Fully closed or heated all winter: how to choose for your cottage
Updated
Every fall the same question comes up: do we drain the plumbing and close the cottage until April, or keep it heated so we can come up to ski at Sutton in February? Both are reasonable choices. They just don’t carry the same risks, or ask the same things of you.
How to decide
1. Be honest about your winter stays
If you come up often in winter, a closed cottage quickly turns into a chore: turn the water back on, warm up the house, then drain everything again before you leave. If you almost never come up between December and March, keeping the house heated mostly means protecting an empty building.
2. Look at how the cottage was built
A cottage built for winter, well insulated, with plumbing in interior walls, lends itself to being heated remotely. A three-season cottage that was added onto, with pipes in a crawl space or an extension, is more fragile when the heat stops. Ask your plumber what they think of your house.
3. List everything that depends on power
Electric heat, a furnace whose burner and fan need electricity, a well pump, a sump pump, a dehumidifier: in an outage, they all stop at once. The longer that list, the bigger the consequences of an outage in a heated cottage.
4. Call your broker
Don’t skip this step. Many policies set specific conditions when a home is unoccupied, and those conditions may differ for a heated house and a drained one. Conditions vary from one insurer to the next. Ask what applies to each option before you choose.
What each option involves
Fully closed
What it protects well: properly drained plumbing has almost no water left to freeze. The risk of water damage from a split pipe drops considerably, and an outage matters less.
What’s still exposed:
- An incomplete drain. A section of pipe sloping the wrong way, a forgotten tap, a connected appliance: leftover water can freeze and split.
- Snow and ice. Closing up doesn’t stop snow from piling up: loaded decks, ice along the roof edge, buried exhaust vents.
- Humidity. A cold, closed house with no air moving can build up condensation and odours.
- Pests. Mice and squirrels find a quiet house fast.
- Spring. Turning the water back on means checking every fitting.
What it requires: a careful full drain, plumbing antifreeze in the traps and toilets, and visits for snow, mice and break-ins.
Heated all winter
What it protects well: the structure, finishes and furniture stay in steadier conditions. You can come up whenever you like. Humidity is easier to control.
What’s still exposed:
- The heat stopping. A Hydro-Québec outage on the mountain, a tripped breaker, a furnace in error, a propane tank run dry because the truck couldn’t make it up the driveway: the house cools with nobody knowing, and water still in the pipes.
- Leaks. Water stays under pressure in the house. A fitting that lets go keeps running until someone sees it, or the main shut-off is closed.
- Relying on suppliers. Snow clearing and fuel deliveries become essential.
What it requires: a heat setting your plumber or insurer recommends, frequent winter visits, and clear instructions on where the main shut-off should be between visits.
Why the Townships make the choice harder
Outages last longer on back roads. Around Potton, Abercorn or Frelighsburg, an isolated line can wait longer to be restored than a city neighbourhood. A cottage on electric heat has no plan B without a generator.
Freezing rain hits both options. Branches on the roof, a service wire torn down, a loaded deck: a closed cottage and a heated one both need someone to go look.
Thaws catch partial drains. A little leftover water can survive one cold snap, then give way after a thaw and refreeze.
Steep driveways. A driveway that’s hard going in winter makes every propane delivery and every emergency visit less certain.
What you can do, and what belongs to the plumber
What an owner can do:
- Write down your planned winter stays and the cottage’s type of heating.
- Talk to your broker about the conditions that apply to each option.
- If you heat: confirm snow clearing and deliveries in writing, and leave a thermometer in the coldest room.
- If you close: remove all food, keep mice out, stake the driveway, lock up.
What belongs to a licensed contractor:
- An RBQ-licensed plumber: assessing whether the plumbing can be fully drained, doing the drain and antifreeze, or rerouting pipes too exposed to cold.
- A master electrician: installing a generator or transfer switch, if you heat with electricity.
- A heating technician: servicing the furnace or heat pump before winter.
Our fall closing includes draining the lines and antifreeze, with a photo of every step. For a heated cottage, the Seasonal Winter plan has weekly visits from November through April.
In an empty house, how long before anyone notices?
In a heated cottage, the costliest problem — the heat stopping — can’t be seen from outside. In a closed cottage, problems move more slowly, but they’re just as quiet. Either way, the gap between visits sets how long a problem can last before anyone sees it. A heated cottage generally needs visits closer together, precisely because the water is still in the pipes.
What we look at on a visit
In a heated cottage, we read the main thermostat and compare it with the setting, check that the baseboards are warm or the furnace starts, and look at whether the stove and microwave clocks are blinking — a sign of a recent outage. In a closed cottage, we check for antifreeze in the toilets and make sure there’s no ice in the bowl. Either way, we log the hygrometer reading to follow humidity, and look for mouse droppings along the baseboards and in the cupboards. Every finding is photographed and time-stamped in the report.
If something’s off, we call you the same day, with photos. If needed, we meet a licensed contractor on site and document the work.