Deep Cleaning Vacation Rental Homes

Here at Florida Spirit, we take the cleanliness of our homes seriously. It’s one of the reasons a member of our staff performs an inspection of every home prior to guest check-in; we want to ensure our guests walk in to a clean and prepared vacation home.

When a departure and arrival are back-to-back, cleaners only have about four hours to clean a five or six bedroom home. While this allows enough time to vacuum carpets, mop floors, wash and change linens and clean the kitchen and bathrooms, from time-to-time a deep cleaning is required.

Deep-cleans don’t require several days, despite those who seem to have this impression. It’s not cost-effective or efficient during a deep-clean to duplicate what the departure-clean has already done. The focus of a deep-clean should be on the tasks that the departure-clean team doesn’t have time for, and the areas that only require periodic attention. Some examples are:

• Clean and dust all air vents.
• Wash all baseboards.
• Clean window sills and tracks.
• Empty cupboards; wipe down inside.
• Dust silk plants.
• Move large appliances (refrigerator, washer, dryer); mop surface behind and underneath.
• Dust high shelves.

Make sure you have a checklist for your cleaning teams, both for the departure clean and the deep-clean. Compare your checklists to make sure tasks aren’t being duplicated. Florida Spirit schedules deep cleaning once a year, usually between peak seasons.

For a deep-clean checklist, or if you have questions, email us at info@floridaspirit.com

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How to reduce electric bills in a Vacation Home.

In Central Florida many vacation home owners have been shocked by the increase in their electric bills over years past.  Power companies across Central Florida have increased their fees for electricity.  In these already difficult economic times, the last thing many people were expecting was an increase in basic running cost of a home.

Vacation Homes are hit even harder by the fact that many times rental guest are not thinking of the property owners cost when running the air conditioner and leaving lights on.  Luckily there are several very easy and affordable ways to reduce the electric bill without upsetting your rental guest.

Besides changing out light bulbs for energy saving ones, the first thing any owner of an Orlando Vacation home should do is sign up for the Progress Energy’s “Save the Watts” program.  This program is free to join and lets Progress Energy regulate the power usage during peak periods.  We have had this on several homes for the past year and guest never had any problems.

The next thing to look into is switching out the thermostat of the home for a lockable one that can be set to a temperature range such as from 74 degrees Fahrenheit to 78 degrees Fahrenheit.  This is a reasonable temperature for people.  Over the years in the property management industry we have seen many air conditioners frozen by the guest who turned the thermostat down to 68 degrees.  Not only will this reduce your monthly electric cost but it could save you from air conditioner repair cost.  A quality lockable thermostat cost about $80.00

If your Holiday Villa has the garage converted to games rooms then many times the guest will leave the door from the garage into the home open to help cool the garage.  An inexpensive way to help control this is to install a commercial hydraulic door closer.  You can pick one up at Lowes for about $50 and install it in minutes.  Another more expensive system is the A/C shut off systems that many hotels use.  If someone leaves the door to the swimming pool or the games room in the garage open for more than 30 seconds the air conditioner shuts down until the doors are closed.  These systems are great and have really come down in price over the past couple of years.

Depending on the home having the windows tinted maybe a great way to reduce the electric bill.  Many of the beautiful vacation homes have large glass windows that let the sunshine in.  These windows also let an enormous amount of heat into the home.  Instead of closing off the sun with blinds that the guest may not close, modern window tints are not that dark in color but deflect a very significant amount of the sun’s rays from your home.

The next challenge for the Orlando vacation rental is the hot water heater.  Again Progress Energy is a great source of information.  With the vacation rental homes you most likely have depending on the size of the home from 4 to 12 people staying in the property.  10 people taking showers, doing laundry and washing dishes is a significant use of hot water.  Beside a tankless water heater also known as instant hot water system a solar hot water heater is an option.  The problem is these systems are still very expensive and even after any tax incentives the time period to recover the initial investment is very long.  Most vacation homes we see have the hot water heater is set to high.  Many management companies set the water heaters high to prevent guests from calling that the home is running out of hot water.  A little education with the rental guest can go a long way to helping curve utility cost and preserve our environment.  Please had any tips you may have to help others!

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