How Do I Keep My Pipes From Freezing While I'm Away in Winter?

If you’re planning to be away this winter — a long holiday trip, a few weeks with family, or the whole season somewhere warmer — your plumbing needs a plan before you go. Fall is the time to make it, while you can still walk the house on a mild afternoon instead of scrambling the night before a flight.

A common call we get around the Oklahoma City metro as the weather turns is from homeowners about to leave for an extended trip, asking the same smart question: what do I do about the pipes while nobody’s home? It’s the right thing to worry about, because an empty house is the single worst place for a freeze to happen.

Why an empty house is the riskiest place for a freeze

When you’re home, a frozen or leaking pipe rarely becomes a catastrophe. You hear the drip, you notice the pressure drop, you spot the wet spot — and you shut the water off before it does real harm. An empty house has none of that. A pipe can freeze, burst, and run for days or weeks with no one to stop it, releasing hundreds of gallons into floors, walls, and ceilings. The repair to the pipe itself is usually minor; the water damage is what turns it into a renovation.

That’s the whole reason a home you’re leaving empty needs more protection than one you’re living in — not less. Your two real options come down to a simple choice.

Strategy 1: keep the heat on and the water flowing

For shorter trips, or any time you want the house “ready to live in” the moment you’re back, the approach is to leave everything on but protected:

• Set the thermostat no lower than 55°F. It’s tempting to drop it further to save on heating while you’re gone, but the pipes in exterior walls and unheated corners depend on that background warmth. 55°F protects them and still saves energy.
• Open interior doors — including cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls — so heated air can reach the pipes tucked behind them.
• Leave a couple of vulnerable faucets at a slow trickle if a hard freeze is in the forecast while you’re out. Moving water is much harder to freeze, and an open faucet relieves the pressure that actually bursts pipes.
• Have someone check the house every few days. More on that below — it’s the piece that makes this strategy safe.

This works well when you’ll be gone days rather than weeks, and when someone can lay eyes on the place regularly.

Strategy 2: shut off the water and drain the lines

For a longer absence — a couple of weeks or the whole winter — the surer move is to take the water out of the equation entirely. If there’s no water in the pipes, there’s nothing to freeze and burst:

1. Shut off the main valve. Turn your main shutoff clockwise until it stops. If you’ve never located it, do that now, on a calm day, not in a panic.
2. Open the faucets to drain down. Open the highest and lowest faucets in the house, inside and out, and let the lines drain. Flush the toilets to empty the tanks.
3. Don’t forget the outdoor connections. Disconnect and drain any hoses, and shut off and drain the outdoor spigots.
4. Consider the traps. With the water off for a long stretch, the water in drain traps can evaporate and let sewer gas in. A little plumber’s antifreeze — not automotive antifreeze — poured into sink, tub, and floor drains keeps the traps sealed.

Even a partial version of this helps: if you do nothing else, shutting off the main means that a pipe failing while you’re gone can’t keep feeding water into your home.

Don’t overlook the water heater

A tank water heater doesn’t need to keep water piping hot for an empty house. Most units have a “vacation” or “low” setting that keeps the tank from freezing while it sips energy. If you’re shutting off the water and draining the lines for a long absence, turn the water heater down to that setting or off per the manufacturer’s instructions — running a burner or element to heat a tank nobody’s using is wasted energy all winter. Just remember to restore it before you need hot water again.

Have a set of eyes on the house

Whichever strategy you choose, the safety net is the same: someone should physically check the house. Ask a neighbor, friend, or family member to walk through every few days, confirm the heat is running, and look for anything wrong. Give them your main shutoff location and a number to call.

This is also where a smart leak detector or an automatic water shutoff valve earns its keep — they can alert your phone or cut the water on their own the moment a leak starts, even when you’re a thousand miles away. It’s worth having the vulnerable spots looked at before you leave, too. Our plumbing team can help you locate and test your main shutoff, flag the pipes most likely to freeze, and set the house up so you can leave without wondering what you’ll come home to.

The bottom line

The danger of a winter freeze isn’t just the cold — it’s the cold happening while no one’s there to react. If you’ll be away, either keep the heat at 55°F or higher with someone checking in, or shut the water off and drain the lines for a longer trip. Do it in the fall, before travel season and the first hard freeze crowd you, and locate your main shutoff while you’re at it.

If you’d like a hand getting your home ready to sit empty this winter — testing shutoffs, protecting at-risk pipes, or setting up a smart shutoff so a leak can’t run for days — Triple Play Home Services helps homeowners across Edmond, Oklahoma City, and the surrounding metro, with flat-rate pricing you approve up front before any work begins. Call (405) 500-5333 and travel with one less thing to worry about.