Freeze Prep for Austin Homes: Protecting Pipes Before a Cold Snap

Before the freeze — the afternoon before

• Disconnect and drain garden hoses; cover hose bibs with insulated caps.
• Open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls so room heat reaches the pipes.
• Insulate exposed pipe in the attic, garage and crawl space with foam sleeves.
• Find your main shutoff — at the meter box near the street, or where the line enters the house — and check that it actually turns.
• Set a slow drip at the fixture farthest from where water enters the house. Moving water freezes slower.
• Keep the heat on, even if you leave. Empty houses burst.
• Shut off and drain the irrigation backflow preventer — it’s outdoors and it bursts first.

If a pipe freezes

• Leave the faucet open. As the ice melts, flow relieves the pressure behind it.
• Warm the pipe gently — a hair dryer or warm towels — starting from the faucet end.
• Never use an open flame or a heat gun on high.
• If you can’t find the frozen section, or it’s inside a wall, shut the main and call.

Frozen vs. burst — how to tell

• Frozen: no water or a trickle at one or more fixtures, and no visible water anywhere.
• Burst: water appears somewhere it shouldn’t once things thaw — a ceiling stain, a wet wall, a soaked garage floor, or the meter running with everything off.
• Most bursts show up during the thaw, not the freeze. That’s when to walk the house.

After the thaw

• Walk the house: ceilings, exterior walls, under sinks, garage, attic access.
• Check the water meter with every fixture off — a moving dial means a leak.
• Test each hose bib and the irrigation system.
• If the water heater lost power or gas, follow the manufacturer’s restart steps — or call and we’ll walk you through it.

Tankless and outdoor water heaters

Tankless units and any heater installed outdoors or in an unconditioned garage rely on electric freeze protection — so a power outage during a freeze is the failure case. Draining the unit is the fallback. Know how before you need to.