The things people actually ask.

The honest answer is that it depends on the season, the property and — critically — what your own insurance policy says. There is no universal standard, and anyone who gives you a single number without asking about your policy is guessing.

That said, the practical logic is straightforward. The damage from most vacant-property failures is proportional to how long they run undetected, so the visit interval is effectively a cap on your worst-case outcome. A leak found after three days and the same leak found after three weeks are very different events.

In practice, weekly is the most common cadence for an Alberta property during the heating season, with owners increasing to twice weekly or every 72 hours during extreme cold. Through summer, weekly or biweekly is common. Properties with known risk factors — poly-B plumbing, an aging hot water tank, a history of basement water, or no water shut-off — warrant more frequent visits than a newer, lower-risk property.

The number that actually matters is the one in your policy. Many policies contain a required check interval during extended absences, and some specify who must perform it. Call your insurer or broker and ask directly before you leave.

In insurance terms these are usually two different things, and the distinction matters because policies commonly treat them differently.

Unoccupied generally means nobody is currently living in the property, but the situation is temporary and the occupants intend to return — belongings are still there, furniture is in place, and the home is still a home. A snowbird's house through the winter is the standard example.

Vacant generally means the occupants have moved out and do not intend to return, and the property is largely empty of belongings. A house whose owners have relocated before it sold, a property held in an estate after contents have been removed, or a rental between tenants would typically fall here.

Why it matters: many policies restrict or exclude specific perils once a property is considered vacant beyond a defined period — often around thirty days, though this varies considerably between insurers. Water damage, vandalism, theft and glass breakage are frequently the first coverages affected.

These are general descriptions, not definitions of your policy. Insurers word this differently and the wording in your own policy is the only version that governs. Read it, and ask your broker which category your situation falls into.

Physically, a house can sit empty indefinitely if it is maintained — heated, water managed, monitored and looked after. The limiting factors are not structural, they are practical: insurance, deterioration and the accumulation of unnoticed problems.

The insurance constraint is usually the binding one. Many policies begin restricting coverage after roughly thirty days of vacancy, though the threshold and the consequences vary. Beyond that point some owners need a specialised vacant-property policy, which is a different product with different terms and typically a higher premium.

The deterioration constraint is gradual and cumulative. Traps dry within weeks. Pests establish over a season. Moisture problems compound. Systems that sit idle behave unpredictably when restarted. None of these are dramatic on their own; together over a year they produce a property that needs significant work.

The real answer is that a house can sit empty for a long time safely, provided somebody is attending to it. It is unattended vacancy rather than vacancy itself that causes the damage.

Less dramatically than people imagine in the first month, and more than they expect over a year.

Within weeks: plumbing traps dry out and sewer gas enters the building, producing the characteristic stale smell of an empty house. Dust settles undisturbed. Air becomes stale without the ventilation that ordinary occupancy provides.

Within months: pests find their way in, particularly through the fall. Small leaks that would have been noticed immediately run continuously. Moisture accumulates in unventilated spaces. Landscaping deteriorates visibly, and the property starts announcing its own vacancy.

Over a year or more: systems left idle can seize or fail on restart. Moisture problems develop into mould. Rodent populations establish. Exterior maintenance issues compound — a small roof problem becomes a leak, a drainage issue becomes a basement problem.

Almost all of this is prevented by ordinary attention: heat maintained, water managed, fixtures run, the property visited, and problems caught while they are still small.

Yes, with preparation. Houses sit empty for three months constantly and most are completely fine. The duration itself is not the problem — whether anybody prepared the property and whether anybody is looking at it are.

Three months does cross a real threshold though. Most Canadian policies that restrict coverage during vacancy do so well before that point, commonly around thirty days, so you are past it in every policy that has a threshold. That makes the insurance call the first thing to do rather than the last.

Physically, three months is long enough for traps to dry out, pests to establish, and any slow leak to have been running the entire time. All of it is preventable with a visit schedule and an afternoon of preparation.

It is genuinely valuable and it is not a plan. Those are both true.

What a neighbour provides that no service can: informal awareness. They notice the unfamiliar van, hear the alarm, see the icicles forming. That is worth having and worth keeping.

What it does not provide: a schedule, a record, or an obligation. It fails in the week they are also away. It produces nothing you can compare month to month, forward to an executor, or attach to a claim. And it puts somebody in the position of feeling responsible for an outcome they never signed up for — which is a real cost to them that owners tend to underestimate.

For most people the sensible answer is both. Keep the neighbour. Engage someone for the scheduled, documented part.

Ask for the certificate of insurance — insurer, coverage type, limits and expiry date. Ask who specifically will attend, by name, and whether they are employees or subcontractors. Ask what verification was done on them and when it was last refreshed.

Then ask to see a real visit report, redacted. That single request tells you more than any amount of website copy: whether it has arrival and departure times, a completed checklist rather than a paragraph, a temperature reading, and photographs from consistent positions.

Be sceptical of "fully insured and bonded" and "background checked" until somebody produces the document. Those phrases appear on almost every home-watch website in Canada and cost nothing to type.

And treat these questions as applying to us as much as to anyone else. A company that cannot produce those documents within an afternoon should not be holding your keys.

We cannot tell you, and neither can any home-watch company — that answer lives in your specific policy, and it varies substantially between insurers and between products.

What we can tell you is what to ask. Call your insurer or broker before you leave and ask these questions specifically: What does my policy define as vacant, and as unoccupied? At what point do restrictions begin? Which coverages are affected? Are there conditions I must meet during an extended absence — maintaining heat at a specified temperature, shutting off and draining the water supply, or having the property checked at a stated interval? If checks are required, how often, and does the policy specify who may perform them? Do I need to notify you that the property will be empty?

Get the answers in writing. An email from your broker confirming the requirements is worth having if a claim is ever made.

A common pattern in Canadian policies is a requirement to either maintain heat during the heating season or shut off and drain the water supply, sometimes paired with a required check interval. But that is a pattern, not your policy. Ask.

VacantHomes.ca provides documented property visits that give you an organised record of monitoring. We do not represent that any service, or any visit frequency, satisfies any policy condition — that determination is between you and your insurer.

That is entirely for your insurer to determine, and any company that tells you otherwise is making a promise it has no standing to make.

Some policies require checks by a "competent person" at a defined interval and do not specify further. Others are more prescriptive. Some require no checks at all provided water is shut off and drained. Whether a particular service meets a particular condition is a question for the insurer who wrote the policy.

What a documented service does provide is evidence: dated, photographed records of when the property was attended and what was observed. If your policy requires checks, having a record that they happened is materially better than asserting it afterwards.

Before you rely on any arrangement, confirm the requirement with your broker and tell them what you have arranged. If it matters to your coverage, get their confirmation in writing.

Quite possibly, and it costs nothing to ask.

Many policies require notification if a property will be unoccupied beyond a defined period. Some require it in writing. Failing to notify where notification is required can affect how a claim is handled.

For short absences — a two-week holiday — notification is generally not required under most policies. For extended absences of a month or more, and particularly for a full snowbird season, it is worth a call regardless of whether you think it is required.

The conversation is short. Tell them how long you will be away, when, whether anyone will be attending the property, and what arrangements you have made for heat and water. Ask them to confirm in writing what conditions apply.

For an extended absence in an Alberta winter, shutting off the water is the single most effective step available to you. It removes the mechanism for the most expensive thing that happens to vacant homes.

The reasoning is simple. A supply line that fails while the water is on runs continuously at full pressure until someone closes a valve. The same failure with the water off produces nothing. Shutting off does not prevent pipes from freezing, but it dramatically limits what happens when one does.

For it to work properly, shutting off is not enough on its own — the system should also be drained. Open the lowest fixtures to relieve pressure and let standing water out. Water left in the lines can still freeze and split a pipe; you simply avoid the continuous flow afterwards.

Some caveats. If your property has a fire sprinkler system, do not shut off the supply — that system needs to remain charged. If the property has a boiler or in-floor heating, the heating loop is separate from the domestic supply and needs different handling. If the shut-off valve is old, seized or leaking, force it and you may create the problem you were preventing; have a plumber deal with it first.

Also check your policy. Some insurers require water to be shut off and drained during extended absences in the heating season, and some accept maintained heat as an alternative. Which one applies to you is worth knowing before you decide.

The basic sequence is: close the main shut-off valve, then open fixtures from the highest point in the house downward, letting air in and water out. Open both hot and cold at each fixture. Flush toilets to empty the tanks. Open exterior faucets after closing their interior shut-offs.

A few additions that matter. Drain the washing machine supply lines by closing their valves and disconnecting or running a short cycle. If you are leaving the hot water tank drained, follow the manufacturer's procedure and switch off its power or gas first — an electric element energised in an empty tank fails immediately.

Add a small amount of plumbing antifreeze or mineral oil to traps if you are draining fully, since drained traps lose their seal against sewer gas.

Where this gets beyond a homeowner task: properties with boilers, in-floor heating, water treatment equipment, sprinkler systems or complex mechanical arrangements need a plumber. So does any property where the shut-off valve is old or does not close fully.

For clarity on our side — VacantHomes attendants confirm and document the state of your water and operate an accessible main shut-off per your instructions. Draining systems, servicing valves and any work on a water heater is plumbing work and goes to a licensed plumber.

Water freezes at 0 °C, but pipes inside a building do not freeze the moment the air outside hits that figure. What matters is the temperature at the pipe, which depends on where it runs, how well that space is insulated, how long the cold persists, and whether wind is driving heat out of the assembly.

A pipe in a heated interior wall may be fine at −30 °C outside. A pipe in an uninsulated exterior wall, an unheated garage, or a crawlspace can freeze with the interior at a nominally reasonable temperature, because the pipe is not experiencing the interior temperature.

The commonly cited threshold for concern is a sustained outdoor temperature below about −6 °C, with risk rising sharply as temperature drops and duration extends. Wind matters a great deal — it accelerates heat loss from the building envelope.

The practical approach is to identify the vulnerable locations in your specific property rather than watching a single number: exterior walls with plumbing, unheated garages, basements with poor insulation, rooms above unheated spaces, and anywhere with a history of freezing. Those are the places a visit should check.

The most commonly recommended minimum for an unoccupied home in a Canadian winter is around 15 °C, though recommendations range from about 13 °C to 18 °C. Some insurance policies specify a figure — if yours does, that number governs, not a general recommendation.

The reasoning behind keeping it that high rather than lower: the thermostat reads the air temperature at one location, usually a hallway on the main floor. Temperatures elsewhere in the building — exterior walls, the basement, above the garage, in a bathroom on a corner — run meaningfully colder. Setting 15 °C at the thermostat may mean 8 °C or lower where the plumbing actually is.

Setting it much lower to save on heating is a poor trade. The savings over a winter are modest; the cost of a single burst supply line is not.

A few practical points. Leave interior doors open so heat circulates. Open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls. Keep registers open in every room, including ones you would normally close off. If the property has a smart thermostat, set a floor rather than a schedule, and check that any away mode does not drop below your intended minimum.

And ask your insurer whether your policy specifies a minimum temperature during absences. Several do.

Only if the water supply has been shut off and the system properly drained, and even then it is a bigger step than most owners realise.

With water fully drained there is no plumbing left to freeze, so the freeze argument for heating disappears. But an unheated building through an Alberta winter has other consequences: condensation and moisture cycling in the structure, stress on finishes, adhesives and materials from repeated freeze-thaw, and potential problems with anything left in the property.

A property with a boiler or in-floor heating cannot simply be shut down — those systems have their own fluid that needs handling, and shutting down without proper procedure risks damage to the system itself.

Your insurer likely has a view on this. Many policies require either maintained heat or a drained system during heating-season absences, and some are specific about which. Confirm before deciding.

For most owners leaving for a season, maintaining a minimum temperature is the simpler and safer choice. Full shutdown makes sense for genuinely long-term vacancy — an estate property with an uncertain timeline, or a property awaiting redevelopment — and is worth setting up properly with a plumber rather than improvising.

The building starts cooling at a rate determined by its insulation, air sealing, the outdoor temperature and the wind. A well-built modern house in moderate cold may lose only a few degrees a day. An older house during a −30 °C wind event can approach freezing internally within a day or two.

The consequence is not a cold house — it is frozen plumbing. Once interior temperatures at vulnerable locations reach freezing, supply lines begin to freeze, and the failure typically shows itself when the ice thaws and water starts running.

This is why visit frequency during cold events matters more than visit frequency generally. The difference between finding a heating failure after two days and after two weeks is the difference between a service call and a restoration project.

On a monitored property the sequence is: the failure is found on a visit, documented, you are contacted, and a licensed HVAC contractor is dispatched under whatever authorisation you have set in advance. Setting that authorisation before you leave is what allows it to happen at 8 PM on a Sunday rather than after an email exchange across time zones.

Connected temperature sensors can shorten detection further and are a sensible supplement — though they only tell you something is wrong, and somebody still has to go to the property.

Book a check after any significant hail event near the property, and do it promptly rather than eventually.

Calgary sits in one of the most hail-prone regions in North America, and storm cells are narrow — one community can take severe damage while an adjacent one takes none. Regional weather data tells you a storm occurred near your property; only someone at the property can tell you whether it was affected.

The value of a prompt check is timing. Documentation made within a day or two of an event establishes when damage occurred, which is a far stronger position than reconstructing events from memory months later when a leak finally appears.

A ground-level check documents impact on siding, screens, soft metals, glazing, decks and anything left outdoors. Roof damage frequently is not visible from the ground and does not leak immediately — compromised shingles can hold until the next significant rain or the following spring. If ground-level evidence suggests impact, a qualified roofing professional should assess the roof properly.

Before the season, two practical steps: move vehicles and outdoor furnishings under cover where possible, and confirm with your broker what your policy covers for hail and what deductible applies.

Yes, and they are underrated as a risk precisely because they feel like relief.

A chinook can raise temperatures 20 to 30 °C within a day, then drop them back overnight. That cycling is harder on a building than steady cold. Snow melts and refreezes, building ice dams at roof edges. Meltwater runs toward foundations and refreezes in downspouts and window wells. Materials expand and contract repeatedly.

Chinooks also bring strong wind — sustained speeds regularly exceeding 100 km/h in west and southwest Calgary and in the foothills. That produces roofing damage, displaced outdoor items, and wind-driven water intrusion at windows and wall junctions.

The practical response is to check the property after chinook events rather than only on a fixed schedule: look at roof edges for ice dam formation, confirm downspout discharge is clear and running away from the foundation, check ceilings near exterior walls for the first signs of intrusion, and confirm nothing has been displaced by the wind.

Yes. City of Calgary bylaw requires the public sidewalk adjoining a property to be cleared of snow and ice within 24 hours of a snowfall ending. That obligation attaches to the property owner and does not pause because the property is empty or the owner is out of the country.

Failure to clear can result in the city arranging removal and billing the owner, plus a penalty. More practically, an uncleared walk in front of an obviously empty house is a liability if someone is injured, and it is one of the clearest possible signals that nobody has been there.

Arranging clearing is straightforward; the part that fails is verification. Owners commonly book a service from another province, receive invoices, and never confirm the work was actually done. Having someone confirm and photograph the result after each snowfall closes that loop.

Access information is treated as the most sensitive data associated with a property, because it is.

Keys are held under recorded custody: who has a key, when it was issued, and when it was returned. Keys are never labelled with an address. They are not left at the property, under anything, or in an unsecured location.

Alarm codes, lockbox codes and smart-lock credentials are handled separately from ordinary property information, are provided only to the person attending a specific visit, and do not appear in reports, notifications or general records. Nobody who does not need a code for a specific attendance has it.

Every entry to the property is logged: who attended, when they arrived, when they left, and why. That log is part of your property record and is available to you.

Where a property has smart locks, time-limited or single-use codes are preferable to a permanent shared code, and codes should be changed when arrangements change. Where a lockbox is used for a listing, its code should not be reused for property-care access.

You are told who attends, and every visit report names the person who attended and records their arrival and departure times.

This is the question that matters most to anyone handing over a key to an empty house, and it deserves a specific answer rather than a reassuring one. Ask any home-watch provider — including us — for specifics before you engage them: who will attend, whether they are employed or contracted, what verification has been performed on them, and what insurance is in place.

Be sceptical of unsupported claims. "Fully insured and bonded" and "background checked" appear on almost every home-watch website in Canada, and they are worth exactly as much as the documentation behind them. Ask to see a certificate of insurance. Ask what specifically was checked and when.

Where contractors attend for trade work, they are there for a specific arranged appointment, with a representative present for access, and their arrival and departure are logged the same way.

An empty house that visibly looks empty does. An empty house that does not look empty is a much less interesting proposition.

Properties are generally selected on visible cues rather than any knowledge of who lives there: accumulated mail and flyers, an uncleared walk after a snowfall, unchanging or absent lighting, no vehicle, blinds in the same position for weeks, and untended grass. Every one of those is removable.

The practical countermeasures are unglamorous and effective. Mail collected and flyers cleared. Walks cleared within a day of snowfall. Grass cut. Bins out and back on collection day. Lighting on varied timers rather than one lamp on a fixed cycle. Blinds moved. Visits at irregular times rather than the same hour every week.

One more thing worth checking: many policies restrict or exclude vandalism and theft coverage once a property has been vacant beyond a defined period. If that applies to your situation, the loss may not respond the way you assume. Ask your broker.

Yes. Plant watering is a standard service and it runs on written per-plant instructions rather than guesswork.

You record what each plant or group needs — location, frequency, quantity, and anything unusual like rotating it or not letting it sit in water. The attending representative works from that list at each visit and confirms what was done, with photographs where you want them.

Outdoor containers and hanging baskets can be included, subject to weather and any municipal watering restrictions in force.

One honest limit: nobody here is a horticulturist. Plants are watered to your instructions and their visible condition is reported. Diagnosing why a plant is struggling is not part of the service.

Yes — this is one of the most requested services and it does not require your property to be vacant at all.

A representative attends for your appointment window, provides access, logs when the contractor or courier arrived and left, notes what was done or delivered at a general level, photographs the outcome if you have asked for it, and secures the property afterwards. You get a short report the same day.

It works for internet installations, appliance and furniture deliveries, trades, appraisers, photographers, cleaners and inspectors.

What it is not: attending an appointment is not supervision of the work and not any assessment of its quality. Nobody is certifying a plumber's work by standing near it. The service is physical attendance, access and a record of what happened.

Yes. Replacing a furnace filter is a non-trade task an attendant performs directly, and it is one of the more useful ones — a plugged filter is a common cause of furnace lockout, which is exactly the failure you do not want in an empty house in January.

You can leave filters at the property, or record the size in your property profile and have them picked up on your authorisation with the receipt attached to the job.

The same applies to refrigerator water filters, range hood filters, light bulbs, and smoke and CO alarm batteries.

Where the line sits: anything requiring work on the furnace itself, its wiring, its venting or its gas supply is licensed trade work and goes to an HVAC contractor. Changing the filter is a filter change; anything past that is not.

Some things, directly. Most things, by getting the right licensed person there.

Attendants handle non-trade tasks: bulbs, filters, batteries, hardware tightening, weather stripping, basic assembly, moving small furniture, simple device setup and similar work. That covers a genuinely useful share of what an empty house needs.

Alberta treats plumbing, gasfitting and electrical work as compulsory-certification trades, and some things that get casually called handyman work fall on that side of the line — replacing a thermostat with wiring behind it, anything on a water heater or furnace, changing a shower head or tap, resetting a gas appliance, replacing a light fixture. Those go to a licensed contractor.

The workflow for anything beyond an attendant's scope is: document the issue with photographs, report it to you with a recommendation, get your authorisation, engage an appropriately licensed contractor, attend for access, and document completion. VacantHomes coordinates and records the work; it does not perform it, and does not warrant the contractor's work.

No, and this is a firm boundary rather than a service gap.

In Alberta, activities such as advertising a rental, showing it to prospective tenants, screening and selecting them, negotiating leases, collecting rent and holding security deposits are regulated under the Real Estate Act and require appropriate licensing. VacantHomes does none of those things.

What is offered is physical property care during a vacancy: move-out documentation, monitoring visits while the unit sits empty, cleaning and repair coordination, non-trade tasks, lawn and snow, contractor access, and a pre-occupancy walkthrough.

If you need a property manager, engage a licensed property manager. If what you actually need is someone to look after the building during the gap — which is what most out-of-town owners are missing — that is what this is.

No, and the difference is substantial enough that conflating them would be misleading.

A routine property visit is a visual, observational check of readily accessible areas by a trained attendant, working from a checklist. It records temperature, evidence of water, whether heating appears to be running, condition of accessible areas, and anything out of place. It does not involve dismantling anything, removing panels or covers, testing systems, or accessing concealed areas, attics, roofs or crawlspaces.

A home inspection is performed by a licensed home inspector working to a recognised standard of practice, with training, certification, professional liability insurance and a defined scope. It assesses the condition of a property's systems and components and produces a formal report.

They serve different purposes and complement each other well. An inspection tells you what condition the property is in. Monitoring visits tell you what has changed since. Findings from an inspection can be converted into specific monitoring items on the recurring checklist, which is where the two genuinely reinforce each other.

VacantHomes does not perform home inspections and holds no inspection certification. Where a professional inspection is wanted, it is performed by a qualified independent inspector and coordinated by us.

No. Live-animal care is not offered.

Caring for animals requires different training, different insurance, different emergency procedures and a duty of care that is genuinely distinct from property work. Adding it casually to a property-care service would be doing it badly, and the consequences of doing it badly involve an animal.

If you have pets remaining at the property, arrange dedicated pet care with a service set up for it. Property visits can continue alongside that arrangement — they simply do not include the animals.

Where a property has fish or similar low-intervention arrangements, tell us during onboarding and we will be honest about whether it is something we can reasonably include or whether you need a dedicated service.

Yes, and the relationship is deliberately structured not to interfere.

Agents with vacant listings end up doing property care informally — driving out after a storm, turning the heat back up after a showing, clearing flyers before photography. None of it is their job, all of it affects the listing, and none of it is billable.

Where we are engaged, the seller is the customer. The agent markets and sells the property; the physical care of the asset sits with a service engaged for that purpose.

What we will not do: give opinions on price, condition or marketing, show the property, speak to buyers, or solicit your clients for real estate services. Ever. Those boundaries are published on the Realtors page rather than buried in terms.

It gets documented, classified, and reported to you, and then it stays open until it is actually resolved.

Every issue found is photographed and recorded with what was observed and where, and given a severity: no concern, monitor, attention recommended, or urgent. The severity determines how fast you hear about it — urgent items are communicated immediately through every channel on file, rather than appearing in a report you read on Thursday.

From there: a recommendation is attached, you decide, any work is coordinated with an appropriately licensed contractor under your authorisation, completion is documented with photographs, and a follow-up visit confirms resolution before the issue closes. Nothing is marked resolved because a contractor said so.

For genuinely serious findings — active water, heating failure in cold weather, evidence of forced entry — a defined escalation runs, including protective steps within an attendant's scope where they are safe and authorised, and escalation to your named secondary contacts if you cannot be reached.

For fire, gas odour, medical emergency or a crime in progress, the answer is 911. That is not a property-care matter and a representative on site will call them.

Only within limits you set in writing, in advance.

You choose a standing authorisation level: contact me for everything, or authorise urgent protective work up to a stated amount without waiting for a reply. The reason to set one is straightforward — a leak discovered at 2 AM on a Sunday should not wait for an email across time zones before anyone can act.

Standing authorisation covers urgent protective work only: stopping damage from getting worse. It is not a general spending authority, and it does not cover elective repairs, improvements or anything non-urgent, which always come back to you for a decision.

Every authorised expenditure is documented with the reason, the contractor engaged, the work performed and the invoice, attached to the property record.

You can change or withdraw the authorisation at any time.

Yes. A single visit is a legitimate thing to want and does not require a plan, a subscription or a commitment.

People book one-off visits for specific reasons all the time: check the house after a storm, let a contractor in, photograph something, water plants during a two-week trip, check that a garage door was actually closed.

If it turns out you want it regularly, a one-off can become a recurring schedule without starting over.

Direct services cover Greater Calgary — the city itself plus Airdrie, Chestermere, Cochrane, Okotoks, Bearspaw, Springbank, Rocky View County, De Winton, Heritage Pointe and the Foothills communities within reasonable reach.

Outside that area, we do not currently attend properties, and we would rather say so than take a booking we cannot serve properly. The information on this site — guides, seasonal considerations, checklists, insurance questions — applies anywhere in Canada and is free to use.

Acreage and rural properties within the service area are handled, with scheduling that accounts for genuine travel distance and, in winter, for whether the access road is passable at all.

By email after each visit, with a notification when the visit is complete.

Each report contains the arrival and departure time, who attended, the completed checklist, the timestamped photographs, any observations, anything found, anything done, and the next scheduled visit.

Anything urgent does not wait for the report — it is communicated immediately through every channel you have provided.

Reports accumulate into a continuous record of the property, which is what makes them useful beyond the individual visit. Comparing this week against six weeks ago is what catches the slow problems.

More than people expect, because a surprising amount depends on it. The furnace stops — even a gas furnace needs power for its controls, blower and ignition. The sump pump stops. Freezers thaw. Any connected sensor or camera goes offline, which means you also lose the ability to find out that any of this happened.

In an Alberta winter the furnace is the one that matters. An extended outage during a cold snap produces the same outcome as a heating failure, on the same timeline.

What helps: knowing outages have occurred at all, which a power-loss alert or a smart thermostat going offline will tell you. A generator or battery backup for a sump pump is worth considering on a property with a known water table. And for a long absence, emptying and switching off the freezer removes one whole category of problem.

A visit after any significant local outage is worth booking, because the failures that follow one are often not visible until somebody walks in.

Yes, and the sensors are still worth installing. They solve different halves of the same problem.

Sensors shorten the gap between a failure and knowing about it, which is the single most valuable variable in vacant property. A temperature sensor turns a heating failure from something found on the next visit into something found within the hour.

What they cannot do is act. A leak sensor cannot close a valve, clear snow off a furnace vent, photograph a ceiling stain so you can see whether it is growing, or let a plumber in. They also depend on a chain — mains power, internet, router, hub, cloud service, battery — that a vacant property breaks more often than an occupied one, and a dead sensor is indistinguishable from a quiet house.

The genuinely risky version is reducing visit frequency because the house is "monitored", when the monitoring stopped reporting six weeks ago. Set the cadence on the assumption the sensors might be offline, and treat their alerts as a bonus.

Because a single headline figure would be misleading. Cost depends on the property, where it is, how often it is attended and what is included — a weekly check on a condo in the Beltline and a twice-weekly check on an acreage in Bearspaw are not the same job, and pricing them identically would mean overcharging one and underdelivering to the other.

Tell us about the property and you get a written quote before anything is scheduled. Nothing is charged until you have agreed to it.

If and when a published rate card exists, it will appear on the packages page rather than being quoted differently to different people.

Contact the insurer, today if possible. A home policy may respond differently once a property is unoccupied following the death of the owner, and some policies require notification within a defined period. An uninsured or under-insured estate property is a serious personal exposure for an executor, and it is the most time-sensitive item on the list.

Then secure the property: establish who holds keys, change the locks if that is unclear, arrange for mail to be collected, and confirm heat is on and set appropriately.

Then photograph every room before anything is moved. Families disagree, and questions about contents surface months later. A dated record made before anyone started sorting through the house answers them without argument, and it cannot be reconstructed afterwards.

After that it becomes an ordinary vacant property with a long timeline — probate in Alberta commonly runs six to eighteen months, which is at least one full winter.