One of the major frustrations with hosting is guest wastage. They are paying for it so they make sure they get value. Almost every guest will try our cheese plate, there may be a couple of cheeses on there that aren't to their liking so they will just slice or nibble a bit off and re-wrap the cheese, but it ruins those cheeses for the next guest......wastage.
They will take a 40 minute shower......wastage.
My main headache was the use of electricity! They will come in on a cold day, put their things down and go out for the day and the evening.....but only after they have wound the air-conditioning thermostat up as far as it will go so they have a nice comfy warm environment to come back to!! I had one couple from Singapore on a warm evening slept all night with the thermostat on 17c (62f) so they could experience what it was like to sleep under a doona!
I tried all sorts of gadgets, inventions, devices to try and thwart them, I even had a sensor on the cottage key-ring that would turn the air-con off when they left the property. We were experiencing energy pain. Here was one of our winter quarter (90 day) power bills......
We were in power shock......$18 per day just for electricity and none of my energy saving devices were working effectively! The guest got snippy if we tried restrict what they were paying for, we were being seen as 'cheap skates'!
We put in a self supporting solar array and a small battery and wow, did we turn the corner. Here was our October/January quarter bill for 2018 before we upgraded......
And here is our current account for the same quarter.......
We have changed suppliers but they are all similar, we have gone from a bill of $621 for the quarter to having a credit of $91.60 to help offset the less productive winter quarters . We have averaged a saving of around $700 per quarter for the last 5 quarters which means the system paid for itself in not much more than a year. I don't give a 'proverbial' how much energy guests use now, it doesn't come out of my pocket any more, and guests do appreciate the fact that they can be environmental vandals if they want to!
If I had charged another $20 per night to offset my energy costs my future bookings would have probably struggled so, solar is a path I would thoroughly recommend to other hosts.
Cheers.........Rob