How do most landlords deal with properties that have high electric bills even though the bills are the tenants responsibility? Be it from older heating units, not enough insulation, etc. Do you try to make improvements or just leave it as ‘it’s the tenants problem’. We get a lot of prospective tenants requesting past electric bill info. We have one unit which I consider to have high winter bills. We gladly give the info but at some point I don’t want this to run off possibly good tenants. But I also don’t want to break the bank. Thanks
Smalltown,
Does your local utility have a free energy audit? I would start there.
You can help out the tenant by putting on door sweeps, and weatherstripping on windows. Once we made storm windows by stretching special plastic over the window screens and using a hair dryer to shrink them. This was a kit from Home Depot. In cold country regular storm windows might be a huge savings in electric costs.
None of those things cost a lot and could make a tenant stay longer. Also consider hotel-type drapes that have heavy plastic thermal linings. We got a huge pile of those curtains free from our local Holiday Inn as they were going to throw them out. They insulate well on old single pane windows. If you work with the tenant, they will appreciate it.
Furnishedowner
You can also buy a water heater wrap for about $25 or so. Look around for deals on CFL (compact fluorescent) light bulbs. Add some extra roll out insulation in the attic. All of these and Furnishedowner’s suggestions are pretty affordable and should help somewhat. Bottom line is the tenants are going to control their own fate with the utilities. Your past tenant whose bills you’re using to give estimates to prospective tenants may have kept the heat at 85 degrees all winter. I wouldn’t worry too much about the utilities or go to a great expense to increase energy efficiency.
BTW, what part of IL are you in? I’m from south of Springfield.
What we have is a 2 story duplex. We lived upstairs for awhile and the bills were fine, then we moved downstairs and our bills are quite a bit higher. The windows throughout are new and I believe the insulation in the crawl space and attic are sufficient. There is insulation between floors. I’m guessing heat from the lower unit is somewhat heating the upper. Without going to a lot of expense, I don’t know of any solutions.
BTW,Southern IL
Its labor intensive, but really not that expensive if you DYI, but consider blowing cellulose into your wall voids.
Is this a low income unit? Try to get your home weatherized for free. I’m doing that right now on one of my Houses. According to our local city council, we are getting a “substantial” amount of money for weatherization from BO’s stimulus plan.
Google “(your county) weatherization assistance program”