Keeping the cottage open in winter: the bare minimum
Updated
You don’t close the cottage for winter: you come up to ski at Sutton, for the holidays, for a snowshoe weekend. In between, the house stays heated and empty, sometimes for weeks at a stretch.
It’s a great way to enjoy the place, but a heated house isn’t a house that’s out of harm’s way. Here’s the minimum to do so it makes it through the winter.
The minimum, before every departure
1. Set the heat — and don’t turn it right down
Leave the thermostat at the setting your plumber or insurer recommends. The thermostat measures the room it’s in; the basement, the crawl space and the cabinets against the north wall run colder. Turning it all the way down to save money exposes exactly those spots.
2. Open cabinet doors on exterior walls
Under a kitchen or bathroom sink that backs onto an exterior wall, leave the doors open so the room’s heat reaches the pipes.
3. Close the main shut-off when you leave — if your plumber agrees
A closed valve limits how much water can run if a pipe gives. On a well, the pump breaker should be clearly labelled in the panel. Some setups have quirks (hot-water heating, the water heater, water treatment equipment): ask your plumber what suits yours before making it a habit.
4. Leave a thermometer in the coldest room
A simple display thermometer in the basement or the north-side room tells whoever stops by whether the house is cooling in a spot the thermostat can’t see. A connected alert is useful, but it goes quiet when the power or the internet goes out — exactly when you’d need it.
5. Keep exhaust vents clear
The wall vents for a furnace, a propane water heater, a dryer or an air exchanger need to stay clear of snow. A buried vent can shut the appliance down or push fumes back into the house. Check that the smoke and carbon-monoxide alarms work before you leave.
6. Make sure there’s access
A snow-clearing contract for the driveway, automatic propane or oil delivery, and a road a delivery driver or plumber can actually use. On a steep driveway on the slopes of Sutton or Potton, access is often what holds everything else up.
7. Leave instructions and keys
Where’s the valve? The electrical panel? The number for the plumber, the snow-clearing contractor, the fuel supplier? Who has a key? One sheet on the counter, and a copy with whoever stops by.
8. Arrange for someone to go inside
This is the one people forget. The house is heated, so it must be fine. But nobody actually knows until someone walks in.
Why a heated cottage is still exposed
Heat depends on a chain. Hydro-Québec power, fuel, the thermostat, the breaker, the furnace igniter. If any one of them fails, the house cools down quietly.
Outages last longer on the mountain. On wooded Townships roads, a branch loaded with ice or heavy snow can take the power down. Restoring a remote back road can take longer than in town. And when the power comes back, not every appliance restarts on its own.
A thaw is sneaky. After a cold snap, a mild spell melts snow on the roof; the water refreezes at the eaves and forms ice dams. The same thaw lets a pipe that froze in a cold corner thaw out — and that’s when the water runs.
Cottages were built in stages. An addition over a crawl space, a bathroom added on an exposed wall: those are the spots that freeze first, even when the rest of the house is comfortable.
What you can do, and what belongs to the pros
What an owner can do:
- Set the heating and write down the setting.
- Open the cabinets, place a thermometer, test the alarms.
- Find the main shut-off and, with your plumber’s agreement, close it when you leave.
- Sign the snow-clearing contract and confirm fuel delivery.
- Leave an up-to-date contact list.
What belongs to a professional:
- Annual servicing of the heating system.
- Installing a generator: hooked up by a master electrician, with the proper transfer equipment. A generator never runs indoors or in an attached garage.
- Adding heat cable, or insulating a pipe in a wall or crawl space: an RBQ-licensed contractor.
- Clearing snow off the roof, by an equipped contractor.
In an empty house, how long before anyone notices?
Between stays, a heated house is just as quiet as a closed one. If the heat stops, nothing shows from the road. A pipe that freezes and then thaws keeps running until someone opens the door.
Say you come up for the holidays and then again for March break: whatever happens in between waits for you to get back. How often someone stops by sets the maximum length of any damage. Many insurers also set specific conditions for a home left empty in winter, and they vary from policy to policy: ask your broker what applies to yours.
What we look at on a visit
Every visit, we read the thermostat and compare it with the agreed setting, read the thermometer left in the coldest room, check the position of the main shut-off, check that the driveway is cleared and passable, look at the wall exhaust vents to make sure they’re free of snow, and check the indicator lights on the smoke and carbon-monoxide alarms. 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 an RBQ-licensed plumber or electrician on site and document the work. And if you’re coming up the following weekend, arrival prep can turn the heat up before you get there.