Outage note during a stay

When to send

Send an outage note when a service the guest is using has stopped: power, water, heat, or the internet if the internet is how the lock or their work functions. {outage_kind} names which one and the scope you actually know, such as “water to the upstairs bath only” or “the block’s power, according to the utility map.” Do not guess a cause you have not checked. “The transformer blew” becomes a fact in their mind. If you do not know, {outage_kind} can say “power is out and I do not know the cause yet.”

The shared note is for Wi-Fi and for any outage that is not heat, water, or a power cut. The heat variant is for a furnace, which may burn gas. The water variant is for water that is off, leaking, or not safe to drink. The power variant adds the refrigerator and the candle caution. {guest_step} matches the failure you actually have. {what_still_works} keeps the message from sounding like the whole home is over: the other bathroom, mobile data, a stove that still lights, the lock if it has a battery.

{guest_name} should hear from you before they have waited through a silent hour, if you knew first. If they wrote first, this is the reply, sent as soon as you have read it.

Timing tip

{next_update_time} is a clock time, not “soon.” “By 6pm” gives them a moment to look for your note. When that time arrives, write even if the utility has said nothing. A kept update builds more trust than an early promise that the water will be back in twenty minutes.

If the outage starts overnight, send the note when you see it. A morning discovery of a night outage still deserves a message that says when you learned it. Do not backdate certainty.

Use the maintenance acknowledgment instead when a single appliance failed and the rest of the service is fine. A dead toaster is not {outage_kind}. A dark street and a dark kitchen is.

Common mistakes

A refund promise you have not decided is the first one. This template does not mention money. If you later offer a partial refund or a different night, put that in its own sentence after you know the amount and the method. An outage message that says “of course we will compensate you” becomes the number they invent.

The second is a fake cause or a fake clock. Quoting a restoration time you rounded down to calm them will be checked against the utility. {next_update_time} is your next message, which you control. The utility’s estimate can be included inside {outage_kind} only if you identify it as theirs.

The third is asking them to fix the utility. {guest_step} might be “avoid the back bath” or “unplug the desktop so a surge does not hit it when power returns.” It is not “go outside and talk to the crew” or “reset the breaker panel” unless you are sure the panel is theirs to touch and you can describe the exact breaker. When in doubt, the step is to wait and to tell you if it spreads.

Safety and records

Water on a floor can stay in this thread. A gas smell cannot. Only the heat variant and the water variant tell the guest to leave first and call {emergency_line} or the gas company, then message once they are outside. The shared note leaves that line out, so a Wi-Fi outage does not tell anyone to call the gas company. Do not ask someone who smells gas to stay in the house and type. The emergency card generator prints local numbers in the browser. It does not call anyone. Put that number in {emergency_line}. If you keep a card in the home, {guest_step} can say where it is for a water or power problem, not as the gas step.

Write down what you told them and when, in case the stay turns into an incident report. The message is the record if you stick to what you knew at {next_update_time}.