CottageWatts helps rural and cottage-country owners in Ontario keep the lights on and the pipes from freezing. We cover backup power (portable power stations, generators and transfer switches), heat pumps for homes heated with propane, oil, wood or electricity, and the Ontario rebate programs that help pay for them.
It’s written for people on wells, septic and non-gas heat in places like Simcoe County, Muskoka, the Kawarthas and Haliburton, and for any Canadian homeowner planning for a winter outage.
Who’s behind CottageWatts
CottageWatts is written by Kris, an Ontario contractor who works on homes built for Canadian winters. The guides are written for owners who want straight answers about sizing, safety and cost before they spend money.
How we write our guides
- We check specs against manufacturers’ Canadian product pages and manuals, and rebate amounts against official program pages (Save on Energy, Home Renovation Savings, Enbridge Gas and Natural Resources Canada), and we link to them.
- Rebate and buying guides show the date they were last checked. Prices, programs and rules change, so we update articles when they do.
- We don’t present products as tested when we haven’t tested them, and we don’t publish numbers we can’t back up with a source.
- Spot an error? Tell us through our contact page.
Safety first
Anything that connects to your home’s wiring belongs in the hands of a licensed electrical contractor with an ESA permit. We’ll never tell you to backfeed a panel through a dryer outlet. See our Disclaimer and Affiliate Disclosure.
Related sites
For insulation, basements, ice dams and other home-upkeep topics, see our sister site True North DIY. For contractors, see TradesTally, and for personal finance, FirstLoonie.