Updating post from Reddit.
Hi -
I own a large house (6 bedrooms) and am looking to get 2 lodgers occupying the top floor. I don't want to include bills for obvious reasons so it begs the questions as to how I would separate the heating and electric - I've been advertising for two sharers or a couple so they know each other and this whole thing should be easier, but no luck so far. In the event I go for two individuals, what is the best way to do this calculation?
Thanks!
It's very hard to seperate heating and electricity -
You're going to need new or to significantly modify the circuits that serve these rooms, you will need a electrician if you want a meter fitted.
Heating is a lot harder - usually it's just one huge loop of radiators and a boiler.
My suggestion is to make it all inclusive and bump the rent to cover your cost.
The rooms are very large and lose heat quickly - I can seriously envisage situations where I'm paying multiple hundreds each month where the lodgers aren't careful as they're not paying it.
Sounds like you need to insulate the rooms better.
Otherwise it's fair to upgrade the heating/ pay extra heating as a consequence of the lack of investment.
I would say that saying no electric heating rule is acceptable but only if the heating is at least "balanced" and on enough to live comfortably.
Include bills and keep simple. There are costs to having a lodger.
The central heating is oil so not cheap, but the system itself is good. I like the idea of no electric heating, thanks!
If the rooms are as you describe then you need better insulation.
This could either be in the roof space or in the ceiling itself. For example, I had a single story extension that was incredibly cold - when we took down the ceiling we found there wasn't even a hint of insulation up there. We used Kingspan panels and then put up a new ceiling, and it's now absolutely fine.
I presume you already have double glazing?
If there's something different about these rings compared to the rest of the house then I would suggest that you take these rooms and rent warmer rooms out to the lodgers. I tend to think that if you wouldn't live in that room then you shouldn't ask a lodger to.
Lodgers will always cost you some money - but I think the money you spend trying to set up separate circuits and meters would be much better spent on insulation.
I feel I've exaggerated - there's double glazing and loft insulation - they're just big rooms.
In that case just do all bills inclusive and put a clause in the agreement that electric heaters aren't allowed - but also state what temperature the thermostat will be set to.
In that case make sure that you state a minimum temperature that will be maintained in those rooms - 20C during the day, or 18C between (say) midnight and 6am.
Are you a lizard?
Well… they would be paying rent wouldn’t they?
yes but if they're running electric heaters for example without caring it will wipe it all out
I understand - if you want to go down this route each room will need it's own electrical socket circuit metered at the consumer unit and as for the heating you might want to put electronic valves in line with the radiators to control when they turn on and off, but this is all far from ideal from a tenant's view.
thanks
The fact you are even asking this question does make me think you aren't prepared for lodgers. There isn't any way to separate out electric and gas without spending alot of money. Probably wiping out a year or twos worth of any profit. They will also be using electric and gas in the kitchen, bathrooms and lounge on other floors so ultimately your contract will include some bills unless you plan on monitoring usage in those rooms somehow (it's not realistically possible) and if you did I think you'll find most lodgers looking to leave in a matter of weeks. Best course of action is include bills figure out what you use roughly a month on average over the year for gas water and electric and add that on.
From your other responses you can have a house rule that any additional heaters should be provided by you then invest in some good smart heaters that are relatively cheap to run set the temperature to at least 20 degrees and then they will only kick in if the temp drops below that. If the rooms are losing that much heat and the heaters would be on all the time then you shouldn't really be renting out those rooms without insulating.
Putting individual meters in for electric isn't too bad, depending on how the rooms are wired up. Heating will be a lot harder as the cost is gas usage, but it's not gas that's been piped around - it's hot water - so where do you actually put the meter?
I've rented an office before now that had a novel system - they had hot water circulating constantly throughout the building, and each office had its own loop on that circuit. If you wanted to use the heating, you turned your rads on, and 'used' the hot water. Each office then had its own hot water meter on their own loop, and they worked out a price for water usage that translated to what it cost them to heat that water, which was the unit we actually paid for heating.
It will still require some replumbing, but it would work.
Really though, and especially for lodgers, surely it's basically normal to charge an all-in price? It sounds like you're looking for the best of all worlds - rental money, less risk as they're lodgers, but none of the headaches the come with bills from lodgers etc.
You could give them proper thermostats in their rooms, set your boiler to a specific temperature, ban the use of electric heaters etc to limit your risk?
To calculate the increase in energy usage you need to have regular figures over the last few years for kilowatt/hours used over the 4 seasons. If you know the average of your standard use in the home for the last 3 years say, you can bill your tenants for the difference over the 4 quarters of the year. You can set up a spreadsheet to calculate the expected bill using your fixed rate tariff that you received from the supplier. Do not split the standing charge or try to get fancy, just bill them for the average increase in usage per kWh.
Just include bills. I have lodgers and I include bills. Why wouldn’t you
It's not as easy as that - I wouldn't directly share space and it really is like heating a whole other house up there.
But you’d need to put a separate meter up there. I still think it’s a faff and I’d just add eg £150 for bills. Say eg no tumble dryer allowed
Yeah definitely after seeing the comments here that is what I'll do
Just to add if you treat them as Lodgers they have less rights re being evicted etc. I’d steer clear of that treats it as a separate space as the. Your into gas checks etc etc
You say you are looking for a lodger but it sounds as though you plan to restrict them to their bed rooms, what about kitchen access and energy etc?
the upstairs has its own kitchen and living room. my house is essentially two small houses in one
Can you not get sub meters installed?
All in price, no electric heaters, get a smart meter so you can check, let them access heating controls, kick them out if they do dumb **** like turn the boiler to max and open windows
50/50 spread between them.
either that or jack up the rent according to the average and have it included.
You can get check meters installed for both electricity and one too for gas.
It depends on the layout of the electrics in your property.
It may be possible to put sub-meter as a pay-as-you-go type meter in the property if its on seperare rings, however that may be unlikely so would require significant costs to change.
You can get a proper meter in from electric company, if the above applies but that is very expencive. New connections can cost thousands.