What We Check on a Winter Cottage Visit

When you hire someone to watch your cottage through the winter, most of what you are paying for is trust. You are hours away, and you take their word that the place is holding up. So it is fair to ask exactly what a winter cottage check visit includes before you sign on with anyone. Here is one start to finish, the way we run it — the drive in, the loop around the outside, the pass through the inside when we hold a key, and the report that reaches you the same day.

A winter cottage check visit starts at the end of the lane

It begins before we are even out of the truck. The drive in tells us a lot, and we read it every time.

The first thing is simply whether we can get down the lane at all. A private cottage road that has drifted shut or gone unplowed is worth knowing about on its own — it is the same road an emergency vehicle would need if something ever went wrong. We note how passable it is and whether the drifting is piling against doors, windows, or a propane fill.

The snow itself is a record of who has been here. A fresh set of footprints or tire tracks down a lane that should be empty is one of the first things we look for. Most of the time it is a neighbour or a delivery driver who turned around — but a track heading to a door and not coming back is exactly the kind of thing you want a person to notice, not a camera to miss.

• Is the lane plowed and passable, or drifted in?
• Any tracks, foot or tire, that do not belong?
• Snow drifting hard against doors, windows, or vents?

The exterior loop

Once we are parked, we walk the whole outside on the same route every visit, so the same things get looked at in the same order and nothing slips past us.

Roof and deck snow depth. We look at the load on the main roof, and we pay special attention to the lighter structures — porch roofs, sunrooms, carports, and decks — where snow tends to pile deeper and the framing carries less. Snow is heavier than it looks, and wet, dense snow is heavier still. We are not putting a number on it from the ground; we are watching the trend, and when the load is building toward something we would rather see off the roof, we flag it. Clearing it is a separate job our crew comes back for — trained, and working in proper fall-arrest gear — and you can read how that works on our roof snow removal page.

Icicles and ice dams. A row of big icicles along the eaves, or a ridge of ice building up at the gutter line, is the tell that meltwater is running down the roof and refreezing at the cold edge. Left alone, that ice can back water up under the shingles. We photograph it when we see it, and we check whether clogged eavestroughs are feeding the problem.

Entry points — the prevention pass. We check the places animals go looking for a way in: gaps along the roofline and soffits, vents and their screening, and the spots where pipes and wires enter the walls. If a screen has torn or a gap has opened, we note it so it can be sealed. This part is prevention only — closing the doors before anything finds them. If something has already moved in, that is a removal job, and a humane, legal one, which is work for our sister company, The Critter Guy.

Storm damage. We look for lifted or missing shingles, bent flashing, loose siding, and anything the wind has moved — a fence panel down, a shutter hanging, debris thrown against the building.

Trees and limbs. Heavy snow and ice ride on the branches all winter, and a limb loaded over the roof or a hydro line is worth watching. A cracked or hanging branch above the roof is something we photograph and raise with you before the next storm brings it down.

The interior pass — when we hold a key

If you have given us a key and your alarm code, we go inside, because the most important things happen where the road cannot see them.

We confirm the heat is holding. We read the thermostat, check the temperature against the setpoint you left us, and make sure the heating system is still running the way it should be. If the furnace has quit or the inside has drifted down toward freezing, that is the first thing we want to catch — because any water left in the lines is at risk once the building goes cold, and a split line can flood a cottage the moment it thaws.

We look for water where it should not be. We check the ceilings and walls for fresh staining, and we look under sinks, around the water heater and pump, and near fixtures for the early signs of a drip or a line that has let go. A cottage that was drained and winterized properly in the fall has far less water sitting in the system for a freeze to find — but we still look, because a slow leak in an empty building can run for weeks with no one there to hear it.

We glance at the breaker panel. A tripped breaker is a quiet clue. It can be the reason a sump, a heat trace, or a whole circuit has stopped doing its job without any other sign. It takes a second to look.

We check the sump, if there is one. Where a cottage has a sump pump, we make sure it is running and not frozen, and that the pit is not backing up.

We look for signs of animals. Droppings, chew marks, nesting material, or a smell that was not there last visit all tell us something has found a way in. We note it, and where it is likely getting in, so the gap can be sealed — again, prevention is the sealing and screening. Anything living that needs to come out goes to The Critter Guy, and once they have cleared it, we can seal the cottage up behind them.

Here is where those five interior checks sit inside the cottage:

The report: photos and a plain note, the same day

The looking is only half of it. The other half — the half that lets you stay three hours away and still know how your cottage is doing — is the report.

After every visit you hear from us the same day. When all is well, that is a short, plain-language note with photos so you can see it for yourself. When something looks off, you get a phone call, not just a message: a furnace that has quit, a heavy snow load, a fresh stain on a ceiling, a door that has been forced. We tell you what we are seeing in plain terms, send the photos, and you decide what happens next. If that means extra work, you get a clear quote up front before anything begins.

If you want the fuller picture of what tends to go wrong in a vacant cottage — and why that same-day call matters so much — we wrote about it in a local’s guide to winter checkups. The short version: problems that would cost a small fortune in April are usually cheap and simple to deal with in January, when someone is there to catch them early.

Weekly, monthly, or after a storm

There is no single right rhythm, because no two cottages are equally exposed.

• Weekly suits the places that take the weather head-on — cottages on the open shore of Lake Huron or Georgian Bay, where the wind and the lake-effect snow come straight off the water.
• Monthly is often plenty for a sheltered, lower-risk property that is buttoned up tight and fully drained for the season.
• On-call after a storm is the one many owners add on top. When a lake-effect band drops a heavy load of snow overnight, or an ice storm or a multi-day power outage rolls through, we make an extra visit to check on the places that just took the hit.

We look after cottages across the South Bruce Peninsula and up and down the shore — Sauble Beach, Southampton, Port Elgin, Kincardine, and Goderich along Lake Huron, and around Georgian Bay through Owen Sound and Collingwood. Where your cottage sits, and how exposed it is to the water, does a lot to set the right schedule.

What we need from you to do it right

A checkup runs best when we set it up properly before the season, so a few things from you make all the difference:

• Keys, and which doors they open — plus any gate code or the trick to a sticky lock.
• Alarm codes and how you want them handled — how to arm and disarm, and who the monitoring company should call.
• The heat setpoint you are keeping and where the thermostat is, so we know what “normal” looks like on every visit.
• Where the essentials are — the water shutoff, the breaker panel, the sump, and the propane or oil tank.
• Your preferences and thresholds — at what point you want snow cleared, when to call versus text, and who else should be told.
• Whether the power is on or fully shut down, since that changes what there is to check inside.

The more of this we have up front, the more useful every visit is — and the faster we can reach the right person if a visit turns up something that needs a decision.

Plans, schedules, and pricing

How often we come, what each visit covers, and what it costs all live on our winter checkups page — schedules and pricing in one place, so you can match a plan to how exposed your cottage is and how much you want watched.

If you would rather just talk it through, call us at 519-783-1575. The phone is answered 7 days a week. Tell us where your cottage is, how it is set up, and what you would most want to hear about first — and we will walk you through the right checkup rhythm and give you a clear quote up front.