Heating out in the whole building: update every affected tenant in their own chat

A Monday in January, 6:40 a.m., −4 °C (25 °F) outside. In a building with 24 apartments, the central heating stays cold. By 8:30 a.m. the property management office has 11 WhatsApp messages, 4 emails and 6 missed calls. Nearly all of them ask the same thing: "Do you already know about it?" and "When will it be warm again?"

A case from Jockgrim in Germany's Palatinate region shows how long an outage like this can drag on. According to the Rheinpfalz of January 15, 2026, the central oil heating in an apartment building there broke down on New Year's Day. Until January 9, with temperatures below freezing, the apartments of 32 people kept cooling down, "from toddlers to seniors". The day before the repair, tenants measured 7 °C (45 °F) in their apartment. The article ran in the paper's "What annoys readers" section.

On a morning like that, management can rarely speed up the repair. The information, though, is in its hands. What it looks like when the information is missing is spelled out in a motion by Munich city councilor Dirk Höpner (München-Liste) from January 2026 about the Fürstenried West neighborhood: "The emergency numbers they were given can't be reached when damage occurs". People who are freezing and can't reach anyone simply keep calling.

Three messages to every affected household are usually enough: the first notice, a progress update and the all-clear. You can copy the texts below. The laws cited in this article are German law and general information, not legal advice, and quotes from German sources are our translations. Austria, Switzerland, the US and Brazil have different rules. The process fits any outage that hits a whole building, so water, elevator or power too.

What the law says when the heating fails

Under § 535(1) BGB, the German Civil Code, the landlord must keep the apartment "in this condition for the term of the lease", meaning in a state where it can be used as agreed. Under § 536c(1) BGB, the tenant must report a defect "without undue delay". For as long as the apartment can only be used to a limited extent, the tenant pays "only an appropriately reduced rent" under § 536(1) BGB.

The BGB doesn't name any temperatures. The German Tenants' Association (Deutscher Mieterbund) writes in its notice on the start of the heating season on October 1, 2026: between 6 a.m. and midnight, the apartment must be able to reach at least 20 to 22 °C (68 to 72 °F), and at night it may drop to about 18 °C (64 °F). If the heating fails in winter, the apartment has a defect. If it can only reach 16 to 18 °C (61 to 64 °F), the rent reduction could be 20 to 30 percent. That is the tenants' view, and there is no fixed table.

For your communication, § 555a(2) BGB is worth a look. Maintenance work must be "announced to the tenant in good time", unless "its immediate performance is imperative". So an emergency repair during a frost can, as a rule, start right away. A boiler replacement planned for the summer, on the other hand, you announce with a date and how long it will take.

The duty to report under § 536c has a consequence you can see on every cold morning: no tenant knows whether the neighbors have already reported the outage. So everyone does. With 24 apartments, that's up to 24 reports about a single problem, and each one is waiting for an answer.

For readers in the US: in New York City, the housing agency HPD requires at least 68 °F (20 °C) during the day (6 a.m. to 10 p.m.) from October 1 to May 31 whenever it's colder than 55 °F (13 °C) outside, and at least 62 °F (17 °C) at night at all times. Other cities have their own rules.

Three messages every affected household should get

During an outage, tenants want to know four things. Does management know? Who's taking care of it? What should I do now? When will I hear from you again? The last question is the one that keeps the phone quiet. Tenants who know the next update is coming at 1 p.m. have little reason to call at 11 a.m.

The templates address tenants in a polite, formal tone. Adjust names, times and tone to your building.

1. The first notice, as soon as you know about the outage

Good morning. The heating at 12 Linden Street has been out since early this morning, and every apartment in the building is affected. We know about it, so there's no need to report it again. Our emergency heating service is booked and will be on site around 10 a.m., so please don't book an emergency service yourself. If you need heat especially urgently, for example because you have a baby, send us a short reply here and we'll contact you first. You'll get the next update here in this chat by 1 p.m.

Name the street and house number. If the building next door has its own heating, its tenants know right away that the message isn't meant for them. And stick to the time you gave for the next update, even if there's nothing new. "No news yet, the technician is still looking" is an update.

2. The progress update

Heating update for 12 Linden Street: the technician has found the cause, the circulation pump is broken. The new pump will be delivered tomorrow around 9 a.m., and fitting it takes about 2 hours after that. By 6 p.m. today, we'll bring fan heaters to every household that has contacted us. You'll get the next update by noon tomorrow.

Write what you know for sure: "Pump broken, delivery tomorrow at 9 a.m." says more than "warm again soon". Answer questions about rent reductions one by one, in each tenant's own chat. They don't belong in the message to everyone, because every case is different.

3. The all-clear

The heating at 12 Linden Street has been running again since 11:20 a.m. It may take a few hours until every apartment is warm. If one of your radiators is still cold this evening, please reply here and we'll send the technician back. Thank you for your patience.

Where notices, group emails and WhatsApp groups fall short

A notice in the stairwell only reaches people who walk past it. A group email only reaches the tenants whose email address is on file. A WhatsApp group for the whole building quickly turns into a debate among 24 households, and the actual update gets lost between the comments.

On top of that, the tenants have already gotten in touch, each in their own way. Mrs. Yilmaz on WhatsApp, Mr. Brandt by email, the roommates on the 3rd floor through the chat on your website. That exact chat is where each of them is waiting for an answer, so that's where the update should land. And in the evening, you want to know who got it and who didn't.

How it works with a tracker in Deskwoot

In Deskwoot, the tool for this is called a tracker. It bundles one problem that many customers have at the same time, like a heating outage in one building. Tenants never see the tracker. They only get your message in their own chat. Using 12 Linden Street as the example:

1. In the Trackers folder, create a new tracker, for example "Heating out at 12 Linden Street". Select the chats that have already come in while you create it.
2. Anyone who writes later gets added too. Select several chats in the chat list and click "Link to tracker", or link a single chat from its Details.
3. The "Affected customers" table shows every linked tenant with their channel, status and the last update.
4. Under "Update linked customers", you write the update once. Before you send it, the preview shows how many tenants will get it and who won't be reached, each with the reason.
5. Each tenant gets the update once, in their own chat and on the channel they wrote on. An email goes out in the same thread. None of the chats gets reassigned along the way.

After sending, the "Last update" column shows for each household what the channel reported: Sending, Sent, Delivered, Read or Not delivered. On WhatsApp, this usually tells you who has already read the update. If a send stops partway, send it again, and only the tenants who are still missing it get the message. Nobody gets it twice.

Once the heating is back on, click "Resolve with all linked". The "Last message to all customers" field is optional and exactly the place for the all-clear. After that, the tracker and all linked chats are resolved. One detail tenants will notice: a chat linked to an open tracker only sends its satisfaction survey once the tracker is resolved. Nobody gets asked how satisfied they were while their apartment is still cold.

You should know the limits. An update is plain text, so photos and files can't go out with it. A tracker updates or resolves at most 500 chats at a time, and one person can send at most 10 updates per minute. For a large housing complex, it's best to create one tracker per building or heating circuit, which keeps things clearer anyway. And a tracker only reaches tenants you already have a chat with, which usually means the ones who got in touch. For everyone else, there's still the notice in the stairwell. All the steps are in the help article Update every affected customer at once.

Tickets and trackers come with the Enterprise plan for $12 per agent per month, or $9.60 billed yearly. An admin turns them on or off under Settings > Tickets. New workspaces get 7 days of Enterprise for free, with no credit card and up to 5 seats (pricing).

WhatsApp and the 24 hours: who doesn't get the update

When an outage lasts several days, a WhatsApp rule comes into play. According to Meta, every message from a customer opens a customer service window of 24 hours. Only while it's open can a business send free text. After that, only templates Meta has approved beforehand go through.

A tracker never sends updates as a template. If Mrs. Yilmaz wrote on Monday at 7:05 a.m. and not since, updates reach her until Tuesday at 7:05 a.m. For the update at midday on Tuesday, the preview lists her under "Not reached", and afterwards the table says: "Not sent: the channel's reply window is closed". Three things help:

• Give tenants a real reason to reply in your updates, like "Do you need heat especially urgently?" or "Is your apartment warm again?". Every reply from a tenant opens the 24 hours again.
• For anyone who wasn't reached, send a template Meta has approved in their own chat (Send WhatsApp templates after the 24 hour window). You create the template beforehand in Meta's WhatsApp Manager. WhatsApp numbers connected through Twilio don't send templates in Deskwoot, so there the tenant has to write first.
• Email and SMS don't have this window. Anyone who wrote by email gets every update in their thread.

On costs, again according to Meta's pricing page: service messages are free text inside the open window, and that includes your updates. Since October 1, 2026, each business number gets 1,000 delivered service messages a month for free, and from the 1,001st on, Meta charges for them according to its price list. For them to keep being delivered after that, the Meta account needs a payment method in Billing Hub. Three updates to 24 households on WhatsApp come to 72 messages, on top of your other replies that month. Meta also charges for templates according to its price list. How several people on a team can work one WhatsApp number together is covered in WhatsApp Business with multiple users.

Before next winter

• Put up an emergency number in the stairwell that someone really answers at night, along with the WhatsApp number or email address for reporting problems. What happens otherwise is in the Munich motion above.
• Save the three texts as canned responses somewhere you can find them within a minute at 6:40 a.m.
• Get a short WhatsApp template for outages approved by Meta now. In January, you won't have time for it.
• When tenants move in, ask how they want to be told about outages, and write it down.
• Decide who on the team writes the updates during an outage and how often, for example every 4 hours during the day.

You'll find what else Deskwoot can do for the real estate industry on the real estate page. If you want to try trackers, create a workspace and use the 7 trial days to rehearse an outage with your team and a few test chats, ideally while the heating still works.