Heating cost control in HMO’s

Heating cost control in HMO’s

19:00 PM, 14th May 2014, About 10 years ago 175

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I would greatly welcome the advice of other members on how to effectively manage heating costs. I have 2 HMO properties and rents include; water, gas, electric and broadband. Heating cost control in HMO's

Over the past 12 months the electric and gas bills seem to have rocketed. I have checked and the tenants are not growing weed but I suspect that they are keeping the heating on 24/7 and opening a window when it gets too hot.

I know there are products for this out there but don’t have experience of how they work.

Are there tried and tested ways of controlling a reasonable temperature and locking down the thermostat or being able to monitor it remotely?

Thanks

Mark Hartell

 


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Comments

Landlord Trevor Mason

14:32 PM, 19th November 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Robert Mellors" at "19/11/2014 - 14:07":

At the time was simplest solution to put it in attic as the old installation was in there which was used as office room originally. And engineer had great reception on Mobile standing in Kitchen.

However the Product is like on a different frequency to his mobile.Which I wasn't aware of all technicals involved.

Take on board what your saying with the room thermostat positioning. However the complicated layout of my property has'nt helped either to be fair.,so wasnt as straight forward as sounds. If could view inside see what I mean ha

Anyways good news is its-getting re-installed on first floor Tuesday for free. So lucky ther as was looking at quote of £99 to do it when started on conversation on phone because falls into 28 day from first install allowed to move it etc Great!

Least programs kicked in on schedules, so saving cost already, Thanks Again
Electric issues next get up to speed on ha

Cheers Trevor

Rob Crawford

16:11 PM, 19th November 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Joe Bloggs" at "14/05/2014 - 19:21":

It's a box of beer from the students local discount beer house!

Robert M

20:35 PM, 4th December 2014, About 9 years ago

Has anyone tried infra red heating? I see you can get electric "radiators" that give out infra red heat, i.e. they don't heat the air, they heat the objects in the room (including people), and this is claimed to be much more efficient, saving up to 80% of the normal running costs of standard central heating radiators or electric panel heaters. AND, they can be individually controlled, remotely,( by the landlord, if desired), so different settings for different rooms in each house, all from one control panel (which, for a HMO, could be retained by the landlord).

They are more expensive to buy than a standard central heating system, but so much more controllable, and much easier to install. With the price of energy as it is, if these claims are true then it sounds like it could save a small fortune within a year or two. I'm seriously considering installing these in one of my HMOs, but wondered if anyone had any experience of them that they would like to share???

Mike

2:39 AM, 5th December 2014, About 9 years ago

In reply to Robert Mellors comments regarding infra red heating, it is not suitable for every situation, since it only heats people facing the heaters, so what happens when you leave your room and into a hall way, you will hit a wall of cold, though it is only efficient because it is heating limited range of area, so you are not heating may be 80% of the rest of the house!

I am thinking of taking daily readings and projecting them into graphical representation, so that one can see at a glance how the heating is being used, if there were any large sudden excursions, then you know the heating is being wasted by unnecessary overuse. This also makes the tenants aware that you as a landlord is aware if anyone sneaks in an electrical fan heater to boost extra heating at 3 times the cost of gas, so you do two graphs one for gas and one for electric, of course you have to get someone to take the readings more or less at the same time each day, so you get accurate data, but I guess this is impractical if a landlord lives far away from his rental property, unless there is a way of using newer smart meters, your electricity and gas company could then have these available to you online from your online account. Many energy suppliers already do this graphical representation and tell you in advance what the energy consumption trend is.

Mr Barua

19:23 PM, 19th January 2016, About 8 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "14/05/2014 - 19:10":

Hi Mark, you said "They were given a budget use for Utility units and a promise that if they used less than the budget they would receive a refund to share amongst them based on a set formula."

Do you know, when tenants get such refund, whether or not we can deduct that from our income or show it as cost for our tax return?

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