Weekly, every two weeks or monthly: how often should someone check the cottage?
Updated
You know someone should stop by the cottage when you’re not there. The real question comes right after: how often? Once a month sounds reasonable in July and a lot less so in February.
How to choose
1. Start from your longest absence, not the average
Look at last year’s calendar. Find the longest stretch when nobody set foot in the cottage. That’s the one that matters: a problem that starts at the beginning of that stretch goes unseen until the end. If you’re up regularly in summer but rarely in winter, your needs change with the seasons.
2. Sort your cottage with three questions
- Is it heated in winter? A heated house depends on equipment, on power and sometimes on a fuel delivery. Any of them can stop. A closed, drained house runs fewer water risks, but it’s still exposed to snow, pests and break-ins.
- Does it rely on a well, a sump pump or propane? The more equipment has to run on its own, the longer a failure can go unnoticed.
- Is access reliable? A steep road, a snow-clearing crew that comes late, a driveway the propane truck can’t climb: these are problems you only see on site.
3. Read your policy’s conditions
Many insurers set specific conditions when a home sits empty, such as regular visits or keeping the heat on. Conditions vary from one insurer to the next, and the wording of your policy is what counts. Ask your broker what applies to your cottage before settling on a frequency.
4. Pick a frequency for each season
It’s common not to keep the same rhythm all year. What matters is that every period has a written frequency, and that your own stays are counted honestly.
What each frequency changes
Every week
This is the rhythm that best fits winter in a heated, empty cottage. Heat that has stopped, a slow leak or an ice dam starting to form gets seen quickly, before the situation has had time to spread. It’s also the rhythm that makes one visit easy to compare with the last: a water meter, a propane gauge, the temperature in the coldest room.
At Mr. Lantern, the Seasonal Winter plan has weekly visits from November through April, and the Signature plan has weekly visits year-round.
Every two weeks
A reasonable middle ground for the mild season, when there’s no frost risk and the house is under less strain. Summer problems still happen: thunderstorms and outages, basement humidity, sump pumps, wasps and mice, clogged gutters. Two weeks gives those problems time to settle in, but rarely to become major if they’re caught on the next visit.
The Annual plan combines both: visits every two weeks for most of the year, weekly in winter.
Once a month
A monthly visit mostly suits owners who come up often themselves and want an outside set of eyes between stays. On its own, it leaves long stretches unseen. For a cottage that’s heated and empty all winter, it’s rarely enough. The Essential plan offers one documented visit a month, precisely for homes their owners already visit regularly.
After a storm
Weather doesn’t follow a calendar. Freezing rain, a big dump of snow or high winds can justify a visit between scheduled ones, whatever frequency you picked. Environment Canada publishes warnings for the region, and Hydro-Québec publishes outage status. A post-storm check can be added to any plan: details are on the Services page.
Why a Townships winter changes the math
Mild spells. In Brome-Missisquoi, a thaw can follow a cold snap within days. A pipe that split in the cold starts running at the thaw, and melting snow looks for a way toward the foundation.
Outages on the mountain. Around Sutton, Potton or Abercorn, an outage can last longer on an isolated back road than in town. Electric heat, the well pump and the sump pump all stop at the same time.
Snow and ice. Snow weight on a deck, an ice dam at the eaves, a buried exhaust vent: these build up week after week.
Access. A driveway that isn’t cleared blocks a propane delivery or a contractor in an emergency. You only find out if someone went to look.
What you can do, and what belongs to the professionals
What an owner can do:
- Keep a calendar of your own stays and share it with whoever does the visits.
- Leave a stand-alone thermometer in the coldest room.
- Put in writing the heat setting, where the main shut-off should be, and who to call if there’s a problem.
- Make sure the snow-clearing contract covers the driveway right up to the door.
- Revisit the frequency every fall: a new heating system, a new pump or a policy change can change the answer.
What belongs to professionals:
- Your broker: confirming your policy’s conditions when the house is empty.
- An RBQ-licensed plumber or electrician: fixing the weak points that make the cottage fragile, like a pipe in an exterior wall or a sump pump with no alarm.
In an empty house, how long before anyone notices?
The frequency you choose is, in practice, the longest a problem can go unseen. Nobody hears a pump running non-stop or notices a cold baseboard in an empty cottage. A weekly visit doesn’t make problems disappear. It limits how long they have to get worse, and it leaves a run of dated findings that shows the state of the house through the season.
What we look at on a visit
Every visit, we read the main thermostat and the thermometer left in the coldest room, log the propane or oil gauge, and read the water meter or well pressure gauge with every tap closed. Outside, we check the snow and ice along the roof edge from the ground and make sure the driveway is passable. Every finding is photographed and time-stamped in the report, so one visit can be compared with the next.
If something’s off, we call you the same day, with photos. If needed, we meet an RBQ-licensed contractor on site and document the work.