What do you consider as over use of air-conditioning?

Answered!
Jan332
Level 1
Cairns, Australia

What do you consider as over use of air-conditioning?

I am interested in hearing about other host's experiences with air-conditioning. 

 

Each of my two guest rooms has ceiling fans and an air-conditioning unit in the room.  I have fans on all through the house, a lovely cool pool to jump into and pleasant breezes on the back deck.  Most of my guests use the entire house and make use of all of these alternatives to constant air conditioning use, but ..... what do I do about the ones that stay in their room with the air-con on all day, not even bothering to switch it off when they come out to prepare a meal? 

 

My assumption when I started Airbnb was that my guests would be tourists who are busy in the daytime exploring the region, and so would only be at home in the evening and early morning when it's cooler anyway.  How wrong I have been!   So what do I do?  Hold the remote and charge for aircon use?   Put up my room charges for summer to try to cover the costs?  Feeling stressed that with all the overheads, I'm not actually making any money right now.       

 

Jan

1 Best Answer
Gillian19
Level 10
St Leonards, Australia

@Jan332 Hi Jan, there is a product available in Australia called airconoff. This turns off the aircon in 10 minutes if no movement is detected. You can also have an extra sensor that turns it off in 3 minutes if a monitored door or window is left open. It's brilliant. Stops the problem of aircon just being left on....It was wasy for the aircon guys to install and well worth it. Check it out. Cheers Gillian

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17 Replies 17
Gillian19
Level 10
St Leonards, Australia

@Jan332 Hi Jan, there is a product available in Australia called airconoff. This turns off the aircon in 10 minutes if no movement is detected. You can also have an extra sensor that turns it off in 3 minutes if a monitored door or window is left open. It's brilliant. Stops the problem of aircon just being left on....It was wasy for the aircon guys to install and well worth it. Check it out. Cheers Gillian

Thanks so much Gillian.  That sounds great. Will look into it.    Now just have the problem of how to get them out of the bedroom so they are not using aircon all day!

Gillian19
Level 10
St Leonards, Australia

@Jan332 Well if they are just sitting around and not moving it wil turn off - then they might get the hint!! I can't understand why anyone would come to Cairns and then stay in their room. Maybe you need to only take guests who are clearly in Carins to go sightseeing?

Stephanie365
Level 10
Fredericksburg, VA

I am in the US, but the summer can be oppressive with the humidity in Virginia. I had two different guests turn the AC down to 60 degrees (15* C) freezing the unit up. I put a lock box on the thermostat with a note saying that "The thermostat is for the whole house, not just the apartment. As everyone has different preferences, please let me know if you'd like the temperature adjusted by a few degrees." 

So far, no complaints and no frozen AC units.

 

@Jan332

I suggest you find a way to limit temp settings by guests - my understanding is there are several types of devices that can help you do this. I have a private room (shared home) listing so Henry and I have full control over the centrally controlled heating and AC. It's controlled from a touchscreen panel on our living room wall or thru an app on our phones and we've set a passcode for access to the panel 🙂 We also charge a slightly higher rate for 1 month in the summer because of our electricity bill from the extened AC+dehumidifier usage. 

Fred13
Level 10
Placencia, Belize

What @Jessica-and-Henry0 said is the best and most pragmatic solution; physically limit the temperature (say no lower than 68 degrees) to prevent some air-conditioning 'freak' to try to make ice in your rented room. 😉

Linda108
Level 10
La Quinta, CA

People travel for many different reasons, @Jan332 so I don't think you can make a rule that requires the guest to be out of the room they are paying for because that is what you expect.  If the guest staying in the room all day really bothers you besides the air conditioning cost increase, perhaps you can tweak your description to emphasize all the surrounding activities to be attractive to guests you expect.  Also, do not use Instant Booking, but have a "conversation" with the potential guest about what brings them to the area and discourage or do not accept guests that are coming to your home to "chill" (ok, that is a bad pun :P).

Not usre IB would make a ny difference, I had a gues recently going skiing, that usuall means gone dawn till dusk.

 

I am 45 minutes drive from the ski area, park walk to lift etc and he was gone 4 hours a day.

 

When I cleaned his room the heat was set at 72F, fortunately my smallest room.

 

If it is hitting your bottom line charge more.

David
Jan332
Level 1
Cairns, Australia

Many thanks everyone for yor helpful advice.  I can see I have many options.  Personally I don't mind if guests come to my house to "chill" - I always suggest that they use the cooler areas in the house like the back deck where there's usually a cool breeze, and the pool which is always available.  I also encourage them to open their bedroom windows and turn on the ceiling fan.  I guess I just can't convince everyone to do these things - switching on an aircon is an easy alternative. 

Have really appreciated having this discussion room and reading your suggestions. 

 

                   Regards,  Jan

I don’t  know if you could do this but could you limit the number of hours they can use the air conditioner.  Say 7 hours a day which would cover sleeping time and charging extra if they go over that?  I know campgrounds won’t allow RVs to run their air all day because it’s so expensive so I wonder if that would work.  Put a lock on the unit.  

As a landlord I stressed about heating and cooling usage for years, trying to affect bahaivor.  It's just too hard and your guests won't like it.  

 

Insulate your house, buy more efficient equipement, install smart thermostats with temperature limts.  

 

At the end of the day, your out of pocket won't change much more than a dollar or so per room.

Roxanne73
Level 2
Tampa, FL

Hi Jan,

 

I purchased a remote from Aircon off.  They are sold in Australia and it's great.  You can choose the temp you want to be the lowest setting and also, you have an infrared light that works to turn off the AC when the room is no longer occupied.

 

https://www.airconoff.com.au/

Could use help here. I have two guests in rooms. The acs were installed June 1. We haven't had a day over 19c, and nights are 15c. But both of them have the ac on! I spoke to both of them. These are low priced units and I have never had this problem before. 

 

 

 

Same! They using 24/7

Wen rules clearly state

Anytime son up

Or if.over 25nigts