electricity bills on holiday lets

letty


Joined: 04/12/2008
Posts: 360

Message Posted:
18/03/2010 13:41

Fitting timers on your aircons will save u a lot of money over the year. see forsale section.

Redwine


Joined: 15/01/2009
Posts: 565

Message Posted:
18/03/2010 15:06

You can also fit meters that you have to put money in to run them. That way you get paid for excessive use of aircons. You can set the amount and the time they run so you can recoup the costs.

letty


Joined: 04/12/2008
Posts: 360

Message Posted:
18/03/2010 17:52

thats a good idea apart from the fact that people dont want to give you 500 quid a week for your holiday let then pay extra for the electricity. plus they will love you when they run out of 1tl coins in the night. push button timers are the way to go.

mikeythespark



Joined: 10/11/2009
Posts: 224

Message Posted:
18/03/2010 18:28

Letty,

we have rented out our villa and Mikey fitted a meter, purchased here in UK that works by a card system.

You set an amount of electricity you are happy for your guest to use and when they go over the meter is topped up by pre paid cards, supplied with the meter, and you set the value of these, £5, £10, whatever you like, the guests can either purchase them from you/ villa manager, or you can leave some in the villa and however many they use, you deduct the amount from their deposit. It worked very well for us last year. and the guests did not have a problem paying for the bit extra they used. We will not need ours now as we are settling permanently from April in Cyprus. Mikey is electrician so he fitted it himself, might be an idea to bring some out, maybe other villa owners interested in it. Unit cost about £125.00 if memory serves me right, including 200 cards. hope this helps and makes sense!!

letty


Joined: 04/12/2008
Posts: 360

Message Posted:
18/03/2010 20:29

yes I understand that. it sounds like a very good idea. I heard of that before. better than coins. atleast that way people dont run the risk of running out of change.

LisaCedyNZach


Joined: 21/07/2009
Posts: 30

Message Posted:
18/03/2010 20:55

Or you could live in the house for a week, and work out reasonable usage. Tell prospective renters they have reasonable usage of electric and extra will be charged for. Management could take a before and after reading.

Ive done this on a few of my properties in uk- oil charges not air con, and people will lower thermostat when they go out rather than leaving in on full blast. So far only one rental went over by £10, which I didnt bother charging for because it want massive.

sweep


Joined: 11/10/2007
Posts: 241

Message Posted:
18/03/2010 21:09

hi i used my apt for three weeks last aug and had the two air con units for approx 12hr per day and the bill for elec was approx £150 for that period including running all the other appliances in the apt.



not too bad i was expecting a lot higher bill so a relief when it came in at this amount, so in future i would visitors will have to budget approx £50-60 per week for electric if anyone stays there to cover my bills.

Ballyboffin


Joined: 25/08/2007
Posts: 903

Message Posted:
19/03/2010 01:03

I'm not suggesting doing this, but have a look at http://www.meonvillas.com to see what they are charging for air con, over and above the rental price.



How do they get away with that ?

letty


Joined: 04/12/2008
Posts: 360

Message Posted:
19/03/2010 09:39

sweep. for 2 aircons running 12 hours a day that was very reasonable. you must have economical units. some of them are. thats always a good consideration to take into account when purchasing an aircon. I dont think that ultimately people want holiday letters to pay extra for electricity. because if you do, I would imagine that by law if not then by the goodness of your heart, you should be advertising the fact within the advert for your property. meaning that it will then look slightly less apealing to people compared with another property that does not charge extra for electricity. ie someone with push button 2 hour timers fitted, which would not need advertising. possibly losing you a few weeks rental throughout the year. offset that against your elecrticity bill and your running a false economy. excuse the spelling , never paid attention at school.