Locking the thermostat?

1

Is that overkill? If it’s left at a fair temperature and off in the spring/early fall. Does anyone do this?

Ex:
Winger months - 65 with extra blankets on bed and space heater if needed.
Summer months - 78 with ceiling fans in every room

Off when the temperature is between 60 and 75

2

Hello Hudson1

I am struggling with similar issue, and a killer electric bill after guests leaving AC on 24/7. My guests have a controller so what I’ve done is limited the upper and lower temp and posted very clear instructions for best energy practices right next to the controller, with the hope that they will read it. I know many won’t read or don’t care. So I grin and bear it when the bill comes.
Do you have air conditioning/heating listed as an amenity? If so I don’t think you can take it away at times. Also just my opinion but I would be freezing at 65 degrees !! Not sure if a space heater would make enough difference, is it a whole house or just a room?

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Got a message from my current around 10am this morning that the WiFi wasn’t working. I responded about 30 min later and saw that they were gone, so I asked if it was OK if I went in and fixed it while they were away and they said no problem they would be back at 5pm. I walked in at 3pm and the house was freezing. A/C on and thermostat set to 68F.

I think I’m going to look into smart thermostats.

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I agree about the 65F being cold! Now that I’m over age 60, I get colder so at 70F, I’m still often wearing a thick sweater!

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Increased utility bills are all part of hosting, but generally speaking a proportion of them can be offset against your tax bill.

There are a number of solutions available to reduce costs, without the guest feeling like they’re being monitored or regulated for their heat/AC usage:

http://www.ecosense.uk.com/eco-remote-plus

JF

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and then you go on to say 65 w/extra blankets & space heater/78 with ceiling fans

That’s ALWAYS the problem – what is a “Fair Temperature”.

I live in southwest Florida, and if I’m coming to your place in winter and you’ve got the temp at 65F, that’s not “fair” temperature – that’s damn chilly, by my standards. You bet I’m gonna want extra blankets and a space heater! Your summer temps are fine as we keep the place here at 78-79 pretty much year around.

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I have EcoBee thermostat and I can adjust it from my phone, I rarely do but I have. Once I checked it at 930 at night and the heat was set at 84, uhm no. I reset it to a warmer than I like 70 and monitored it for the rest of the stay.

RR

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Many of the smart thermostats allow you to set an allowable range. People like temps how they like them, so this solution seems ideal to me - it gives some control while ensuring you don’t come home to AC set at 63 or heat at 85.

Guests can’t access my thermostat and their second story suite stays hotter in summer and colder in winter. I set the temps where I like them (67 in winter, 73 in summer) and the guests have window AC units and space heaters to fine tune things to their liking.

This doesn’t stop them from running the AC units at 65F in the summer, but I’d drive myself nuts trying to micromanage that.

9

You can get thermostat plugs for air conditioners and glue the plug for the air conditioner into that. Inkbird C929 for example. You can remotely control the setting so if you know your guests have left the building and left the A/C at 65 degrees you can turn it up to 75 or something. Same for the space heaters.

I agree, yes its a lot to manage so I just removed my space heaters and air conditioners. I had too many problems with guests abusing it and running them to unreasonable temps. One guest got the room up to 90 degrees with a little electric space heater and it dried out the room so bad that the walls cracked in one corner. My building just isn’t designed to handle that large of a temperature shift.

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@Mexican I certainly hope that was indicated in the review!