Question for the rental owners... Charging for aircon/heating?
As energy prices go up, I'm looking at the best way to both minimise my exposure to guests who take the Micheal when it comes to using the aircon and being fair to guests who use it responsibly.
1. My options seem to be to monitor all aircon usage and charge accordingly. Either by way of a metre or coin-operated system.
2. Install motion sensors. So it's only on when people are in the room.
3. Put timers on all units, so they only stay on for a given period of time.
Option 3 I'm not keen on, as it'll just annoy people. Option 2, in theory, will work but won't cover the plonkers who fire the aircon to the max and sit in all day with the windows and doors open. So I'm leaning towards option 1.
To give this some context: If a guest puts all the aircon on full power all day, I'm going to get hit with about a 20e a day bill, so I just can't suck it up. And it's unfair to add this to the daily rate.
I realise this is only becoming an issue for people now, but I suspect many hosts like me are thinking the same and wondering what to do. So I'd welcome any input on this from hosts as well as guests.
Although I will say to guests: I get that you just won't want to pay for aircon and so will just rent somewhere else, but I suspect before long, all hosts are going to be doing something creative to cover the cost of aircon, so your choices will diminish.
As a side note, I'm wondering what the rules are on this? I know aircon is no longer a condition of getting a rental licence, but fixed heating is. As most aircon units do both (cooling and heating), I'm wondering do the regs say anything about not being able to charge for aircon, and so by default, heating?
I've read and re-read them, and while I can see nothing saying this, my Spanish is not the greatest. Plus we all know the regs are opaque at the best of times! So comments on this welcome too.
Thanks.