Making a little extra cash by renting out a spare room or guest house to strangers through Airbnb can come at a cost for homeowners. While you might factor cleaning supplies, overhead costs, and small touches of hospitality such as travel-sized hygiene products into your budget for your vacation rental business, you should also consider how routine and emergency plumbing costs can eat into your revenue.
Even when you’ve done everything right to maintain your plumbing system, a problematic tenant or disaster such as flooding can create devastating issues with your pipes. Get ahead of these issues by staying on top of regular maintenance, having a trusted plumber on standby, and setting aside cash in the event of an emergency.
Some homeowners may love the look of decorative drain covers, but as they say, all that glitters isn’t gold. If a drain cover isn’t properly designed or installed, it could cause issues with how well the drain works and back up the pipes. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so before you start renting a spare room or home out to temporary tenants through this popular company, make sure you’ve inspected every part of your drain system from the shower drain grates to a shower strainer cover to a water drain cover. Putting up signs to discourage flushing inappropriate items can also help.
Many homeowners nowadays willingly open their residences to strangers who want to briefly stay and rent a room. Airbnb has made it possible for regular people to be hosts and earn money. The platform connects homeowners and vacationers worldwide.
Although less formal, people who rent their rooms to guests should act as if they are hotel managers. To make sure that their guests give a good rating and return, they need to provide a satisfactory service. That means they should attend to the needs of their guests and do everything to help them feel at ease.
So, it’s a disaster when the property booked through Airbnb experiences a plumbing issue while a guest is staying there. What can an Airbnb host do to avoid such a nightmare? Here are some helpful tips.
Keep The Plumbing In Good Shape
There’s nothing much that hosts can do if the plumbing or fixtures have issues when they open their rooms for rent in Airbnb. The best thing is to keep things in good condition, from a working toilet and bathtub to a functional shower.
If the plumbing of an Airbnb room has problems, guests can give a bad review that will hurt the host’s future business. It is also costly because it may require making repairs (and perhaps replacements) before another guest can use them.
You should be ready for repair issues especially if your plumbing system is outdated or if you haven’t had time to fix leaks or clogs in recent months. You don’t want to ruin your chance at earning money by providing poor service to guests.
Place Reminders to Not Throw Trash in Toilets and Drains
It’s easy to forget about the basic rules when it comes to disposing of trash. Plumbing issues stem from homeowners and guests who use restroom facilities in an improper way, such as putting paper towels or feminine hygiene products down the toilet when they shouldn’t be.
Add signs in your guest rooms reminding people not to put anything other than human waste or toilet paper inside the toilets and to flush only solid wastes. Communicate these rules to your guests through emails and verbally, too, to make sure that they don’t forget. Plus, place trash bins around the house so guests have a place to put trash without worrying if it’s OK to throw them down the toilet or drain.
Not following these rules can cause a plumbing problem at your Airbnb rental property.
Replace Old and Outdated Plumbing Parts
When there’s a guest staying at an Airbnb, you need to make sure that the plumbing system is safe and will not fail. If it’s outdated or you haven’t had time to fix leaks or clogs in recent months, then now is the best time to replace old and outdated parts.
Repair Issues As Soon As Possible
Catching small problems like slow draining sinks, running toilets, dripping faucets, and other minor annoyances as early as possible could save you hundreds of dollars in repairs. That is why it’s a good idea to have a routine checkup of everything in your Airbnb room so you can quickly fix problems before they blossom into more serious issues.
Of course, some problems may not be that easy to diagnose because no one really sees them until your guests do after they’ve checked in. For example, when there’s a leak in the bathroom ceiling below, tell your guests to let you know if they hear water running through the pipes even though the shower is off and there are no signs of moisture on rainy days or at night.
Work With A Plumbing Service Provider
Plumbers charge money for their services but hiring them for plumbing repairs ensures guest satisfaction. They can also help ensure that all appliances are in good working order, which makes guests happy. When you need water heater repair services, for example, they will be the ones to rescue you from a nightmare situation.
So, make a list of reliable plumbers and be ready to contact them if necessary. That way, you can avoid taking care of plumbing issues on your own or hiring an amateur plumber who might make the problem worse. Don’t do things on your own, either. You might make things worse. Unless you have experience doing plumbing, you have no business messing with the connections and appliances.
Being a successful Airbnb host means delivering excellent customer service at all times and avoiding disasters such as busted toilets and flooded rooms. That is why it’s important for hosts to keep their plumbing in good working order by doing regular checkups and hiring reputable plumbers.
No matter what, make sure to take action quickly when dealing with plumbing problems in your property rented through Airbnb. Guests expect hosts to be responsive and cooperative when something goes wrong.