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

Michael Barnes

21:25 PM, 15th May 2014, About 10 years ago

Can't you get your electricity supplier to put a separate PAYG meter in for each room. Tenants can then top up at PayPoints and not need to bother landlord.

Alex Williams

22:48 PM, 15th May 2014, About 10 years ago

I use a heating controller the tenants have access to and a controller and a thermostat set to cap the times and temps they can achieve. (So that they can only hit say 22 degrees and not 30 plus)

Whatever you say to tenants about it (controlling heating costs) and however nice the tenants appear, almost all of them have a f-you attitude to it. I too have fair use clauses in my contracts but in practice if I enforced them the tenants would move to spite me and I would lose more in voids than I would save by billing them (they probably wouldn't pay anyway).

I also have TRV's locked on '4' (21 degrees @ 8" off the floor)

You have got to be carefull too in controlling the gas as they all have electric heaters (even though they are supposed not to have) so what so save on the gas you lose on the electricity tenfold.

Furthermore I have some tenants who refuse to sleep under anything other than a cotton sheet even in the winter and student tenants who tell me " I can't sleep unless it is 35 degrees at 3am like it is back home ".

Basically with HMO tenants (and none of mine are DSS), you are lucky to get the rent off them let alone any cleaning / recycling / etc etc , So many of them are big on Landlord responsibilities but virtually none perform anything other than the very basic of their own responsibilities. It just makes me despair.

Add to all this the fact that we really nowadays are getting royally shafted by the utility companies ...

Alex Williams

22:58 PM, 15th May 2014, About 10 years ago

Oh .... and you can get landlord thermostats from the states. I have got one but have not tried it yet as I need to rebuild its power supply for uk voltage.

I have however noticed this ...

https://www.inspirehomeautomation.co.uk/landlords.php

and plan to try one.

Mike

1:37 AM, 16th May 2014, About 10 years ago

If you don't want this hassle of controlling the heat responsibly, then just increase your rent to cover the worst case senario, that way if the bills are lower, you pocket the savings as your extra profit. Putting up even £5.00pw can go a long way towards covering the extra cost of winter heating, this means about £250.00 extra towards bills per tenant, so if you have 4 tenants, that is £1000.00 more for you towards annual bills, already you are charging them for heating within your rent so when you put it up by a fiver it is not going to break their back, but will save yours from breaking.

Robert M

10:25 AM, 17th May 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Alex Williams" at "15/05/2014 - 22:58":

Thanks for this link, I've had a look at their website and the "Landlord Plus" timer/stats offered by this company are the best landlord stat's I've come across as they disable all the functions that you don't want the residents to be able to mess about with. I'm so impressed I've just ordered one to try out in one of my HMOs, and if it works well then I will order them for all my HMOs.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

10:30 AM, 17th May 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Robert Mellors" at "17/05/2014 - 10:25":

........... and report you finding back here too please Robert 🙂

If they are good as you hope, and you get to speak to them, please mention Property118 and our sponsorship opportunities - see >>> http://www.property118.com/business-sponsorship/

Thanks in advance 🙂
.

Alex Williams

10:49 AM, 17th May 2014, About 10 years ago

I emailed them recently to ask if I bought 20+ could I get a discount but I did not receive a reply. I keep meaning to ring them up.

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

10:53 AM, 17th May 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Alex Williams" at "17/05/2014 - 10:49":

Hi Alex

When you do it could well be worth mentioning that Property118 has nearly 200,000 subscribers and referring them to this thread. It could motivate them to do a discounted deal for Property118 readers combined with a sponsorship deal 😉
.

Alex Williams

11:02 AM, 17th May 2014, About 10 years ago

Ok. Shall I put that to them next week if I call or do you want to do it seeing as it's your website ?

Mark Alexander - Founder of Property118

11:22 AM, 17th May 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Alex Williams" at "17/05/2014 - 11:02":

Hi Alex

It's "OUR" website 🙂

I'm just the founder, creator and facilitator. Property118 would be nothing without our readers and contributors.

It's operated on a not-for-profit basis but most business can't comprehend that. Recommendations are far better coming from members than a sales pitch from me. Besides, I'm a marketing person (professional attention seeker) but absolutely crap at selling, i.e. closing deals LOL
.

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