Heat and Air Conditioning at Snowflake Chalet

This is a lovely photo, but to prevent sparks from starting a fire, please do keep the doors to the wood stove closed when a fire is burning.

Wood Burning Stove

We provide enough wood and wood starter for you to enjoy several fires. Our house is well insulated and equipped with a new, energy-efficient furnace that ensures you will be warm and cozy at all times during the winter. In other words, the wood stove is for ambience, not heating the house. Please scroll down for information on our furnace/AC.

You do not need to open the flue, as it is always open. Use paper and kindling to start the fire, or small "fire-start" sticks. You can keep the door slightly open until the fire catches well, but to prevent sparks from starting a fire, please do keep the doors to the wood stove closed when a fire is burning, especially if it is a roaring fire, as in the photo above. It is safe to go to bed or leave the house if the fire is smoldering as long as the doors to the wood stove are closed. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

Please do not take additional wood from the wood pile in the garage to prevent us from running out before the winter is over. Please supervise young children around the stove and the stone hearth.

Heating/Cooling

The thermostat is located on the wall in the bedroom hallway. We want you to be comfortable during your stay, but please help us conserve energy and cost by keeping the thermostat at about 68-72. (Your conservation will help us keep maintain our current nightly rental rates!)

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT THE UPSTAIRS BATHROOM HEATER: We are lucky to have an in-floor heater in the master bathroom, and it is quite a luxury to turn it on and step onto a toasty warm floor after showering on a cold winter day. However, we have had a persistent problem with the heater being left on for long periods of time, or when guests check out, and it is very expensive to run. If our cleaners don't notice that the heater was left on, it may run for days or weeks! Therefore, we invite you to use this wonderful amenity, but please, please, please remember to turn it off when you are not using it, and especially when you check out of the cabin. If it is left on when you leave, we reserve the right to deduct an energy surplus charge from your deposit.)

The bonus room over the garage is equipped with a separate heater and a window air conditioning unit. Please note that the wall heater in that room emits a smell of burning dust when it has not been used for awhile. We recently had our furnace service provider check it out after a guest reported an odor and he assured us that the smell was just the heater burning off dust that had collected on the elements and would go away within a short amount of time; the odor is not a chemical, is harmless, and will burn off within about 30 minutes.)

Summer:

Arnold can get quite hot in the summer, and our home is equipped with central AC for your comfort. We want you to stay cool, but would also like to ask that you turn the AC off when you are not in the house, or use our fans if it is cool outside, as it is quite expensive to run the AC. We often turn the AC on during the day, but once the sun sets we open all the windows and turn the fans on. During the summer, please turn the AC off when you are not in the cabin, and during the winter, please lower the heat to 62 or lower if you are away all day. The furnace/AC unit is new and you will be able to get to a comfortable temperature quickly upon your return. It often cools down overnight during the summer, and we have provided fans if you prefer to enjoy fresh air at night.

Remote Access to Thermostat

We receive email alerts from Honeywell when temperatures go above or below 68-72 and may reset temperatures remotely if we notice significant variations from the suggested range for long periods of time. Please feel free to text us at 650-544-6706 or email us at snowflake.chalet.arnold@gmail.com if you have questions or concerns about the temperature.