How eco-friendly are you?

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

How eco-friendly are you?

Eco-friendly.png

 

Hello everyone,


I hope you're all having a great week!

 

Today I want to talk about things that you do to be eco-friendly in your home. Perhaps you own solar panels? Or maybe you have a smart home so that you can control everything at your convenience?

 

I think that the first step is to turn off the lights in places that are not in use. I believe that most of us know how to save energy and why we should do that. As a host, you can also encourage your guests not to waste energy.

 

Usually, I use the 'eco' setting when using the washing machine and also turn off the lights, where possible, but even I sometimes forget! 

 

What do you do to save energy? 

 

I would love to hear your ideas!

 

Thank you - light bulb.png

 

 

 

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43 Replies 43
Ria16
Level 10
Northland, New Zealand

KiaOra
My favourite kind of thread as I try to embrace everything to minimise my footsteps on this green earth of ours.
Love my solar panels and even more love the low electricity bills despite the number of guests coming through.
I don’t have a dryer and so depend on sunny days to get the washing dry and on those rainy days I have a washing line in the garage which works well.
The dishwasher has an Eco setting.
I have sensor lights in the hallways and on the outside entrance and all the lightbulbs are eco friendly
I leave a couple of reusable mugs in my guest half in case they want to take them down to the local cafes along with a couple of cloth bags for shopping.
Just started to make my own cleaning products although havnt really found an alternative to bleach?
Love opshopping and snap up some great bargains with cotton clothing ;)it’s always best to cover up in our powerful sun but be cool as well
I still have a long way to go though. I would love an electric car. Maybe next year huh?

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Wow, it's great to see that you are so conscious @Ria16! It's funny that you mentioned sensors as we have them installed at our door entrance. I think I have LED bulbs pretty much everywhere in the house except the living room. They say that electric cars are the future and I must say that I've seen some very cool electric cars from Tesla. 

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Ria16
Level 10
Northland, New Zealand

I sing this all the time to the Janis Joplin song 

oh lawd won’t you buy me a Tesla car 

My friends have Nissan leafs that I watch from a far

ive worked all my life with no,help from my Pa

oh lawd won’t you buy me a Tesla car

Marit-Anne0
Level 10
Bergen, Norway

Huh - the question is - how do your guests behave.  Just had my steepest electricity bill ever !!

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Oh no, @Marit-Anne0 :-(. 

I really hope this won't happen again to you! 

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I'm with @Marit-Anne0 on this one.  As hosts who are responsible for the utility bills, we do conserve.

The very act of hosts sharing their home reduces per person utility costs.

 

The important questsion is how do we gracefully get our guests to conserve?  They are the wild card.

How do we get our guests to conserve without getting a poor review or a revenge review?

 

I just got a wifi thermostat. I love/hate it.  Last night before bedtime, I texted guest asking "I'm concerned about the fireplace being on so long. Would you mind turning off the gas fireplace? "  Her reply "I'll turn it off before I can to bed. It is cold in the house"

It was 77 degrees in the house! It had been 77 degrees for two hours! By lying to me, guest wanted me to know that I was bothering her.  I do not look forward to the review.

As Airbnb hosts we could do a lot of good for the world.  But we need Airbnb's leadership.  Will Airbnb support hosts if we "out" our guests' poor stewardship? How can Airbnb help guests to understand that metering efforts by hosts are not "mean"? 

 

 

@Paul154, it's probable, that the guest is not lying, but feels cold. 

1. There is a problem with electronic thermometers: their functionning produces a bit of warmth, more so if they are on wifi, so they are always showing higher temperatures. If the sensor for the heating or the thermometer itself is close to the source of heat, they are fooled. If the radiator is somewhat cofined and has the sensor on the radiator, not on the other side of the room, it's rather far off the mark. My new fancy radiators are only correct with certain temprature levels outside. I start with setting them to 20 /18 C. As it gets colder, they are now at 21 / 18,5 (18,5 being the highest night level). During the winter, that goes on to me manually switching up and down on the day level and if it's really bad, the radiator may believe it's producing 26 C, when the old fashioned thermometers show 20. 

The guest may feel cold being sick or not moving a lot or sitting around in a t-shirt in winter. If I come accross that with my inhouse guests, I lecture them a bit, may even plant a malicious seed, that feeling contantly cold is something to be checked with a doctor. And offer a warm jacket to wear 😉 

If you rent a full unit, you could put a limit on electricity consumption, especially, if they can check the meter themselves. I give them an average consumption of last year for the period and write in the contract, that they have to pay, what is over 150 % of the average. With a few rules how to keep the consumption down. Since I do that, I did not even have to check more than by a short look on the meter - doors seem to close themselves now, hot baths must be fewer and showers shorter 😉 

I do a lot of one night stays in a shared place.  The guests may set their ow temperature for the night and adapt it as they wish. I tolerate everything between 18 and 24 C, but get into discussions, when they want to have it colder than 17  C / 62 F and switch off the heating and open the door wide, when it's over 25 / 77. I don't want to take my shower in a very cold bathroom and I can't prepare breakfast suffocating. But it happens a few times a month to have such extremes one after the other.

 

@Quincy

Henry and I, we have solar panels and can monitor temp settings and lights on/off remotely thru an app on our phone. We do the basics - reuse towels a few times, do full loads of laundry, air/sun dry laundry ( we don't have a dryer), set indoor temps at a moderate level, make the effort to conserve water use during showers and when doing the dishes, use energy efficient appliances, turn unnecessary lights off. With the exception of my current guest, all other guests have been great - we saw minimal increase in our utilities bill. With our current guest our water bill is nearly double probably from the teeny tiny loads of laundry he does at a full load setting every 3 days. No matter what we say or do, he just won't set it at small load. So whenever we're home, and the guest is doing laundry we just go and change the setting. Still, 7~8 items every 3 days is IMHO totally crazy. 

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hey @Jessica-and-Henry0!

Having solar panels is very efficient, I'd love to have them as well to save some costs on the energy bill. Most appliances in my home have a good energy rating and have one of these labels* on them. It's a shame your guest is only doing tiny washes; I'm not a big fan of that either as I do full loads only. 

Let's hope your bill won't be too high! 

 

*Energy rating label

energy label.jpg

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Joyce81
Level 2
Brecksville, OH

One of my favorite topics as well. I manage energy and sustainability for a large real estate company and I’m also a new SuperHost so I enjoy finding ways to utilize the knowledge I have in my professional life and infuse it into my personal life. In addition to all LED lights and energy efficient windows, I recently began updating my home with WiFi enabled smart outlets so I can control most of the lights with a phone App. After a guest leaves, I can turn off plug load remotely and set back the HVAC 

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

Hello @Joyce81,

Nice to meet you. 

This sounds amazing! I've always sort of wanted a smart home just like yours and @Jessica-and-Henry0's. I've once stayed at an Airbnb in Norway who also had a smart home, and I could tell it's some really nice technology to have!

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Agree with you.

Branka-and-Silvia0
Level 10
Zagreb, Croatia

uh @Quincy ... one small digression.... aren't you impressed by packaging nowadays ? Imagine your plane crash and you end up like Robinson on deserted island... and one day the waves flood a package of IKEA knives to the beach... you would need a month to bite through plastic package with your teeth .... if you wouldn't die of hunger until then 😛

 

knives

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quincy
Community Manager
Community Manager
London, United Kingdom

@Branka-and-Silvia0 this made me laugh :-). I hope this will never happen, but you never know—luckily I've had some survival training a couple of years ago!

 

Have you heard of the Great Pacific garbage patch

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