Sense, as stated in my post.
That is very costly. Will have to budget for the next year.
Thanks for sharing.
When I got my first few I was able to get a military discount but they no longer offer that so I got the most recent one through Amazon and got 5% back w my credit card that has that cash back category for the quarter.
You might look into others that may be cheaper.
@BelBo A simple, no cost way to determine how much energy is consumed by a guest, is to take a photo of your electrical meter reading when a guest checks in, and just before they check out. Then compare the usage compared to your normal usage.
Aside from AC, the biggest energy sucks are small appliances which heat up very hot quickly- toasters, toaster ovens, irons, hair dryers, curling irons, etc.
Every host is going to have the occasional guest who costs more than other guests - those who ramp up the heating or overuse the AC or have several hot showers every day. (Or crack a window or bung up the loo or something else thatâs going to cost youâŚ)
Itâs going to happen. The only way to deal with this is to make sure that you charge enough. Divide your annual electricity by your projected number of nights occupied.
I donât have any evidence but I suspect that the main reason some hosts just give up on this job is because they arenât making money. Accurate expense costing is so important, even more so when youâre doing long-term.
Most of my guests stay for a few days only so If I get someone who is heavy on the utilities, they donât have much time to run up the bills. 
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Definitely short term rentals tend to balance out as far as some guests costing the host more than others. But if hosts have a guest who stays for a month or more, and they are wasteful with energy consumption, that isnât going to balance out as easily.
Although I homeshare, there are guests I barely see- they are out and about all day, eat out instead of cooking in my shared kitchen, and may come home late and go to sleep soon after, so they arenât even using much electric light. I left my most recent guest 2 full rolls of toilet paper for 4 nights and she barely used any off the first roll. I left her 2 bath towels, a hand towel and a washcloth, and she only used one bath towel and the hand towel.
Others work online, are home a lot, cook at home, and manage to go through 2 full rolls of TP a week, and all the towels I give them. It really does feel like it balances out.
If I were going to take month+ bookings, I might do something like the OP had in mind- a reasonable # of Kwh per month included in the nightly rate, with anything exceeding that the guestâs responsibility to pay. Especially since most hosts give some kind of discount on month+ bookings.
Lots of hosts only provide a starter pack of amenities like TP, paper towels, laundry and dish soap for longer term bookings, with the guest having to buy their own when the âfreeâ stuff runs out, and excess utility usage seems to me like the same sort of thing.
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This works only to find out the total amount and only after the fact. The energy monitor can give real time alerts.
Another big energy suck is the water heater. I once had a guest who turned the hot water on in the shower and then claimed he couldnât turn it offâŚI ended up having to leave work in the middle of the day and drove over a half hour to get to the house to turn it off for him. He was wasting water as well (I didnât have a well so paid for every gallon).
I have since acquired smart water heater monitors/controllers to also get alerts there (and to be able to turn it off remotely when there are no guests).
Yes, I realized that, I just suggested the meter readings as the OP said they couldnât afford the monitor at this time.
Reading the meter when a guest checks in and before they check out would only tell the host and guest how much extra they would have to pay, if anything. It certainly wouldnât warn the host and guest if the guest was running up a huge bill beforehand, unless the meter was read each day or at regular intervals during the stay.
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Dear BelBo,
Thatâs the way I do it. I live in the house, so maybe itâs easier for me. I usually welcome my guests when they arrive. I take them to their room, show them around different features, and I tell them: you have your own AC, which is pretty nice, right? I would like to ask one thing: when you are going out for the day, would you mind to turn it off?" The answer has ALWAYS been, so far: âOf course, I will turn it off.â Some say: I do this in my own home!" And they usually do it. Sometimes I forget to ask them. Then I go into the room when they are gone, turn the AC OFF. Or, if âtheyâ forget, I turn it off myself. The next day, they usually donât forget.
And if a guest complains to Airbnb about you entering the private room they rented without their permission, Airbnb will suspend your listing.
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Or if the guest misplaces something they can easily say someone entered their room and stole it. Either way itâs a bad idea to enter the room without permission.
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Aside from the possibly bad repercussions for the host if they enter the guest space without permission, itâs just rude, as far as Iâm concerned.
Guests should be able to leave out things they might be embarrassed for someone else to see- sex toys, a personal diary, some dirty underwear, their bi-polar medication, whatever. Or maybe theyâre the messy type who leave clothes and cosmetics strewn all over, but who will leave it all tidy again when they check out.
Itâs called a âPrivate Roomâ for a reason.
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Charging extra for extra usage is a strategy but it doesnât align with your concern the AC working too hard will reduce the life of your unit. Some guests will be âfine, I want AC so Iâll pay extra for it.â Decide which is more importantâŚguestsâ ability to decide temp, or your concern and then go in that direction.
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I can see if guests have the AC way down low. The windows look âfuzzyâ with condensation. Then I can have a conversation.
Does anyone else think that charging for over-usage is nickel-and-diming guests?
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I see. I appreciate your comment, Muddy. If what you say is true, itâs pretty serious.
I research âprivate roomâ on Airbnb and donât see it anywhere. Our rooms are called âRoomsâ, not âprivate rooms.â Would you mind sending me a link where Airbnbâs policy says that Airbnb hosts are not to enter a guest room. I would appreciate if you can do this. I donât find in the Help section of the Airbnb website. I know that Airbnbs are not hotels. However hotels management enter their guests room every day, to clean and to do whatever they would need to do in there. I personally do not like entering my guestsâ rooms at all. But recently I decided to find the way to cut the AC bill. It is part of my House Rules that guests turn off the AC or the space heater when they go out for the day. Again, thank you, Muddy, for taking the time to respond to my post with what could be a serious issue and I hope you can find that Airbnbâs policy. Thank you!
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" * Physical intrusions: Hosts and guests must not access or attempt to access private spaces unless they have permission or there is an emergency.
- In entire-home stays, this applies to the listing itself and its property.
- In shared stays, this applies to shared bathrooms when another person is inside, as well other areas where users have a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a bedroom or private bathroom."
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I think it depends on what the nightly rate is and how excessive the over-usage is.
If someone is just renting a private room in their home for $50 or less a night, and all their guests in the summer are blasting the AC, the AC electricity alone could equal a nightâs fee or more.
But hosts have to find a better way to address over-usage than disrespecting a guestâs privacy by going into their room and turning the AC down or off.
I donât have AC, but if I did, this would be a serious issue for me. Electricity where I live is cheap if you stay below a certain kwh usage, but itâs a tiered rate system and the rate quadruples for all your electricity usage if you go over a certain amount per billing period. Not only that, but once you get into that high tier once, you are charged at that rate for the next 6 months, even if your usage for the following 6 months is way lower. So it could get very pricey.
AC is so expensive to run in Mexico that almost everyone I know who has it either puts in solar power, which is a big expense in itself, or have expensive rentals where the high electricity is factored into the nightly rate.
Iâve spoken to guests who stayed in Airbnbs in Southern European countries (Greece for example) where the listing clearly states that a certain amount of kWhâs per day are considered average and the rate being charged per kWh for going above that. This is particularly important when using an A/C as energy prices in some European countries are significantly higher than in the US and excessive usage of an A/C on a daily basis can eat up your profits in no time there. I believe that some of those accommodations have poor insulation and/or poorly performing A/C units that use more power than high quality models, so they try to protect themselves from loosing too much money. Having an A/C running full blast when a guest is gone is entirely useless and wasteful plus unnecessarily wearing down the unit.
So itâs not just a question of ânickel-and-diming guestsâ, itâs also protective measures to extend the A/Câs lifetime which can be a very costly part once it breaks.
If our guests leave all the lights on in their accommodation (on purpose!) we do not enter to turn them off (although itâs annoying as hell) but if they leave the space heater running in the bathroom for 12 hours straight, we reach out to them to let them know that we will turn this device off for the sake of not wasting anymore energy and prevent any potential damage to the unit.
We got our A/C units installed this year and theyâre all connected to our WiFi so I can see if and how long the unit is running at any given time. Furthermore, I can see their usage during a guestâs stay and the temperatures set. Also, I can turn the unit off if itâs running while the guests are gone, without having to physically enter the accommodation.
As much as every guest has the right to privacy, I also believe that we, as private hosts, do have the right to keep our property in good and safe working condition by not letting careless or forgetful guests run down our (expensive) A/Cs when theyâre not there.
On a side note: Hotels implemented the hotel-key-power-cut system once the guest leaves the room. So why should hotels have the right to ârestrictâ electricity usage down to the time when the guest is actually in the room and weâre not? For me, itâs not about the âinvasion of privacyâ - itâs the right to protect the accommodation.
We explicitly state this in our house rules that we reserve the right to enter the accommodation whenever there is a risk to damage to the property e.g. windows left open during a storm, space heater left running etc.
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I do. But I live in a place with cheap energy rates. I also switched out all the lights for leds, and installed an economical heat/ac system. (Economical to run, not to install!!)
I also live in a place that can support higher prices for strs. My approach is to keep the price as high as my customer base will tolerate, and then do everything I can to make them feel like they got their moneyâs worth.
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Muddy, thank you for going out of your way to find the page. The key: ask permission âŚâand, in case, one morning you are in such a hurry that you forget to turn it off (AC), is it okay if I enter your room and turn it off ? :-)â and everyone is happy!
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