The short answer
Yes. Houses sit empty for three months constantly, and most of them are completely fine. What matters is not the duration itself but whether anybody prepared the property and whether anybody is looking at it.
That said, three months is a genuine threshold rather than an arbitrary number, and it is worth understanding what changes at it.
What changes at around thirty days
Insurance is the first thing, and it usually moves well before three months. Many Canadian policies begin restricting coverage after roughly thirty days of vacancy, though the threshold and the consequences vary considerably between insurers. Water damage, vandalism, theft and glass breakage are commonly the first coverages affected.
If your absence is three months, you are past that threshold in every policy that has one. This is the call to make before anything else — and the distinction between "vacant" and "unoccupied" in your specific wording will decide which rules apply to you.
What changes physically over three months
- Plumbing traps dry out within weeks, letting sewer gas into the building. Preventable by running fixtures at each visit.
- Pests establish rather than merely visit, particularly through autumn.
- Any slow leak has now been running for the entire period — this is where the cost difference between monitored and unmonitored properties becomes large.
- A full Alberta winter month, or three, means freeze risk is continuously live rather than occasional.
- The property visibly reads as empty from the street unless somebody is managing that.
- Systems left idle may not restart cleanly — pumps seize, seals dry, batteries fail.
What three months actually requires
- Confirm your vacancy conditions with your insurer, in writing
- Decide the water plan — maintained heat, or shut off and drained
- Locate and test the main shut-off before you rely on it
- Service the heating and replace the filter
- Set a visit cadence and stick to it, with extra visits in extreme weather
- Arrange snow or lawn service and have it verified rather than assumed
- Remove all food and deal with the fridge and freezer
- Photograph and video the property as a baseline on the day you leave
- Set a written standing authorisation limit for urgent protective work
- Arrange key custody properly — never leave a key outside
The honest risk picture
On most three-month absences, nothing happens. The distribution is heavily weighted toward "the house was fine" — which is exactly why people under-prepare, and exactly why the tail matters.
The bad outcomes are not proportionally worse; they are disproportionately worse, because damage is a function of how long something runs undetected. A supply line that fails in week two of an unmonitored three-month absence produces a fundamentally different outcome from the same failure in week two of a monitored one.
Preparation and a visit schedule do not reduce the chance of a failure. They cap what a failure costs.
Related questions
How long can a house sit empty?
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.
What does my insurance require when my home is vacant?
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.
Should I shut the water off when I travel?
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.