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So I just now received word that our water boiler will undergo maintenance that will eliminate hot water for eight hours on this coming Friday, 8:30 am -4:30 pm.
I have instant booking, and just updated my listing to say prominently at the front to communicate this.
Is that enough? Or should I block the date on my calendar?
I ask because to some people it might not matter, but of course to others it might.
This is a very slow time for us and I’d like to avoid losing a booking for multiple days if the lack of hot water for eight hours doesn’t matter.
By the way, while technically the boiler is not a tankless water heater it is like it in that once started it generates hot water virtually instantly. So there’s no issue about there being hot water Friday evening. The maintenance firm actually thinks it will not take them eight hours to do the maintenance.
Yes, As long a guests know about what’s going on, they should be fine about it.
I’ve had several occasions when emergency repairs by te city have resulted in no water at all for similar hours to those you mentioned.
Every time, because they were emergencies, there was almost no notice to me, therefore only a few minutes’ notice for the guests. In every case I went to inform them with a bucket of water (for loo flushing purposes) and several large bottles of drinking water.
We all handle this in a different way according to our own business instincts.
Our property is always set at seven days minimum… so I would put a notice like you did AND set the price for the cold-water day at $0. My own instinct is when there is a problem to overwhelm the guest with over-the-top magnanimous, generous offsets (a reflex I learned staying at the Four Seasons Hotel chain when I used to travel frequently for business).
You could set minimum stay for that day at more than one day… so nobody gets their entire stay for free. It makes it very unlikely that anyone will have a complaint, and it ensures you are not cutting yourself off from multiple-day bookings.
My experience with less-than-ideal situations (no hot water for 8 hours, allowing “one too many” guests to crowd up the joint) is that sometimes the guest says “No prob” but then the frustration makes their stay less than ideal (or someone else in their party complains to them) and this affects their mood when review time comes, even if that’s not really fair… like someone telling a restaurant hostess “we don’t mind sitting beside the busy kitchen door” and a half an hour later they skip desert and leave a lousy tip because “this isn’t much fun”
I think it’s dependent somewhat on how long the booking is for. Sparks has a 7 day minimum, so he feels it’s in his best interests to refund an entire day for an amenity that is not available. But if it were just a one or two night booking, that seems overly generous to me for no hot water for a maximum of 8 hrs, during the day when guests may be out and about anyway, not hanging around the house taking hot showers and washing dishes.
If there’s a dishwasher, there wouldn’t likely be enough dishes just from breakfast that day to warrant turning on the dishwasher until after dinner anyway. And if everyone showers the night before, knowing there won’t be hot water in the morning, there’s really hardly any inconvenience at all.
A reasonable discount to me would be 25% of the day. Guests are still using other amenities and utilities and still have the accommodation to use. (Personally if I were a guest, I wouldn’t expect the host to discount for this situation at all, as long as I had been informed of it ahead of time, offered the choice to cancel with full refund, and agreed that it wasn’t any deal breaker for me)
I wouldn’t either and I’ve never discounted when we’ve had water problems.
Another factor though, is where you are in the world. Because I have a good amount of tourists, they are out and about anyway.
And because of our almost permanent great weather a guest who badly needs a shower can have a swim in the ocean and use one of the beach showers afterwards,
For about 5 months of the year I don’t even turn on my hot water tank- the water that is gravity fed into my house from the big black tank that is baking in the sun on the roof is often warmer than one wants it when the weather is hot and humid.
You have done enough. Most of my guest do not need hot water between those times.
And it will probably not be out for 8 ours, normally maintenance does not take that long. They just mean it will be out for some time between 8:30 and 4:30.
They’re replacing the vent, the acid neutralizer, then doing maintenance that requires disassembly, and finally diagnosing if they can wire differently to give priority to bathroom shower vs hydronic heating. They thought it would take almost a day. I believe them.
I agree with you that most guests won’t need hot water then but if you slept in you might.
As we all know, guests don’t always read the listing so I would make sure if you get a booking to remind the guest in message right after booking about the emergency water hot water fix while your guest is in the free cancellation period.
Normally, I’m not one to say to discount but for me, anytime that I have an issue with heat/hot water, depending on how long it’s unavailable, I do provide a participial discount.
You could just set up your check-in time for 4.30 or after, so then there’s no issue. But if they want to come on Thursday, you have to tell them in the description, RULES, manual, everywhere.
