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We are very excited that we had our first 2 groups of guests last weekend, and even received another review (its been 1 week and the first guest hasn’t left one so we are pretty bummed).
We did notice a trend with both groups of guests, complete disregard for energy consumption. I did realize that I am the same exact way when I stay in a hotel. I always figured that I would just keep the AC cranked even when I am not in the room because I am paying for the hotel, so why not.
I was cringing when I heard the central AC going while guests were out. At one point they were gone for about 12 hours with the AC going. I decided to get 2 nest thermostats as the guest house has 2 zones. After some annoying troubleshooting with damper wiring, etc. I got the thermostats working and I am blown away at how awesome it is that I can control both the AC and oil boiler through my phone without having to enter the building. What an amazing invention!
I really like the function of “auto away” but I had a few concerns about it and was hoping you all could give me some tips as to how you deal with this. Auto away sounds great, but different guests have different habits, and since Nest “learns”, isn’t this a useless feature for hosts? What I would like is for both nests to shut down the utilities when there is no motion in the house, but with a cap, so that if the ambient temp goes about say, 72 degrees in the summer, it will turn the AC back on regardless of no motion. Also, I don’t want the nest to turn off at night when there is no motion because I myself cannot sleep at night unless it’s ICE cold. I would hate to have my guests wake up uncomfortable in the middle of the night.
We have one heating pump that is giving heat to both floor. Is it possible to have a nest that is controlling the radiator of one of the floor so I can turning off the radiator of one floor and not the other one?
Yes, you could certainly do that but you will need an HVAC person to install a second zone to your system which will include a second pump. It will be expensive to do if you can’t do it yourself.
Also… another alternative is to install a thermostatic valve onto your radiators but this only works if you have radiators that accept them, such as Buderus. This would allow you to control individual radiators, rather than have them all heat at the same time.
We can have valve so thanks a lot for your idea.
It will be soon the Yale lock system that is link with Nest. It can be a good combo like guest is coming, setting the code and the same time it’s make quickly warmer in the appartment-
In Sweden, our biggest problem is the winter where it’s costing a lot to warm the place and tourists wants sometimes to feel like in a sauna.
Haha, Yes I understand about wanting to use too much heat. You should buy some of the valves, they only cost about $30 - 50 and can save you a LOT of money… Some valves also are on WIFI so you can control them from your phone.
We LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE (did I mention LOVE) our Nest thermostats, fire/carbon monoxide detector.
However, there is a learning curve when it comes to Nest in a rental unit, you hit the nail on the head with the ‘learning function’. Go into the app and check ‘schedule’ this is the auto learnt schedule, and is completely useless. Delete all of the points where the Nest thinks you want your Ac/Heat turned on and off. You should check this periodically as it sometimes re-learns, I check every month or so. You can turn ‘learning’ off in settings mode on the app, but I still check the schedule just to be sure.
Our Nest knows we are asleep and continues to make sure the temperature we selected is constantly met throughout the night. We hear the Ac/hear go on accordingly.
I also really love to spy on my guests and see what they have cranked the heat up to or AC down to. I have not remotely changed it, yet, but we had one group put the heat into the 90s when it was 70 outside!
Wow!! Excellent info. I am going to have to turn off the learning and figure out how to lock it. Haha. That is crazy. Why would anyone put the heat up to 90!!? I don’t even intend on keeping the heating boiler on during the warm months because it doesn’t make sense to use oil when its summer but that could possibly upset guests… hmm. I don’t know what to do! haha.
I use a nest thermostat in a few of my listings, and I love it. I don’t use “nest sense” but rather I program the thermostat by schedule. So for example I will have it kick on the AC from 7am to 10am, then push the temperature to 75f, then have it kick back to 69f from 7-10pm, then for sleeping at 72f from 10pm to 7am. The unit is then locked.
When people check in, I tell them that the temperature is set by schedule and the unit is controlled by me, and to let me know if they are too hot or too cold.
If people are super annoying about contacting me every 5 minutes to change the temperature, then I just allow them access and let them at it, but check to make sure that it’s not blasting cold air all day to an empty house.
I just locked both of mine to a lowest setting of 66 and a high of 78. I also turned off the nest sense auto schedule. Now if Auto Away actually works then it should be a major energy saver. Not to mention it will be pretty cool to see what temp people are setting them to. haha.
I found the schedule was a waste of energy for our particular hosting situation, as our weather here is slightly bipolar and there is no way to determine if Monday will be 80+ or sub 50. I’m excited for this lock feature, I will report back if there are any issues. We have three back to back groups over the next 14 days.
I installed these auto bleeder valves on my radiators. Bleeding the radiators twice a year can be a pain. These just remove the air from the pipes automatically which in turn makes the radiators more efficient. Saving money in the long run. I have the thermostatic valves too. I don’t have nest but I have heard good things about it.
They should all work. All the valves do is regulate the hot water entering the radiator. I have manual ones i set the number between 0 and 5. Most of my rooms are set at 1 or 2 which means they will put hot water in the radiator if the temperature of the room falls below 20c. Keep in mind this doesn’t switch the heating on by itself. It runs of the thermostat control still.
You can get programable ones too but I don’t know if any are controlled by nest.
You can also install a thermostat-controlled damper for the unit. This will allow you to direct heating or cooling to the zone that requires it without having it push that air to the whole house. It doesn’t require an addition hvac unit/blower.
Let me explain our situation, we have one house that has been separate in two appartments (each floor) and only one boiler.
We have only thermostatic valves, how should we do if you would like to get different systems for each floor ?
One of the appartment is for guests and we live in the other one.
