Holiday Let and EV charging

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[Pit Pony]

How much would it cost to charge an EV ?
More of less than everyone having 2 baths a day, leaving all the lights on, putting the heating on, and opening all.the windows??
Different guests will "waste" energy and water in different ways.

I imagine in future, Holiday lets will differentiate themselves by pointing out that they have off road parking and Charging points.

[Electronicpants]

You will find this becomes more and more common as the majority of EV owners find charging at home is the most convenient way of "filling up", expecting a full charge before they leave for their journey so won't think twice about popping in a charger with the suitcases to replicate this when away.

[TheRainMaker]

If they charged it when they turned up, a mid-week charge and fully charged it when they left you could have easily lost £45.00 (this is what mine could use).

You need to get a charger installed sharpish, get one you need a tag to switch on then just charge them 10p a kWh over whatever you get charged for the electricity.

Whoever does check out can very easily check the usage on an app and add the cost to the bill, you know it's only them using it as they are the only ones with the tag to switch it on.

Also, make it very clear to people you are not allowed to run power cables out of windows to charge EVs, have it on your terms with a charge of £XXX if caught.

It is only going to become more common, and TBH having a proper 7kw charger fitted is going to be a selling point in any case.

[Simpo Two]

TheRainMaker said:

You need to get a charger installed sharpish, get one you need a tag to switch on then just charge them 10p a kWh over whatever you get charged for the electricity.

If it's anything like marinas, you're not allowed to mark up electricity unit prices. Your profit comes from a standing charge (in this case a flat rate for the letting period).

[caziques]

Unlikely, but possible, someone has used 50kWhrs to charge an EV. How much is that? 12 pounds?

I would expect anyone who has bothered to buy an EV to take extra care when hiring a property.

Make a point of difference, say EV owners welcome to charge.

[jonwm]

Not directly related but it seems people who have an EV seem to thinks its OK to plug it in anywhere, an old college who has just had an EV through work and is saving £300 a month BIK popped in this week as they were passing and asked if they could use my outside plug, they were only here an hour or so so cost is tiny but I wouldn't have expected them to get petrol out my mower a few months ago.

[gotoPzero]

caziques said:

Unlikely, but possible, someone has used 50kWhrs to charge an EV. How much is that? 12 pounds?

I would expect anyone who has bothered to buy an EV to take extra care when hiring a property.

Make a point of difference, say EV owners welcome to charge.

I would plan for worst case. Mr Smith brings his iPace.
Arrives with little charge. Then charges over night each night.
In the day time they are out sight seeing and return each night and charge overnight for next day.
Then the last day the charge to return home.
I suspect worst case you are looking at 250kWh in a week.

So at current prices around £60.

Not a problem if you get one person a year doing that but if you had 10 or 20 a year that might become a problem.

I would split the difference like you say and stick £30 a week on.

I would also install a proper EV charger. This would be a massive + point for punters.

I had an EV for 3 years and we always looked for something near a charger (because home chargers are just not that common) so having something at the property is a massive +ve for me.

We never ran an extension cable if we airbnb'd somewhere. I think its just rude and preferred to find a local high speed charger.

[Sheepshanks]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Hopefully the lamps are all LED so the cost will be buttons. If it's a big house the rental will be £Ks per week.

[Easternlight]

I use Caravan club CL sites with electric hook ups, and I've noticed an increase in the number of them banning the charging of EV's. Obviously costs could be higher as in theory you could have 5 cars and five caravans plugged in.
If they ever make an EV that's a good tow car of course?

A friend has a holiday let joined to their house and were quite put out to see an extension lead out of the window to a customer's car last year, pretty cheaky to not ask.

[essayer]

Is it Cornwall? Pretty duff for charging once you’re there

Would have no objection to paying unit rates for electricity plus a reasonable service fee if the use of a 7kW charger was guaranteed - nobody wants to mess with mains chargers and extension leads! Perhaps install a couple of EVSE’s with rfid cards and bill them on a card after their stay?

[Sheepshanks]

Easternlight said:

I use Caravan club CL sites with electric hook ups, and I've noticed an increase in the number of them banning the charging of EV's. Obviously costs could be higher as in theory you could have 5 cars and five caravans plugged in.

Those hook ups are very limited on power, aren't they? I guess, apart from cost, they'd have to considerably upgrade the wiring infrastructure to allow for EV charging.

[limpsfield]

CheesecakeRunner said:

gotoPzero said:

I would plan for worst case. Mr Smith brings his iPace.
Arrives with little charge. Then charges over night each night.
In the day time they are out sight seeing and return each night and charge overnight for next day.
Then the last day the charge to return home.
I suspect worst case you are looking at 250kWh in a week.

The likelihood of Mr Smith driving 250 miles every day for the week he’s staying in a holiday let is pretty slim.

Exactly! This is ridiculous.

What’s he doing, driving back home every day from his holiday let to download his free electric?

[Thebaggers]

We get this a fair amount in our holiday let, it is in a good spot to explore all of Devon and Cornwall and we are out of a fixed tariff and in capped rates. Elec costs were sometimes north of £70 a week last summer and will be higher this year for the occasional guest. We often have 2 or 3 cars turn up, no doubt in time these will all be looking for charging as ev use increases. During peak weeks it isn't really an issue but off peak after costs margins can be slim, particularly with the huge cost of heating oil now.

We are looking at an EV point that we can charge back at cost and have made it clear in terms and conditions that EV charging from house sockets is not permitted.

EV users never ask to charge in my experience, they just do regardless of agreed terms which is rude. If it is you, it is not 'fair or the same as charging your phone' stop it

[DonkeyApple]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

This is something that everyone with a holiday let that has parking is going to have to contemplate over the coming years.

Firstly, you probably want to be fitting a charger just on safety grounds. Punters running wires out of windows are dumb enough and tight enough to assume it's your fault when something goes wrong.

Then you need to work out how to make it cover itself with the simplest being to apply a mark-up and then promote the property as having EV charging to attract more of those customers etc.

A lot of the larger holiday lets around here have added chargers as have many of the local tourist businesses. There's even a holiday home in the next village which comes with the use of a Tesla so customers are supposed to park up their car then do all their local moving about in that.

My random guess would be to install a relatively feeble charger so as to limit the ability to pisstake but enough to tick the basic PR boxes then apply a sensible mark-up and bang on a bit about how you care for the planet and hope your guests do also.

Like all customer groups they seem to break down into two relatively simple groups, the normals who have natural respect and look after other people's stuff and turn lights off, keep heating down and the scummers who either never think about others or go out of their way to over indulge on someone else's ticket.

One good think about promoting your HL as an eco business is that it justifies you putting in place protections against the douchbags who dial up the heating to 30 and leave it on the whole week, using windows to lower the temp when it gets a bit too much.

In the old days you'd stick a coin meter in the property and let your neighbour sell them 5 pence coins for 10p each.

[Easternlight]

Sheepshanks said:

Easternlight said:

I use Caravan club CL sites with electric hook ups, and I've noticed an increase in the number of them banning the charging of EV's. Obviously costs could be higher as in theory you could have 5 cars and five caravans plugged in.

Those hook ups are very limited on power, aren't they? I guess, apart from cost, they'd have to considerably upgrade the wiring infrastructure to allow for EV charging.

Yes I think this may be the main reason for the ban to be fair.
I don't know but my understanding is the amount /cost of charging from 240v is pretty limited, although it would add up if it was five cars every night.

[DonkeyApple]

Thebaggers said:

EV users never ask to charge in my experience, they just do regardless of agreed terms which is rude. If it is you, it is not 'fair or the same as charging your phone' stop it

Many do seem to be the type who take toilet rolls from other people's homes when they visit.

I wonder if the tightness is linked to the brand of EV where people have rented something they really can't afford without resorting to ghastly behaviour or whether it's a belief that they deserve it because they're special? Who knows but it's a product that does seem to attract those of a caravan life mindset underneath it all.

[Welshbeef]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

How would you manage that?
With the best will in the world people lie people take advantage - so the extension cable may well be used even if asked not to do so.

[TheRainMaker]

It is really easy to work out the costs, my car has a 78kWh battery, if you are paying 20p a Kw the cost to charge up would be around. £15.00 that would get me around 200-250 miles.

The chargers which people are plugging into 13 amp sockets and running cables out of windows are normally 2kw.

I would think I could use around £45.00 of electric at a holiday let easily.

Charger with an app and a tag to switch on would be what I would do, all very simple.

Running cables out of windows to charge cars up is stealing, and no different than people taking oil out of the heating tank to take home and use in their own system.

[Thebaggers]

What system would people recommend? Sending out tags to guests wouldn't work, but one could be left in the property I guess, almost guaranteed it would walk though. Most non bolted down things do eventually, art, towels, my model boat that was on display all the dog poo bags rolls...