Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
I received a booking same day request from the Airbnb platform for my Lake House.
Yes I was concerned.
It was a 4 day booking.
What happened was that the people were in Atlanta on their way to SC from Florida and they received a cancelation on the house they were heading to due to frozen water pipes that had ruptured.
They pulled over for an hour and a half and scrambled to find some place else.
They didn't read much of my ad, but I got multiple text messages from them saying how happy they were with the house and they wanted to come back when it was warm!
I saw on the news that plumbers were overloaded with water pipe repairs. So take care of preventative maintenance such as winterizing your house. Pipe insulation, heat trace tape, leaving water running in the sink can all help prevent damage from a frozen pipe.
Same thing was going on in the smokey mountains, luckily we didn't have any issues there either. There was some rolling power outages, but they didn't last long.
During the 75 minute rolling power outage on Christmas Eve my guest packed up and left the cabin and asked Airbnb for a full refund. I was able to communicate with them and talk them into coming back, and they ultimately left a 5-star review, but it was a rough situation considering the high dollar holiday booking put at risk for something outside my control that affected the whole area. Last year I had a couple stay there for 2 days of no power in the January blizzard because they wanted to hang out in a snowy cabin in front of a fireplace and loved it, never asking for anything… As a guest I’d be somewhere in the middle of these two in my expectations.
Good job on talking them into coming back. How did that conversation go?
I sent them a pic of the Sevier Co Electric power map and explained the situation. I also offered to comp them any nights in a hotel that power went out for (which would have been better than doing a big refund for the stay). Ultimately the power didn’t go out again so I didn’t need to do that.
I received a booking same day request from the Airbnb platform for my Lake House.
Yes I was concerned.
It was a 4 day booking.
What happened was that the people were in Atlanta on their way to SC from Florida and they received a cancelation on the house they were heading to due to frozen water pipes that had ruptured.
They pulled over for an hour and a half and scrambled to find some place else.
They didn't read much of my ad, but I got multiple text messages from them saying how happy they were with the house and they wanted to come back when it was warm!
I saw on the news that plumbers were overloaded with water pipe repairs. So take care of preventative maintenance such as winterizing your house. Pipe insulation, heat trace tape, leaving water running in the sink can all help prevent damage from a frozen pipe.
Same thing was going on in the smokey mountains, luckily we didn't have any issues there either. There was some rolling power outages, but they didn't last long.
The smokies got pretty slammed. I had guests run water slightly and only one didn’t listen and the pipes froze in the shower. Overall it wasn’t too bad. This type of issue is extremely rare, and doing cheap basic preventative maintenance is wise in this area. However, I wouldn’t go overboard with it. This freeze was over a once in a decade type of situation, it got below zero here one night. As with everything, cost benefit analysis in winterizing your place.
Ironically the night before the cold blast I had a well issue at one of my properties. Two plumbers tried to gauge me over $4,000 for a repair in the cold storm and they misdiagnosed it. I waited a few days and had someone else come out and fixed it for $600. The pump wouldn’t prime underground which was just bad timing unrelated to the weather.
@John Underwood what are the best ways you have found to winterize your rental with guests coming in and out? I have been telling guests to let the faucet drip and explaining why has worked so far, but not all guests read messages or instructions. Would love to hear your thoughts
Even Austin got slammed the past few weeks. Had a plumber out to fix a broken pipe after the recent freeze (thankfully only one leak), and he said their phones have not stopped ringing since. Makes me wonder how many STR operators in the city faced a similar problem that your guests original operator had...
@John Underwood what are the best ways you have found to winterize your rental with guests coming in and out? I have been telling guests to let the faucet drip and explaining why has worked so far, but not all guests read messages or instructions. Would love to hear your thoughts
A crawl space with the airhandler and duct work located there helps alot. This helps to keep the pipes well above freezing. Then leaving the water dripping is all I have ever needed to do so far.
The mess in the Smoky Mountains was fun. It is almost over. Several of my clients are still dealing with issues here and there. Some large and some small.
During the 75 minute rolling power outage on Christmas Eve my guest packed up and left the cabin and asked Airbnb for a full refund. I was able to communicate with them and talk them into coming back, and they ultimately left a 5-star review, but it was a rough situation considering the high dollar holiday booking put at risk for something outside my control that affected the whole area. Last year I had a couple stay there for 2 days of no power in the January blizzard because they wanted to hang out in a snowy cabin in front of a fireplace and loved it, never asking for anything… As a guest I’d be somewhere in the middle of these two in my expectations.
During the 75 minute rolling power outage on Christmas Eve my guest packed up and left the cabin and asked Airbnb for a full refund. I was able to communicate with them and talk them into coming back, and they ultimately left a 5-star review, but it was a rough situation considering the high dollar holiday booking put at risk for something outside my control that affected the whole area. Last year I had a couple stay there for 2 days of no power in the January blizzard because they wanted to hang out in a snowy cabin in front of a fireplace and loved it, never asking for anything… As a guest I’d be somewhere in the middle of these two in my expectations.
Good job on talking them into coming back. How did that conversation go?
During the 75 minute rolling power outage on Christmas Eve my guest packed up and left the cabin and asked Airbnb for a full refund. I was able to communicate with them and talk them into coming back, and they ultimately left a 5-star review, but it was a rough situation considering the high dollar holiday booking put at risk for something outside my control that affected the whole area. Last year I had a couple stay there for 2 days of no power in the January blizzard because they wanted to hang out in a snowy cabin in front of a fireplace and loved it, never asking for anything… As a guest I’d be somewhere in the middle of these two in my expectations.
Good job on talking them into coming back. How did that conversation go?
I sent them a pic of the Sevier Co Electric power map and explained the situation. I also offered to comp them any nights in a hotel that power went out for (which would have been better than doing a big refund for the stay). Ultimately the power didn’t go out again so I didn’t need to do that.