Energy Efficiency for Lodging If you own or operate a hotel, motel, bed & breakfast, or guesthouse, you face special challenges regarding energy management. Your facilities may be active 24 hours a day and often comprise more than one building that provides a variety of services. To manage these facilities, you must take into account the comfort and well being of your customers. Often, guests are allowed to adjust thermostat settings, use large amounts of hot water, leave doors and windows open while the cooling or heating system is running and leave lights on in unoccupied rooms. This can greatly increase the amount of energy consumed by your business, and thereby increase operating costs, without any additional revenue.
The following tips and resources will help you save money and energy will protecting the environment:
Housekeeping Department
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Have housekeepers turn off guest room lights, televisions and radios when rooms are unoccupied.
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Have housekeepers turn off heating and cooling systems in unoccupied rooms or have them reset the thermostats upward or downward.
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Reduce heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter by closing window draperies and shades when exiting guest rooms.
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Educate your housekeeping staff to use natural lighting when making up and cleaning guest rooms, limiting their use of artificial light.
Maintenance Department
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Repair leaking water fixtures immediately.
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Install timers on bathroom heat lamps and consider connecting bathroom exhaust fans to light switches to reduce excessive operation.
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Replace light bulbs with more efficient ones. Consider changing to high-efficiency .
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Have your maintenance staff regularly check and clean HVAC filters, condenser and evaporator coils to keep them running efficiently.
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Seal cracks around windows, doors, and through-the-wall or window type HVAC units with caulk and weather-strip doors and operable windows.
Management
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Activate the stand-by mode in your ENERGY STAR labeled computer.
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Consider installing high efficiency ENERGY STAR labeled products when purchasing new equipment.
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Consider installing Energy Control Systems that allow management central control of individual rooms.
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During periods of low occupancy, close down entire wings or floors and reduce lighting and HVAC systems in these areas.
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Assign guests to adjoining rooms to allow the heating and cooling of occupied rooms to act as a buffer or insulator.
Success Stories
View the following ENERGY STAR for Small Business success stories for more tips on saving money and energy:
Additional Resources
Produced in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration, Business Gateway and ENERGY STAR®