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Make It Clear: Why You Can't Just Flush and Forget
Make It Clear: Why You Can't Just Flush and Forget
Vacation Homes and Wastewater Systems
In this episode, we discuss vacation homes and short-term rentals with Cory Lyon, and Aaron Yates. Cory and Aaron define vacation homes and highlight the trend of people frequently renting out their properties. The conversation explores the variations in vacation homes by region, including examples from California, the Midwest, and the Northeast. We also discuss the design considerations and best technology for short-term rentals which leads to the importance of maintenance and monitoring systems for optimal performance. The conversation concludes with a discussion on transitioning between vacation rentals and permanent residences and the need for clear communication and instructions for guests.
Key Takeaways
- Homes are now frequently rented out as short-term rentals, with people using platforms like Airbnb.
- The design considerations for short-term rentals vary depending on the region and the specific needs of the property.
- Advanced treatment systems like AdvanTex®️ are recommended for short-term rentals due to their ability to handle variable flows and provide reliable treatment.
- Regular maintenance and monitoring are crucial for the proper functioning of systems on short-term rentals.
- Clear communication and instructions for guests can help prevent issues and ensure a positive experience.
If you have comments or questions about our podcast, you can reach us through this link. To discuss a project or talk to one of our engineers, call 800-348-9843.
Angela
Hello and welcome back. Thanks for joining us again. Today, Shawn and I are here, of course, as usual. And joining us today, we've got Corey Lyon and Aaron Yates. They're both on our sales team. Both of them are very well-versed in the topic we're gonna discuss today. We're going to be talking about vacation homes. So, hi Corey.
Cory
Good morning.
Angela
Hi, Aaron.
Aaron
Good morning.
Angela
Thanks for being here, guys. Let's jump in. So let's, first of all, for the listeners, let's go ahead and define what we mean by vacation home.
Cory
That's a great question, Angela. That can mean a lot of things depending on what people are doing, especially post-COVID, right?
Angela
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Cory
So a big trend we've seen is people getting in and out of the short-term rental market a lot more frequently than, and by that, what I mean is putting their home or property on that short-term rental market more frequently and back and forth, whereas traditionally, things seem to be more seasonal. That classic John Candy “Lake House” up in Northern Michigan, that's still there, but that's now one amongst multiple situations that people have where they are renting out properties of different kinds.
Angela
Right. And I guess that's a really good way to put it. We in the industry, we've always called them vacation homes, right? It's always, as long as I've been in the industry, that's what the types of homes that we're talking about have been called, but now they're short-term rentals. We think of them as you're looking at AirBnBs, VRBOs, like whatever platform you use, but...
Angela
Instead of just being vacation homes, like you were saying, the John Candy house on the lake, short term rentals are much more prevalent nowadays.
Shawn
Yeah, I think that's an important distinction because a lot of people probably still think of vacation home as that second home that somebody with a large income owns somewhere else, you know that they go to for a week or two out of the year That definition has definitely changed. So yeah, it's good to know that
Angela
Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about how short-term rentals or vacation homes vary.
Cory
Oh, how much time do you have?
Angela
I know, I know.
Shawn
Yeah.
Cory
There can be a lot of different ones. Maybe we can tackle this geographically. Like, Aaron, you want to talk about some of the kinds of vacation home profiles you see in the Western region? And then I can maybe chime in about the Midwest and the Northeast a little bit.
Aaron
So I've, I cover primarily California and we see quite the variety of homes. We've got the Stinson Beach, you know, weekend getaway home for the uber wealthy from the Bay Area. And then we've also got the mountain retreat, you know, up around like Lake Tahoe in the Sierras. And so we've got a lot of very…
Aaron
peak usage weekend type home. It just the whole runs the whole gamut and including that Southern California you've got Malibu and all of those homes that they're either full-time occupancy or I'm assuming it's because it's the uber wealthy that they're just part-time usage.
Angela
And they vary in size.
Aaron
oh they do you know your mountain cabins you know can be literally that but your Stinson Beach home is not a mountain you know mountain cabin those are those are big yeah
Shawn
Right.
Angela
Yeah, on the beach.
Cory
Right. They may have full-time staff, right?
Angela
Yeah.
Aaron
A lot of them do, you know, there'll be housekeepers that are there and, you know, all the things that go with the, you know, the cleaning supplies and all that.
Angela
Mm-hmm.
Cory
and the entertainment events and so forth, right?
Aaron
Oh yeah, lots of entertainment.
Cory
Yeah. So to add to what you're saying or sharing there, Aaron, in the Midwest, you see a lot of homes around lake areas or rivers, places where people want to get away for slightly longer stretches, but it's maybe the weekend to a week or two. Or maybe like this winter, people are out riding their sled snowmobiling, right? And they've got a crew of 20 guys, and they're all on a four bedroom house like a Dude Ranch for the weekend.
Angela
Mm-hmm.
Angela
Yeah.
Cory
And so there can be variations there too, where maybe it's not a black tie affair, but there's a lot of folks there for a very short period of time using a wastewater system. And of course, when you interject the waterway being nearby, whether it's a lake or river, that adds to the performance level that's needed. And of course, there's also more traditional vacation homes, like there's homes in the Poconos and various mountain areas where people like to get out just to
Cory
see the fall colors, so to say, or get away from the metro areas. And then of course, there's the more traditional vacation or rental homes in places like Vermont where you're 20 minutes away from a ski resort and you're renting it for a week or something. So there's definitely quite a bit of variation in how those businesses essentially interact with their customers too. That's the other thing is the expectations can be quite a bit different.
Angela
Right. Well, and not everybody treats a vacation rental or short-term rental like it's their own.
Shawn
Right.
Angela
Right. All right. So, what are the design considerations when...
Aaron
Well, California is a very still prescriptive market. And so, you know, a three-bedroom home is still, they have a design flow that they have to design to, except usually it's not a three-bedroom. It'll be like an eight-plus-bedroom house. And so, they're also, not just the design flow, but the amount of emergency storage that we have to account for,
Angela
Mmm-hmm
Aaron
is, I know, because of... especially now, because of seasonal power outages due to, you know, wildfire danger and, you know, all the things that come with that.
Angela
So are the regulations different for short-term rentals or if it's a four bedroom home is it just four bedroom home regs as opposed to a four bedroom home that has four bunk beds in one of the rooms
Aaron
It's from what I've seen, they're still the same. They, there's no distinction between the two.
Shawn
Hmm.
Cory
That's really true of a good portion of North America. There's a few exceptions where if there's a zoning restriction that essentially affects how many people per bedroom they can have in a home or property. But usually, there's no regulations on the infrastructure or wastewater side that affects that. Occasionally, you might have a property that's on an operating permit where they're like, you cannot exceed this maximum design flow.
Angela
Right.
Cory
So far, the only, and I'd love to hear from our listeners if there's a jurisdiction out there that accounts for this, but I only know of one jurisdiction that accounts for rental specifically in their language, and that's in Vermont.
Angela
Mmm.
Cory
In section one dash 803, they actually call out rental applications as having a higher expectation of people per bedroom beyond a certain number of bedrooms.
Angela
Yeah.
Shawn
Oh, that's interesting.
Angela
Well, I was thinking, I mean, I, I can't tell you the number of times that we've rented, personally rented in a short-term rental and had a kid sleeping on a couch.
Cory Lyon
Right, yeah.
Angela
Right? Yeah.
Cory
Or you see the three-tier bunk beds in more than one bedroom, right?
Angela
And a lot of times, even when you, uh, when you're looking on the sites for, you know, how many people can sleep in this
Angela
home. They count couches in, you know, if it has a living room and a family room, it's probably gonna say that you can sleep four more people because they'll have two couches in each of those.
Aaron
and a roll away that they bring to you.
Angela
And a roll away. Yeah, yeah. So that's interesting. So you definitely need to take that into consideration if you know that the house is gonna be a short-term rental.
Angela
So what technology is best for a short-term rental?
Cory
That's a great question, Angela. If we step back and look at what's the profile, what does the application need? It needs to be able to handle extremes between low flows, nominal flows that it's expected on a normal basis, as well as be able to handle peak flows, right? So you're asking it to be able to do a lot. Preferably, you also want it to be resilient in terms of treatment, where if those events happen, everything's still, for the most part, from a treatment perspective, still performing very well.
Angela
Mm-hmm.
Cory
You don't want big upsets or swings in hydraulic surges that are unexpected or biological upsets where you get blow through the system. I think that's an application where a packed bed media filter like Advantex, where we're operating it in that mode where we're essentially starving the biology. You combine that with that recirculation blend tank and the smart controls, and you have a really good three-point combo, like a pincer movement for these applications.
Cory
It's the same reason why AdvanTex is so good at schools or campgrounds is you have that variable flow that's always being buffered out and You have the controls that can manage things if things really get wild with the swings
Angela
Crazy. Yeah.
Angela
Yeah.
Cory
And it's quiet. It doesn't bother the people who probably don't even know what a wastewater system might be. They're there for the weekend, right?
Angela and Shawn
Right, right.
Angela
The last thing that you want is for that alarm to be going off. How do I...
Cory
Right, what's that loud fan over there?
Aaron
What's that sound?
Angela
All right. So what about maintenance? So what do you need to consider when maintaining a short-term rental or vacation home? Is standard maintenance going to be enough?
Aaron
So I get a lot of questions from operators, especially regarding timer settings for their treatment system. And my general recommendation to them is that you set the average timer settings based upon when they're not there, and you set the override settings based upon the peak flow so that when the guests are there and they bring their extended family, that...
Aaron
the system can keep up with the amount of flow that it's seen but we know that if we were to keep those exact timer settings for when no one's there that the system is going to require a lot more maintenance there's some there's some filters inside that plug up you know especially uh... bio tube for like a standard ax twenty you know if we were to over recirculate that it would plug up and if no one's there it's going to be plugged up sooner so uh...
Angela
Right.
Aaron
I try, so I tend to balance it between nobody there versus someone's there.
Angela
Mm-hmm.
Shawn
Right.
Angela
So what happens most often when it sits idle and empty for a long period of time?
Aaron
So at that point, it's just recirculating upon itself. Our controls, we have smart controls that actually back off the timer settings. And so I refer to it as vacation mode. You start lengthening the amount of time between pump cycles. So if I set it for, if I leave it at our default settings, it's about 150 to 200 gallons a day, it's going to start.
Aaron
creeping that out to where you're doing much, much less than that gets through the pod.
Angela
Mm-hmm, yeah.
Shawn
So would it be beneficial then because of the cyclical nature of vacancy versus occupancy to have somebody monitoring the system?
Aaron
So we have a couple different kinds of controls. So we have our Vericomm, which is our monitoring one. And if they have some form of communication at this, like a high-speed internet or a phone line, then absolutely, you know, let the system be monitored because then the maintenance provider can find out if there is an issue and respond accordingly. You know, if there's no utilities up there, you know, no phone line or internet connection, which is getting
especially the internet connection is getting rare. You know, even the vacation homes have internet. You know, but we do make an MVP line. The only thing is, is that when there's a problem, the audible goes off. And if no one's there to hear it, or the neighbors hear it, and they call the sheriff's department. Yeah.
Shawn
right.
Angela
Mm-hmm.
Shawn
right well it kind of makes sense because if i was on vacation at this really nice house somewhere enjoying my time out and out of my own house you know enjoying the scenery and whatnot last thing i want to hear is an alarm going off somewhere because the system's backed up so yeah
Angela
Right.
Angela
Ha ha ha.
Cory
Did someone break into the wine cellar and set off a security alarm?
Shawn
Right
Angela
That's right. Nope, just your wastewater system.
Cory
Monitoring also creates a unique opportunity to get to know not only what your client is telling you, but also the actual usage habits. Because sometimes the business owner doesn't know how a property will do once it's rented. Right?
Angela
Mm-hmm.
Shawn
Mm-hmm.
Cory
And if it gets heavily used weekend after weekend, it can also be an opportunity to determine, you know, is additional maintenance needed because you got a lot of people who've never been on an on-site wastewater system, you know, leaving non-degradable material.
Cory
you know, wipes and things like that in the system. So it can be an opportunity to kind of check on it to see if it does need more maintenance visits based on that kind of usage, as opposed to a more traditional seasonal summer lake house or something like that, right?
Angela
Right. So what happens if the home sells and moves from a vacation rental to a permanent residence?
Aaron
That's a really good question. If the system is designed properly, it should be able to just roll right into a regular full-time residence because the treatment system is sized appropriately.
Angela
Mm-hmm. So let's ask that question in the reverse. If you have a home that you own that you are deciding that you're going to turn into a short-term rental or a vacation home.
what happens or what should happen? What are the things that you need to consider if you're gonna move your home into a short-term rental situation?
Aaron
Good question. Hopefully everything is, like I said, is sized appropriately, especially your drain field. You know, the treatment system is modular and can easily expand to accept more flows, but do they have enough property that will take the drain field? You know, what, what
Aaron
what amount of land do you have? Because once the drain field fails, there's a reason why they have advanced treatment required on this piece of property. It's because the soil is either not enough or won't accept the water, or there's high groundwater in certain areas too. So there's a reason why they have advanced treatment or requirements. And oftentimes, especially when you get into some of your smaller lots where they don't have enough
Aaron
land to put their reserve drain field, or they don't have room to expand.
Angela
Mm-hmm.
Cory
Yes. So one of the key things here would be if you're an operator or a practitioner in this industry that's providing maintenance services, have those conversations with your homeowners. Be proactive. Mention it in your newsletter. Stuff, if you're not doing a newsletter, stuff one in your envelopes that you send out and let them know, hey, if you're thinking about this, we'd love to chat with you. We can help you. Be their support mechanism because there are a lot of people out there thinking about, hey, I'd love to make some extra cash.
Cory
during the various seasons of the year. And so it could be an opportunity to add value to your clients as well, help guide them through that journey.
Shawn
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Angela
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Make sure they understand what it really means.
Alright, is there anything else about short-term rental vacation homes that we didn't cover?
Cory
Yeah, I'd like to go back to when we were joking a little bit about the alarm situation, but I think we've seen some of these differences in our own travels, right? Where you get the little placard that says, hey, here's some advice about how to get into the garage. Here's some advice on where to take the bikes that you're renting around the trail. Why not include a placard or some brief instructions on, hey, if your alarm goes off, do this, call these people or call this number.
Angela
Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah.
Cory
or here's some advice on what not to put down the system if you're trying to prohibit wipes or things like that.
Angela
Yeah, yeah.
Shawn
Absolutely, yeah.
Cory
Because a lot of folks will be, you know, not used to having a home that's on the system. And the last thing they want to be, to see is to be embarrassed, upset from an alarm going off and having to call somebody or just be disrupted from their vacation, right?
Angela
Yeah, and I have seen in Sun River, well outside of Sun River, in Three Rivers there, we stayed at a rental and they had just that. They had the sheet that said, don't flush anything. If something happens, call this number. Like, if the alarm sounds, don't become alarmed. Just push the button and call this number. Because it was on a septic system.
Shawn
Mm-hmm.
Angela
I of course went outside and found where the septic system was.
Shawn
Right. Okay, who among us has not done that? Because... ..
Angela
Because that's what I do when I know. Are you kidding? I drive into communities that I know have our stuff and I'm literally like walking around restaurants looking for where their tanks are. It's a sickness I tell ya.
Shawn
Yeah, I'm guilty of a lot of that too. Ha ha ha.
Aaron
I did the same thing at my uncle's house. He was on a septic system, so first time I went there I went to his garage to go see what kind of panel he had. Ha ha ha!
Shawn
I think it's a hazard of the job.
Cory
very much can be, yeah.
Angela
All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Cory and Aaron. It's a pleasure having you. And thanks everybody for listening.
Cory
No, thanks for having us on.
