How to Prepare a House for a Freeze in Houston, TX

How to protect your pipes from freezing

Water expands when it freezes, and that's what splits a pipe — so the goal is keeping the vulnerable pipes above freezing. The at-risk ones in a Houston house are the exposed pipes: outdoor spigots, pipes in the attic and exterior walls, and anything in an unheated garage or crawl space.

What to do when a freeze is coming: let faucets on exterior walls drip, because moving water is far harder to freeze than still water; open the cabinet doors under sinks on outside walls so household heat reaches the pipes; keep the heat on and the house above freezing even if you leave; and wrap exposed pipe with pipe insulation ahead of the cold. The dripping and cabinet-opening are things you do the night of; the pipe wrapping is worth doing before winter, and it's something we install.

How to drain and cover outdoor faucets before a freeze

The outdoor faucet is the single most common burst point in a Houston freeze, and a garden hose left connected is the usual culprit — a connected hose traps water in the spigot and the pipe behind it, and that's what freezes and splits, often inside the wall where you won't see it until the thaw.

So the first step, every time: disconnect and drain every hose. Then, if the spigot has an interior shutoff valve on the line feeding it, close it and open the outdoor faucet to drain the water out of that run. Finally, cover each outdoor faucet with an insulated faucet cover (the foam domes are a few dollars each) for another layer of protection. Doing all three — disconnect, drain, cover — is what keeps the most vulnerable point on the house from being the one that fails.

How to insulate your attic before winter

Attic insulation isn't just a summer thing in Houston — it cuts both ways, and in a freeze it helps keep the house's heat in and helps protect any water pipes running through the attic, which is one of the most freeze-prone spots in a Texas house.

Most older Houston attics are under-insulated, sitting well below the recommended level for our area, which means heat pours out through the ceiling in a cold snap. Bringing the attic up to a proper insulation depth keeps the living space warmer on the heat you're paying for and keeps the attic — and the pipes in it — closer to the conditioned space. Insulating the attic is worth doing before winter for the freeze protection and all year for the energy savings; it's work we do, and there's more on our attic insulation page.

Pipe insulation — wrapping exposed pipe

The piece of freeze prep we install is pipe insulation: wrapping the exposed pipe that's most likely to freeze — in the attic, the garage, exterior walls where accessible, and the outdoor spigots — with foam pipe sleeves and insulating wrap so it holds heat and resists freezing.

To be clear about scope: this is wrapping exposed pipe only. We don't do plumbing repair or pipe replacement — moving, fixing, or replacing the plumbing itself is a separate scope we don't take on. What we do is add the protective insulation layer to the pipe that's already there, ahead of winter, so the vulnerable runs are covered before the cold arrives. It's a small, cheap step relative to what a burst pipe costs.

Freeze damage repair — after a pipe bursts

When a pipe does burst, the damage isn't the pipe — it's everything the water ruins. A burst pipe in an attic or wall floods down through ceilings, walls, and floors, and once the plumbing is fixed and the structure is dry, someone has to put the house back together.

That's the part we handle: freeze-damage repair is the same rebuild as any water damage — flood-cut and replace the soaked drywall, replace ruined flooring, repair and refinish stained and sagging ceilings, texture-match, and repaint. Burst-pipe drywall repair is one of the most common calls after a hard freeze. To be clear on the sequence: the plumbing repair itself is a separate scope we don't take on, and the structure needs to be dry first — we come after that and rebuild what the water damaged.

Freeze-prep and repair work we handle

Most of freeze protection is a homeowner checklist — drip the faucets, disconnect the hoses, open the cabinets, keep the heat on — and worth doing yourself every time a freeze is forecast. Where it's worth having work done, here's what we handle across Houston:

Before winter: wrapping exposed pipe with insulation, and bringing attic insulation up to a proper level for both freeze protection and year-round energy savings.

After a freeze: the drywall, flooring, and ceiling repair from burst-pipe water damage, once the plumbing is fixed and the structure is dry.

What we don't do is the plumbing itself — no pipe repair or replacement; that's a separate scope. Estimates are free, and the prep work is cheap insurance against a repair bill that isn't.