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442. Hosting Hotline: When Should You Replace Major Appliances in Your Airbnb?
Introduction and Welcome
Sarah Karakaian: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] Hello, welcome back to another great episode. My name is Sarah Karakaian.
Annette Grant: I’m Annette Grant and together we are
Sarah Karakaian: Thanks for Visiting. And this is the Hosting Hotline. If you want to get your hosting questions answered here on the Hosting Hotline, all you gotta do is call in, go to hostinghotline. com, ask your question, and we’ll answer it here on our Tuesday episode on the podcast.
Listener’s Question: Proactive Replacement of Appliances
Sarah Karakaian: And today we have a question from Julia.
Hosting Hotline Caller: Hi Annette and Sarah. My name is Julia and I am the owner of Helm Haven in Southern Maryland. We purchased a home that is 20 years old and around the 20 year mark, a lot of appliances like water heaters and HVAC tend to die. I am wondering If I can get your guidance on whether it’s worth proactively replacing these units or whether we should wait, um, until something happens or some sort of middle ground.
Um, I’m really nervous about possibly HVAC going out, AC going out during our high [00:02:00] season and having to refund things. What do you do in these situations? Thanks so much.
Sarah Karakaian: It’s quite appropriate because Annette and I just got back. From AHR, which is the largest HVAC and refrigerant trade show in the world.
And it was so fun.
Annette Grant: And it’s appropriate.
Discussion: Importance of Energy Efficiency
Annette Grant: The first thing that we want to start with, Julia, is at this show, and um, an answer to your question is, they are coming out with new technology. mean daily, weekly, yearly. So you are your current HVAC and water heater are, we don’t even need to explain to you how old the, um, the technology, the energy efficient efficiency there.
So we want to just start the conversation with A, we love that you’re thinking ahead because this most likely [00:03:00] would result in, you know, having to, if your HVAC is completely down and it’s in the summertime, um, those are going to be some difficult conversations to A, have with your guest, B, you might run into.
extremely busy HVAC companies during that high season. But the, so the energy efficiency there, you might be spending so much money on your energy bills just because the actual equipment is. inefficient. So we actually want to start with that over even refunding guests. It’s kind of like, what does that math look like on how much you could be spending on the water heater and the HVAC just being old and not being energy efficient.
So it could be costing you more in your energy bills there.
Considering the Costs and Risks
Sarah Karakaian: Well, and no one talks about, okay, yes, you have to refund the guest and now they aren’t comfortable in your space during high season. But what were you doing when they called you?
Annette Grant: Right. Are
Sarah Karakaian: you on vacation? Are you at dinner with [00:04:00] your family who came in from, you know, some states or another country?
Like, you know what I mean? Like, are you, are you at
Annette Grant: work and in a very important meeting? We, we a lot of times don’t talk about the precious time and worry for hosts. Cause there’s a part we could say, you know, knee jerk reactions like I’ll risk it. You know, like, you know, we do that with some, some And it’s like, yeah, calculated risk, but it’s like, Oh man, it compounds of like, your guest is uncomfortable.
Um, who knows if it’s one guest, two guests, how many people are there, how many reservations is it going to be? Also, um, you know, like Sarah just said, what are, what’s going on in your personal and work life? When? When and if this happens. So thinking ahead there. And here’s the deal. HVAC and water heater.
These are two backbone things of your property. So it’s not like, hey, you’re wondering if you should put in a pickleball court or maybe, you know, put in a basketball court. These are things that are integral to the home. [00:05:00] So these aren’t ever going to be bad investments, you know, as far as upgrades now, and we’re not, um, We understand these are, you just purchased the home, you’re probably just purchasing your, um, furnishing, so we, we do not take it lightly that this is, um, an investment.
Here’s another key thing of like, you have no idea how that previous homeowner, What that past maintenance history is, if they were well taken care of. I mean, maybe your previous homeowner gave you all of their records of every time they had some, it’s serviced, but that’s the problem too with something so old.
You really have no idea. You can’t run a Carfax on like your HVAC or your water heater. Oh no, Sarah wants. Sarah wants HVAC. That comes from her husband wanting to know the history.
Sarah Karakaian: So okay, you asked about the risk versus reward versus a middle ground.
Middle Ground Solutions
Sarah Karakaian: So if you wait until they fail, it could leave you with energy costs that, you [00:06:00] know, you’re from using the older appliances, like Annette said, last minute high prices, guest disruptions and potentially bad reviews that are hard to come back from.
Annette Grant: If
Sarah Karakaian: you’re proactive about it, um, obviously you can schedule upgrades, take advantage of potential rebates, tax credits, uh, ensure everything is up to date without surprising failures. And often when you buy a new. At least furnace or water heater. If you buy it with a company, it might have it might obviously a warranty and it might come with a monthly service.
Yep. Um, a part of it or or a small subscription. And sometimes we’re short term rentals depending on if you if you are handy or your partner’s handy. And if you’re not investing in something like that, where you are a priority from other customers, it’s nice to have it. But then maybe they’re and then I were talking about like a middle ground for you.
So you mentioned that the furnace, the water heater and appliances. So the most expensive thing is going to be the furnace. And that’s a pretty big impact [00:07:00] of the installation. Isn’t honestly, it’s not that quick. Um, like, right, you’ve got to like decide what furnish you want. You’ve got to get it installed.
It’s a pretty big, um, piece of equipment to get in, right? Like all that kind of good stuff. So I. If you have the finances for it, I would prioritize replacing that. And then the water heater isn’t as expensive, so maybe that comes second once you recoup the furnace. As long as, you haven’t told us this Julia, but have you gotten them inspected and what did the technicians say?
Right.
Annette Grant: That’s like step one. You’re going to need to do that. Anyway, so that’s the thing is like reaching out to who’s going to be the company that you’re going to have service your equipment no matter what. So all of this work is worth it. So that’s like the first step to is, has it been, has it been looked at recently?
Get somebody out there, try to see what the best company is going to be. There’s, there’s a lot of like baseline work that can be done. That again is going to be an investment, a [00:08:00] good investment in your future.
Sarah Karakaian: And I can tell you this. kitchen appliances, stoves, fridge, dishwashers, even if you buy new, it might die on you.
So, um, with that, you can go a little cray like I have in the past and just have backup, um, not a backup full size fridge or a backup full size, um, oven or, or anything like that, but like mini, backup mini fridge, backup mini freezer, um, But it’s tough. Like if that, if the stove goes out or the dishwasher goes out a lot of times, the ones that you want are in stocks, you’re going to have to wait.
But I feel like a refund on a dishwasher, the experience of not having a dishwasher or the experience of not having a stove, you could send them out to dinner. It’s very different than being uncomfortable with it being super hot in your property because you know, the AC doesn’t work. Right. Like I’m just the lesser of all the evils here.
So I guess what I’m saying to you is like, I would invest in the furnace and the water heater before I would invest in the new kitchen appliances, but maybe have some backups or a plan for what happens if they were to go out [00:09:00] on you. Because that’s a lot of money if you replace all three of these by the summer.
Like, I’m not going to lie to you, right? So
Final Advice and Conclusion
Annette Grant: that’s our, my, I’m actually going to give my personal opinion, not the, the cumulative TFE. I would definitely just get the inspection and get some feedback from Um, the expert that comes out, I would also do some of my, your own research. What is the make and model?
Go online, see what people are saying about it. Does it has, is it lasting forever? Is there a lot of repairs? Like what’s, what’s going on with it? But I would just do that baseline of getting them inspected, getting that relationship going with the company, getting some quotes and seeing really what it’s going to be.
Cause it might be, Hey, it’s not this year, but you’re planning for it next year. And you’ve already got everything, everything dialed in.
Sarah Karakaian: Yeah. I do that too, but I would just get it in your brain, Julia, that you’re gonna have to replace this for us.
Annette Grant: And then, we did, we did talk about tank versus tankless.
Would she want to do tankless? Is everything [00:10:00] tankless now? See, I don’t even know. No, you
Sarah Karakaian: can get a, you can get a full tank water heater. Um, there are a lot of benefits with tankless.
Annette Grant: We are, I want to keep repeating this over and over again because I am just, it’s really something that’s been eye opening for me this year is our chat with Proper and how water damage is the number one claim.
So this is for everybody out there. If you can get any sort of, um, uh, device that can let you know if there’s water in your home. Please do that. That is like we are just hearing that over and over again that, you know, it’s not the parties. It’s not other things. It’s water damage is the number one claim for short term rentals.
So again, if you know you have an old water heater, if you know you’ve got some old pipes, get some sort of water monitoring device in there and then to just maybe have a neighbor on the lookout, especially during those colder seasons. But, um, and then look at your insurance [00:11:00] policy.
Sarah Karakaian: With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.
I’m Annette Grant, and together we are Thanks for visiting. Talk you next time.
