Fall out here in Hill County is about as good as it gets. The heat finally lets up, cypress along the Guadalupe start turning, and you can sit outside past 6:00pm without completely overheating. Nobody’s thinking about frozen pipes in October. Which is exactly why February tends to catch people off guard.
Hill Country winters are mild right up until they aren’t. We get a handful of hard freezes most years, and every so often one of those multi-day events that shuts everything down. Holloway Plumbing has been serving Hill Country for over 50 years, and we can tell you the homes that come through a freeze just fine are almost always the ones where somebody spent one afternoon in the fall getting prepared. Here’s that afternoon, broken into a list.
What Outdoor Plumbing Needs Attention Before a Freeze?
When it comes to fall plumbing tasks, start outside. Outdoor plumbing is the most common freeze failure point on a house, and most of this takes about 10 minutes per item.
- Disconnect Every Hose: A connected hose traps water against the spigot, and that’s precisely where a freeze does the most damage. This one step prevents more outdoor plumbing problems than anything else on this list. Drain the hoses while you’re out there and store them somewhere sheltered.
- Cover Hose Bibs: Insulated faucet covers cost very little and slip right over a spigot. For any faucet on a north-facing wall or an exposed corner, this is worth doing every single year.
- Find the Indoor Shutoffs: Many homes have a dedicated valve inside for each outdoor faucet, often in a garage or utility area. Close it, then open the outdoor faucet to let the remaining water drain out, and leave that faucet open through winter.
- Insulate Exposed Pipes: Walk the perimeter of your home and property and look for pipes running along the exterior wall, through a crawl space, or up the side of the house. Foam pipe insulation is inexpensive and it can be the difference between a cold pipe and a split one.
- Check on the Well House: Plenty of properties around Hunt, Harper, and Mountain Home run on a well, and an unheated well house is where a freeze can do real damage. Make sure the insulation is intact and the heat source works before you need it. A well pump repair in January is a rough way to find out.
- Look at the Irrigation: Shut off the supply to your sprinkler system if you have one, drain the lines, and insulate the backflow preventer, since it sits above ground and is one of the pricier parts to replace.
What Plumbing Should You Check Inside the House?
Indoor tasks are less about frost and more about the extra demand both fall and winter put on your plumbing and drain systems. The holidays, extra house guests, and colder incoming water all show up at once.
- Is your water heater ready for the season? This is the one homeowners most often skip and end up seriously regretting later on. Colder incoming water means your water heater has to work harder every cycle, and sediment buildup makes that worse. Scheduling your professional water heater maintenance with Holloway now will flush the tank and check the components while you still get to pick the appointment time.
- Do you know where the main shutoff is? If a pipe does let go, being able to kill the water in 30 seconds is the difference between a mop and an insurance claim. Locate it now, make sure the valve actually turns, and show everyone in the house where it is.
- Are your drains keeping up? Holiday cooking sends a remarkable amount of grease and food down the kitchen line in just a couple of days. A drain that’s been sluggish since summer will pick Thanksgiving morning to quit entirely. Professional drain clearing services now are much easier than an emergency call with a houseful of people.
- How about any small leaks? That faucet with a slow drip, the toilet that keeps running, a damp spot under a cabinet. Small leaks get worse in cold weather, and a pipe already weakened by a leak is the one that fails first. Our leak detection services find what you can’t see, including slab leaks.
How Do You Know If Your Plumbing Has a Problem Already?
Your plumbing will usually give you warning before it fails outright. It just does so quietly. If you notice a few of these signs happening together, that’s worth a call to Holloway before the weather turns.
- Damaged or stained walls: Discoloration or soft spots on drywall point to water getting somewhere it shouldn’t, often behind the wall where you can’t see the source.
- Foul odors from the drains: A sewer smell usually means a crack in a line or a dried-out trap letting gas escape into the house.
- Low water pressure: Pressure that’s dropped off across the whole house can signal a leak, a failing pressure regulator, or mineral buildup in older galvanized pipe.
- Sluggish drains: One slow sink is usually local and not a huge deal. Two or three slow fixtures on different sides of the house are a totally different story and usually point at your main line.
- Strange sounds from the faucets: Banging, whistling, or rattling when you turn on a tap can mean air stuck in the lines, pressure problems, or a valve on its way out.
Our Whole-Home Plumbing Inspection is built for exactly this. We’ll come to your home, inspect your plumbing design, and present you with a comprehensive report of what we find, so you’re working from real information rather than a hunch. There are no service call fees and no dispatch fees, and the inspection is backed by our 100% customer satisfaction guarantee. Most inspections take about an hour, though larger Hill Country homes over 3,000 square feet can sometimes run two to three.
When Is the Right Time to Get A Plumbing Inspection Done?
Late October into November is the sweet spot around here. Our first freeze usually lands sometime in late November or December, so scheduling before Thanksgiving gives you room to handle anything the inspection turns up.
The other reason to move early is simpler. When a hard freeze hits Hill Country, every plumber in the county is booked solid within hours, and you’re competing with a lot of neighbors in the same spot. Handling it on a mild fall afternoon means you pick the day, you get up-front pricing, and nobody’s standing in a puddle.
Holloway has same day service and 24/7 emergency service when things do go sideways, plus state of the art equipment and a BBB A+ rating behind our work. We’re licensed in Texas under License #M-42237. Reliable, honest, quality. That’s the whole idea.
Get It Handled On A Warm Afternoon, Not During The First Freeze
Go disconnect the hoses. Seriously, that alone prevents most of what we get called about. Then work down the rest of the list over a weekend while the weather is still pleasant enough to enjoy being outside.
If something looks worn, drips, or you’ve simply never had anyone look at what’s under the house, a plumbing inspection now can make all the difference come February. Financing options are available, booking online takes only a minute, and all our current offers are listed on our offers page.
Holloway Plumbing proudly serves Kerrville, Bandera, Comfort, Harper, Hunt, Junction, Lakehills, Medina, Mountain Home, Pipe Creek, Segovia, and communities throughout the Texas Hill Country. Call (830) 483-8588 or book online today to get started.