Until August 19, a Houston landlord could point to a window screen and call it adequate ventilation. The city's new ordinance closed that loophole, so the screen comes out and a window unit goes in.
A window AC starts around $150, the cheapest path to compliance, which is why it's worth paying attention to what it actually does. It runs on electricity the tenant pays for, in a state with no hot-weather disconnection moratorium. When it breaks, repair depends on a complaint-to-inspection sequence that takes time heat doesn't give. The compressor adds its own energy to the exhaust, so the unit pushes more warmth outside than it pulls from the room. In dense housing, one tenant's cooling warms the air entering another tenant's window.
The temperature standard: 80°F or 20 degrees below outdoor, whichever is warmer. On a 110°F Houston day, 90°F indoors is compliant.
Effective date: December 17, 2026. Landlords have 120 days from the August 19 vote.
Units affected: The city estimates more than 20,400 Houston-area rental units lack AC.
Monthly cost to run: $30–$40 for a standard 8,000 BTU unit at eight hours a day, at Houston's rate of about 14 cents/kWh. Summer electric bills in Houston typically run $230–$300 total.
Noise: 38–56 dB, roughly a quiet office, running continuously on the nights when overnight cooling matters most.
Minimum window width: 23 inches for a 5,000 BTU unit. Older buildings may lack circuits to handle the draw.
Enforcement: Complaint-based, through 311. Landlords get a chance to fix violations before citations.
Heat-related illness: Harris County logged about 7,600 cases from 2019 to 2023.