This may have already been discussed on the Weather thread .. assume temps get down to the high teens or low 20s, do you shut the water off to your house and drain pipes or do you let your faucets drip? I know there are dozens of variables, just wants to hear how you prep in Houston.

cut the water off at the curb

Sunday morning or afternoon

then drain pipes

You only need to drip 1 faucet and that should be one that's on an outside wall. Open cabinets that have sinks.

I have FOUR hose bibs on my house. All have Freeze Misers on them. There are two in the yard that MIGHT be hooked to the sprinkler system, I'm not sure. Those have Freeze Misers on them as well, just in case. (I started using these two or three years ago when my well-insulated outdoor hose bibs froze anyway.)

The sprinkler system has been shut off, and I've turned water off to it and my backflow preventer has been removed and is in the garage. The guy who works on my sprinkler system had a lot of clients had theirs stolen after the last freeze so now he installs them so that they're removable.

Depending on how cold it gets, I may drip the inside water faucets.

My dad has recommended this. Mine is behind a fence but I have an entire new setup in the garage for disconnects for the last few years. I wrap mine with a warming wire setup so as long as we dont lose power I'm OK. PvC is so easy I should just install the valves and disconnects. But I'm a little lazy.

My hose bibs are the bigger concern and the stuck hose.

One thing that has helped in our older house is we have a hot water circulator attached at the sink furthest from the water heater. It's so we get hot water a lot faster at faucets away from the water heater, but it keeps all the lines at least warm. Just have to have electricity for it to work.

AlaskanAg99 said:

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My dad has recommended this. Mine is behind a fence but I have an entire new setup in the garage for disconnects for the last few years. I wrap mine with a warming wire setup so as long as we dont lose power I'm OK. PvC is so easy I should just install the valves and disconnects. But I'm a little lazy.

My hose bibs are the bigger concern and the stuck hose.

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One reason I did it is that one year, despite winterising, the backflow preventer broke anyway. It can't break if it's in the garage at above freezing temperatures.

Draped up and dripped out

Drain that 'ish

I was going to grab some Freeze Misers, but decided to not spend the money on it when what I've done has worked in the past. I have the typical styrofoam covers on the hose bibs, but also wrap them with a washcloth before putting the cover on (also wrapped in insulation like normal). I figured 3 layers of insulation and minimizing the air in the cover would work. When the freeze of '21 was here and we were getting into the low to mid-teens, I'd warm up a washcloth in the microwave and take it out and wrap the bibs in that and put the cover back on. I would do that every few hours. Not sure if it helped, but made me feel better.

Inside, I open the cabinets to the 3 sinks that are on exterior walls, and I set our dishwasher to run around 2am to have water flowing.

Other than that, as long as we have power, everything else is fine. We have a whole home, so I went and checked the oil on Friday and it was good (< 10 hours since the last oil change in the fall). I thought about cracking the attic door, but figured the residual heat coming up from upstairs is enough.