Guests charging electric car with our house electricity.!!

From the moment they step through the door your bookings become guests, and their experiences determine whether they ever come back.
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cleanforum
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Post by cleanforum »

OK I said I would report back but before I do I would like to respond to what I take to be an uncalled for snipe from kevsboredagain.

I don't recall asking for your "sympathy" as you put it. Also just exactly where did I say what we had charged for this rental? Obviously you plucked that from our web. The prices I charge for our services are irrelevant to this discussion. Just for the record though I actually charged them 1000Euro the eight days and they were five adults. If that sounds excessive to you fine we are all intitled to our own opinion. I personally would gladly swap the maintenance and preparation of my two acre rural fruit farm, outside pool and 300m2 of terraces and parking areas for your ski apartment. Please don´t presume as to what people should or should not charge for their vacation homes. We have the general public that already do that for us, thanks.

Getting back to the subject of the discussion. The Dutch guests left the villa OK. Nothing out of the ordinary. I have a 200GBP deposit so that obviously concentrated their minds a little as it would do anyone. I still feel that bringing your own extension lead and plugging the car in without a word to me was dishonest, especially since we had problems with the electricity circuits tripping and they never mentioned it, but I have seen worse, much worse.

I will have to see what the actual electricity bill is from Endesa with possible penalty charges etc. I expect it to be very much higher than normal but will consider this as just one more thing on the list of the many things that can and do happen in this business.

So I will give them their deposit back no quibbles and when they ask for a repeat next year (which they have mentioned) I will take that into account when calculating the repeat guest discount.

One further point I would like to make regarding nationalities. I think we all have our experiences/prejudices and in some cases there may be some truth in them but I don´t think it is particularly helpful to air them here. Perhaps that was my fault for mentioning that they were Dutch in the first place.

What I have found though is that there is a world of difference between guests that arrive via the flight/hire car route and those that arrive in their own cars (electric or otherwise) after driving door to door...but that's another thread for another day..
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Post by kevsboredagain »

Throw your toys out the pram if you wish but complaining that your guests had 2 showers a day on a public forum is completely out of order in my view not to mention a gross invasion of their privacy.

I also have an old house in Spain so am well aware of maintenance and running costs. We averaged 34kwh/day on our last trip.

I took some effort to research the costs of hybrid car charging rather than make a big assumption and publicly complain.

I'm not saying that what they did was right.
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Post by joddle »

I think this all shows we have all possibly have not really thought too much about people and electric cars - its a pretty new thing to most of us BUT having said that, I think its something we all need to think more about. In our own situation, anyone charging a car from the provided supply would possibly cause our smart meter to cut out as we only have the facility for light loads as our heating and cooking are all done by propane! I think we have no choice but to consider amending our T&Cs and our adverts to specifically mention electric car charging and how we deal with it. For the foreseeable we may have to state that cars cannot and are not allowed to be charged from the house supply - and maybe that will lead to a few lost bookings BUT being up front may well be the best protection for us and our property until we can offer something more substantial - and have worked out a way for it to be paid for! And FWIW taking two showers a day is nothing compared with someone topping up the swimming pool from the hot water supply!!!!! Heavy and selfish usage of resources does happen with some people but I bet no-one ever thanks or would consider paying back those who use hardly any power! - you simply take the rough with the smooth!
Last edited by joddle on Tue May 03, 2016 5:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by edinburgh »

Just word it positively and most people will declare what they're doing.

"We welcome electric vehicles, and charge £5 for each overnight charge. We have an outdoor socket, but don't supply an extension cable, so remember to pack one!".

Sound jolly enough and people will just pay the surcharge - and for the odd few that cheat you out of it, well, it happens with anything eh.
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Post by CSE »

joddle wrote:I think this all shows we have all possibly have not really thought too much about people and electric cars - its a pretty new thing to most of us BUT having said that, I think its something we all need to think more about. In our own situation, anyone charging a car from the provided supply would possibly cause our smart meter to cut out as we only have the facility for light loads as our heating and cooking are all done by propane! I think we have no choice but to consider amending our T&Cs and our adverts to specifically mention electric car charging and how we deal with it. For the foreseeable we may have to state that cars cannot and are not allowed to be charged from the house supply - and maybe that will lead to a few lost bookings BUT being up front may well be the best protection for us and our property until we can offer something more substantial - and have worked out a way for it to be paid for! And FWIW taking two showers a day is nothing compared with someone topping up the swimming pool from the hot water supply!!!!! Heavy and selfish usage of resources does happen with some people but I bet no-one ever thanks or would consider paying back those who use hardly any power! - you simply take the rough with the smooth!
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joddle
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Post by joddle »

edinburgh wrote:Just word it positively and most people will declare what they're doing.

"We welcome electric vehicles, and charge £5 for each overnight charge. We have an outdoor socket, but don't supply an extension cable, so remember to pack one!". Sound jolly enough and people will just pay the surcharge - and for the odd few that cheat you out of it, well, it happens with anything eh.
I totally agree in principle but our supply is not likely to be good enough for that at the moment - and also its a pretty long run from the nearest socket to the car parking area so a dedicated socket is probably the only realistic solution. It is however something I would very much like to do for the future and the mention of a specific charge seems a possibility or maybe a coin operated metered supply point could be provided - Not sure what is actually possible but willing to look into it!
Last edited by joddle on Tue May 03, 2016 6:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by edinburgh »

I've no idea how these things work - and as I've got an apartment, I'm unlikely to ever be affected.

However, looking around, it seems that you can pay to be part of a network, and then you receive payment when their members charge their car at yours, for example: http://chargeyourcar.org.uk/charge-point-owner/faqs/
You pay an annual fee per charge point to cover the cost of charge point connection, data consumption, promotion of the network and operation of the EV driver helpdesk. You also pay for the electricity consumed by your charge points.

In return you receive an income from the revenues generated by your charge points, payable to you on a quarterly basis.
However, if you've got guests that are running an extension cord out the window, then that won't help much :(
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Post by CSE »

Raising this subject again after a year.
Because of this subject we choose to add a line about unable to accept the charging of electric vehicles .
Today a Spaniard with the exact same make and model as in the original posting turned up expecting us to allow him to recharge his vehicles battery.
Needless to say it is sitting in our car park unconnected. :)
For us this is one of the most helpful threads on this forum.
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Post by kg1 »

casasantoestevo wrote:Raising this subject again after a year.
Because of this subject we choose to add a line about unable to accept the charging of electric vehicles .
Today a Spaniard with the exact same make and model as in the original posting turned up expecting us to allow him to recharge his vehicles battery.
Needless to say it is sitting in our car park unconnected. :)
For us this is one of the most helpful threads on this forum.
Ha! Well done. Didn't join in the original thread as our parking is not close enough to cause us a problem, but I do think it's a bl**dy cheek to expect free electric.
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Post by cleanforum »

Decided to let this thread alone last year after various unhelpful replies. Anyway the whole episode caused me to reflect and calculate what I consider to be the bounds of reasonable electricity use for our villa.. I have added a clause in our T&Cs and now check meter readings when I think there may be an abuse (for whatever reason). Funnily the family that started all this with their Mitsubishi, are returning this year for a longer stay. Its off season so decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. Although I have raised their deposit substantially to cover any excess electricity use.
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Post by Cassis »

casasantoestevo wrote:Raising this subject again after a year.
Because of this subject we choose to add a line about unable to accept the charging of electric vehicles .
Today a Spaniard with the exact same make and model as in the original posting turned up expecting us to allow him to recharge his vehicles battery.
Needless to say it is sitting in our car park unconnected. :)
For us this is one of the most helpful threads on this forum.
Is there a charging point nearby you can point them to instead? If not, can you not just ask a reasonable price rather than leaving them in the lurch? :shock:
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Post by Hells Bells »

We should be embracing alternative sources of fuel, not making life difficult for those who are already forward thinking enough to be using them. Climate change is everyone's responsibility. If my parking space was the one next to my property instead of across the car park, I would be making certain that I had installed a charging point and advertised it loud and clear.
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Post by CSE »

Cassis wrote:
Is there a charging point nearby you can point them to instead? If not, can you not just ask a reasonable price rather than leaving them in the lurch? :shock:
? :shock:[/quote]
Nope they do expect it for free that is for sure. Plus they will not be left in the lurch there are enough fuel stations around. We have a problem with our supply we are at the end of a line so the power to the house cannot increased, well not without a huge investment from us. Spain has a rather odd electrical public supply system in that ratings for power supplies start off at one which, you may just about boil a kettle of water without it tripping. That often catches out those that move to Spain and that is why a fair number of villas still run on the builders supply. You get a high rated supply.


Hells Bells wrote:We should be embracing alternative sources of fuel, not making life difficult for those who are already forward thinking enough to be using them. Climate change is everyone's responsibility. If my parking space was the one next to my property instead of across the car park, I would be making certain that I had installed a charging point and advertised it loud and clear.
Please come to Spain and talk to the government. Here a house is not allowed to have solar panels and be connected to the power grid. There is a huge charge for doing that. Some call it a huge fine. Spain is different.

Nearest charging point to us is just under 20 miles away. That means he would use up his recharge to get to and from it
https://openchargemap.org/site/poi?Coun ... Name=spain
this one shows the nearest being 100kms away.
https://www.plugsurfing.com/en/map?query=Lugo%2C+Spain
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Post by CSE »

cleanforum wrote:Decided to let this thread alone last year after various unhelpful replies. Anyway the whole episode caused me to reflect and calculate what I consider to be the bounds of reasonable electricity use for our villa.. I have added a clause in our T&Cs and now check meter readings when I think there may be an abuse (for whatever reason). Funnily the family that started all this with their Mitsubishi, are returning this year for a longer stay. Its off season so decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. Although I have raised their deposit substantially to cover any excess electricity use.
Good thing too. If you did not you, and like us all on this forum, could end up paying the guests to stay!
Never try to out-stubborn your guests.
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Post by Martha »

I've been mulling this over as I'm sure it will soon be a big plus for a house to have a charging station for a car.

I'm a bit surprised by some of the hostility here. Of course everyone's situation is different but if it's an ongoing issue it needs to be addressed and the more helpful we can be the better, with clarity in costs. My quick survey of friends was that none would expect to charge a car for free unless it was very high-end accommodation.
Most people charge their cars overnight on the off-peak electricity, it might perhaps be possible to accommodate electric car charging in this way, on a timed socket? I'm sure people can understand that electrical supplies may well not be up to charging a car at peak times.
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