Your landlord can charge you for the AC. There's a ceiling, and it's lower than you think.

Since July 1, an Ontario tenant has had the right to put a window or portable air conditioner in their own unit. That is the part that made the news. The part that did not is the trade: where your landlord pays for the electricity, they are now allowed to charge you for running it.

Both halves are true, and the second half is where people are getting hurt. So here is the number that matters: the charge is capped at what the electricity actually costs. Not what the landlord would like it to be, not a round figure on a notice taped to the lobby door. The cost. And for most window units in Barrie, that cost is smaller than people expect.

What actually changed

The rules live in section 36.1 of the Residential Tenancies Act, which came into force on July 1, 2026. In plain terms, you can install a window or portable air conditioner if you meet a short list of conditions:

• You tell your landlord in writing, before you install it.
• If your landlord supplies the electricity, you also give them what you know about the unit's energy efficiency and how much you intend to run it.
• It is installed safely and securely.
• The installation and how you use it comply with municipal by-laws and other law.
• It does not damage your unit or the building.

Meet those and your landlord cannot refuse — and that holds even if your lease says air conditioners are not allowed. A clause like that no longer does what it used to. You also have to tell them, in writing again, when you take the unit out or stop using it.

When your landlord can charge you at all

Two things both have to be true before a single dollar is chargeable:

1. Electricity is included in your rent. If the hydro bill comes in your name, you are already paying for the air conditioner directly. There is nothing for your landlord to recover, and no charge is permitted.
2. Your tenancy agreement does not rule it out. If your lease says you may have an air conditioner at no extra cost, that promise stands.

Even then, the increase applies only in the months the unit actually runs, and the rent has to come back down when you remove it or stop using it for the season. It is a seasonal adjustment, not a permanent raise.

So what does it actually cost?

This is arithmetic, and you can do it yourself in about a minute. Find the wattage on the label on your unit — most window air conditioners draw somewhere between 500 and 1,500 watts. Multiply watts by the hours you run it, divide by 1,000, and you have kilowatt-hours. Multiply that by your rate.

Using the Ontario Energy Board's current regulated prices, a 700-watt window unit run eight hours a day for a month uses about 168 kWh:

Those are illustrations, not a quote for your apartment — your plan, your rate and your actual hours all move the number, and delivery charges and the Ontario Electricity Rebate move it again. But they give you the order of magnitude, and the order of magnitude is the point. Almost nobody runs a window unit flat out for five straight months. Most people run it on hot evenings in July and August. A charge built on the assumption that the thing runs all day, every day, from May to September is not an estimate of your usage. It is a guess in the landlord's favour.

You can check current prices on the Ontario Energy Board's rates page.

If your air conditioner was already in the window

The power to charge is tied to units installed on or after July 1, 2026. If yours was already sitting in the window before then — the one you have run every summer for years — your landlord cannot start charging you rent for it now.

You are not off the hook entirely: it still has to be safely installed, still has to comply with by-laws, and still must not damage the building. But you did not need to give written notice for it, you did not need to hand over efficiency information, and it is not a chargeable unit.

Two things that surprise people

There is no N1, and there is no 90 days' notice. This increase deliberately sits outside the ordinary rent-increase machinery — the usual notice form, the ninety-day rule and the once-every-twelve-months rule do not apply to it. So if you were planning to argue that the charge is invalid because you never got an N1, that argument will not work. Argue about the amount instead, because that is where the law is on your side.

If you live in a land lease or mobile home community

This one is important around here, and nobody covering this story from Toronto has mentioned it. Section 36.1 does not apply to rental units in a mobile home park or a land lease community. The land lease communities around Innisfil and Wasaga Beach are outside these rules entirely.

That does not mean you have no rights — it means your rights come from your agreement, from the separate mobile home and land lease provisions of the Act, and from your landlord's ongoing obligation to keep the place in a good state of repair and fit for habitation. Those communities skew older, and heat is hardest on exactly that group. If you are being told what you may or may not do about cooling in one of them, that is a conversation worth having properly rather than assuming the July rules cover you. They do not.

If you are the landlord

You are allowed to recover what the electricity costs. You are not allowed to price it as a convenience, and you cannot refuse a tenant who has met the conditions. Three things will keep you out of trouble:

1. Work the number out from the unit's efficiency and the usage your tenant told you about, and keep the arithmetic. If it is challenged, you are the one who has to show it.
2. Charge only for the months it runs, and take the amount back off when the season ends or the unit comes out.
3. Do not add a fee on top, and do not use eviction language to collect one. A demand built on an unlawful charge is worse for you than no demand at all.

What we recommend

If you have been handed a charge you think is too high:

1. Do the arithmetic above for your unit and your actual hours.
2. Write to your landlord. Say what the unit draws, when you run it, what you calculate the electricity to cost, and that you will pay that. Keep a copy.
3. Ask them, in writing, to show how they arrived at their figure. That request alone resolves a surprising number of these.
4. If the charge includes an administration fee, or the unit was in place before July, say so specifically.
5. If it does not get resolved, call us at (705) 252-5213 before you stop paying anything.

This is one of several rental rules that changed in 2026. The bigger set landed on September 21 — including a seven-day N4.

This is general information, not legal advice. The cost figures above are illustrations based on published Ontario Energy Board rates, not a calculation for your apartment. Every tenancy is different — call us and we'll tell you what your situation specifically requires.