Gas for grill - should I be providing?

[Inna22]

I have a gas grill at one of my places and I I have never provided gas tank for it. It did not even cross my mind. I always viewed it as a disposable I guess. No guest has ever asked. On Sunday morning I received a call at 8 AM from a guest demanding that I bring a tank over.

I looked it up and it is about four dollars to add some to the existing tank and there are three locations within a mile of my house including a grocery store where they would buy the food for grilling. Because I don’t live there, I would not know if it ran out so I feel like committing to providing gas would be unreasonable for my situation.

I’m not able to run over to bring extra midway of someone cooking. I do not say anything about not providing it in my listing though.  Should I begin providing it and keep an extra tank in the garage? Should I say in my listing I’m not providing it and list places to buy in my house book? 

[Denise80]

We host remotely but have a local cleaning lady who is great. We had a spare tank in the shed in case the current tank runs out. Went to make sure it was full and it was gone! And so was the hose. Good greief, who steals a full tank of gas and a hose!

[Inna22]

@Denise80

probably the same people who poured laundry detergent out of my container into their own and left the empty one (pretending they did not do it)

[Robin1158]

@Denise80 and the one who stole all of my nice blankets 🤷‍♀️

[Val4219]

sorry Gay. I will invest in charcoal

[Val4219]

had my bed broken twice. toilet paper stolen...or over consumed.  Used to fill up cabinets with rolls now only provide 1 spare. yes i constantly buy laundry detergent. no more.

[Val4219]

Since raising my price I have had great guests but now and then someone surprises me.  I wouldn't take the chance with gas grill. its an unsupervised stand-alone house.  Now I think of it, I will invest in additional insurance while i am ahead

[Robin4]

@Inna22 

Inna, if you are going to provide an appliance it must be in usable condition for the guest.

Yeah, every guest teaches you something.

I used to let them use the propane gas barbeque but, I had this one guest who stayed here for a few days, and about 8.30 on the last morning he asked me if he could cook up a few sausages to take with him to snack on during his next drive. I had no issue with this, I got the BBQ going for him and left him to it!

That evening around 11.30 pm I had finished up for the night and I just happened to walk down through the BBQ area and I suddenly realised by heat coming from the BBQ, this bloody goofball had cooked up his snags, walked away and left the barbeque running.....almost 10 hours worth of LPG gone!

If guests want to cook something on the grill that is fine, I have just the appliance....it's a charcoal grill and I provide a bag of charcoal and a packet of fire lighters and an igniter on a chain for guest use. And if the supply bag runs out there is no need to be changing LPG cylinders which in many instances requires tools. Almost every convenience store stocks bags of charcoal, it's a better option yet still gives a barbeque flavour!

I decided then after 'Mr snag man' to only let guests use what they couldn't abuse. I figured electric was no good because they can leave that running also....although I believe now you can buy portable electric grills which do have a timer function.

I settled on charcoal because there is no expectation on the users part that they need to do anything other than cook their food. And I find they do actually get a kick out of making their own fire.

Once the cooking is done the grill will look after itself. When it's cool all I need to do is put the cover on the cooking surfaces to keep the vermin off, the same as I do with the BBQ. Simple and I can't get stung!

Cheers.......Rob

[Debra300]

@Robin4,

We provide LP grills for our guests.  In Atlanta, where we do only longer term rentals, we have a Weber Q1200 and a 5 lb. tank that may or may not have gas in it, and tell guests where they can refill it.  These aren't our pictures, but are what we offer.

At the guest house in St. Lucia, we have portable Coleman grills, and inform guests that the 1 lb./453 gram tanks costs $10 USD at the local hardware store (we offer to pick them up for the guests).

[Inna22]

@Debra300 that steak looks delish!

[Mary1523]

Well now i'm questioning even providing a gas bbq after your post!  We provide 3 gas bottles and have a gas service that comes in and swaps. Guests expect a working gas bbq in Australia but I'm interested in what's the experience of guests using charcoal bbq given you are in South Australia? Do they know how? Have you had questions or complaints? How much does it cost to buy a bag of charcoal vs a tank of gas?

Husband wants to remove all gas from the property in the interests of no fossil fuels/eco. Lucky we haven't had any major issues with the bbq apart from guests leaving a mess and not cleaning it after use. But that doesn't change with charcoal bbq i'm guessing?

[Mary1523]

Not being from the US, and being Australian, I must admit I automatically assumed gas would be provided if there was a BBQ. But there was another Australian host who has moved to charcoal. But that's rare here. 

I think it comes down to how much you are charging for your property. Are you the all inclusive offering type, or a bare bones basic type of property. I think it's annoying to have additional charges, that just disturbs the guest experience and they are already in a heightened state of if anything goes wrong/not happy, they will react more strongly. 

You could remove it entirely if it's not a strong/used feature of your property.

Or you could make it clear that they have to BYO if you are not including it.

Or you set up a separate listing for the same property where you do include everything for a higher price obviously. Then guests can choose which listing they want to take, no-frills or everything included? 

At the end of the day, its all about communication and expectation management. My 'things to know' note seems to constantly evolve as I learn about guests feedback!