperature, both hot and cold, appears at subsection (A). Failure to provide heat as required by 410.201, or improper venting or use of a space heater, appears at subsection (B). Neither carries a timeframe, and neither does the section’s opening language.
Subsection (O) is where the five days appears. It opens by limiting itself, covering any of the following conditions which remain uncorrected for a period of five or more days following notice to, or knowledge of, the owner. That phrase governs the list inside subsection (O) and nothing outside it.
So the accurate statement is not that the regulation imposes an immediate deadline for heat and hot water. It is that the regulation declines to give them a grace period at all. They are hazards from the moment they exist. Guidance telling an owner they have five days before a hot water failure becomes serious has taken the number from a paragraph that does not cover it.
Worth reading the rest of subsection (B) while you are there. Improper use of a space heater is itself listed as a hazard. Supplying plug in heaters while a repair is arranged can create a second violation rather than buy time on the first.
Repair and deduct, step by step
M.G.L. c.111 s.127L gives tenants a repair and deduct remedy. The sequence matters, because each stage carries a number and skipping a stage removes the protection.
The violation must first be certified as one which may endanger or materially impair health, safety or well-being. That certification comes from a board of health, a code enforcement agency, a housing commissioner in Boston, Worcester or Cambridge, or a court. A tenant cannot certify it themselves, and this is the step most often missed.
The owner must then receive written notice.
From that notice, the owner has five days to begin repairs or to contract a third party to carry them out, and fourteen days to substantially complete the necessary work, unless a court orders something shorter. Beginning is enough at the five day stage. Contracting someone counts as beginning.
If those pass, the tenant may arrange the work and deduct the cost, up to four months rent in any twelve month period or period of occupancy, whichever is shorter. The figure is calculated on the highest monthly rent during the occupancy or during the twelve months before the violation is repaired, whichever is shorter, which works in the tenant’s favour where rent has fallen.
In a building with several affected units the cap is on the building rather than on each tenant. All affected households together may deduct up to four months rent in total, which is worth knowing before several neighbours act on the same failure.
The remedy most people have never read
Repair and deduct is the one tenants hear about. M.G.L. c.186 s.14 is the one that carries weight.
It makes it unlawful for a landlord wilfully or intentionally to fail to furnish water, hot water, heat, light, power, gas, elevator service, telephone service, janitor service or refrigeration service where supplying it is the landlord obligation. It also covers directly or indirectly interfering with the furnishing of any of those by another party, which reaches a landlord who contacts the utility to have service ended.
A violation is punishable by a fine of not less than twenty five dollars and not more than three hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for up to six months.
The civil exposure is larger. A tenant may recover actual and consequential damages, or three months rent, whichever is greater, together with the costs of the action including a reasonable attorney fee. Three months rent is a floor rather than a ceiling. Where actual damages run higher, actual damages govern.
A tenant does not need to bring a separate case to use it. The claim may be raised as a setoff or recoupment against the landlord’s own action for rent, so it can appear as a defence in a proceeding the landlord started. A court also has equitable jurisdiction to restrain a violation, and the section carries protection against retaliation.
The operative word is wilfully, and what that covers is decided on the facts. A boiler failing on a Sunday is a different situation from one reported twice and still unaddressed by Thursday.
Who is licensed to do the work
When a failure is a certified code violation with statutory clocks attached, the repair record becomes evidence, which makes who carried out the work relevant in a way it is not for routine maintenance.
Massachusetts sets the requirements in 248 CMR 11.00, and we publish them as a companion dataset. Reaching journeyman takes no less than 6,800 clock hours worked as a licensed apprentice under supervision, plus 550 clock hours of plumbing and gas fitting theory completed over a minimum of four years. No more than 165 hours of education may be credited in any year, which is the mechanism making the four years a floor rather than a target. A high school diploma or equivalent is required.
Reaching master takes a further year of practical experience totalling at least 1,700 clock hours as a licensed journeyman, plus the 110 hour tier five of the educational programme.
Adding the two published figures together gives roughly 8,500 supervised hours and 660 classroom hours to hold a master licence. Those totals are arithmetic on the two requirements rather than a figure the regulation itself states.
What this means in practice
For a tenant, the useful sequence is: report it in writing and keep a copy, contact the board of health to obtain certification, and understand that the certification is what unlocks the remedies rather than the complaint itself.
For an owner, the useful sequence is: record the date and source of the notice, contract a licensed plumber rather than promising to look at it, and keep the invoice, because it is the document that establishes when you began.
For both, the temperature caps are the part worth remembering, because they are the part almost nobody knows. Below 110 degrees is a violation. Above 130 degrees is also a violation. Above 78 degrees during the heating season is a violation too.
The data behind this article
Every figure above comes from a published Homzora dataset, free to download under CC BY 4.0, with the statutory source recorded in the file.
Repair obligations, covering hot water, heat, the hazard classification and both tenant remedies, as CSV or JSON. Plumbing licensure requirements as CSV or JSON.
The full Boston housing datasets cover rent, deposits, notice periods and commuting alongside these. Our six city statutory comparison sets Massachusetts against Georgia, Illinois, Florida, New York and California, and the moving guides cover what changes when you move between them.
Verified 21 September 2026. Homzora is a housing research and data publisher. It is not a licensed real estate brokerage, property manager, lender or law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. For a specific tenancy or a specific violation, consult an attorney licensed in Massachusetts.
